I guess I’ll have to listen to Ricardo Semler’s lecture and find out how the military isn’t a good model. At one time I actually wanted to use the US military’s practice of delegation as a development methodology.

The military, at least in the US, has always delegated decision making and responsibility to the unit. They are not given orders that tell them how to reach an objective, they are given an objective, a mission, a what, not a how. The how is left to the unit.

Heck, even the Liutenant is allowed to call in air strikes and artilerary without having to call in to some central command for permission. This freedom in action has always separated the United States military from others.

In WWII, German officers often remarked that the US forces did so well in chaotic combat because our forces were chaotic themselves.

By Tony Sintes on 11.02.07 6:11 pm