In my previous posting on 18 May 2006, "The Victory Disease"
I quoted from a good essay in a military journal.
It was from Major Timothy M. Karcher, Military Review (July-August 2003).
Major Karcher warned that victories can make winning nations arrogant and careless,
"susceptible to defeat on future battlefields."
A paradox--too much victory can lead to defeat.
His thesis has external validity for professionals--victories and triumphs
can make previously-effective professionals, as well as nations,
arrogant and careless.
Sometimes too long a string of success can make us forget where we came from,
and who we are. We may forget that most successes come from sustained teamwork.
Leadership counts, yet successful outcomes and results
are made through the efforts of many people, often followers or workers,
whose contributions may be not recognized.
Yet today I want to focus on the insights of another military officer,
from the same website as Major Karcher's paper.
It's that "friction" in military operations can be managed by training.
Since operational "friction" obstructs every professional's work,
especially project management, we can use training and education
to overcome or at least handle friction.
Major Suzanne Nielson, a student at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
has written a "commendable paper" on
"Managing Friction Through Training: The U.S. Army's Implicit Appreciation of Clausewitz's Thought."
Carl von Clausewitz is an important military theorist.
His theoretical treatise On War has a chapter "Friction in War."
It's found as Chapter Seven in the best American edition of Clausewitz's treatise,
the Princeton University Press edition.
Here is the Chapter's opening:
"If one has never personally experienced war, one cannot understand in what the difficulties constantly mentioned really consist, nor why a commander should need any brilliance and exceptional ability.Everything looks simple;
the knowledge required does not look remarkable,
the strategic options are so obvious
that by comparison the simplest problem of higher mathematics
has an impressive scentific dignity.Once war has actually been seen the difficulties become clear;
but it is still extremely hard to describe the unseen, all-pervading element
that brings about this change of perspective.Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
The difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction
that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war."(Carl von Clausewitz, On War,
Michael Howard and Peter Paret, editors and translators (1976),
Princeton University Press, p. 119.)
Any professional who's ever had to manage real projects
can translate these thoughts on war to their equivalents "On Projects."
Major Nielsen points to Clausewitz's solution,
except for direct combat experience, in "demanding maneuvers,"
or ultimately, in good training.
I'll add, not just training, but education,
which is the practice of training elevated by systematic application of theory.
Nielsen says:
"Clausewitz argues that the only 'lubricant' that will truly be effective in overcoming the friction of war is combat experience.Nevertheless, absent this experience, demanding maneuvers
which call for exertions similar to those soldiers will face in war are useful....................................
[T]he U.S. Army's training methods,
supported by technologies unavailable in the 1800s,
are better able to prepare an army for war
than even demanding maneuvers were in Clausewitz's day.
In any event, given that friction will endure,
so should the Army's efforts to be prepared to manage it."
So, realists recognize that friction will come, in real work,
where soon you find "the simplest thing is difficult" and "the difficulties accumulate."
Training and education help us overcome and succeed in what we need to accomplish.
JEG