LW: If I wanted to make sure a soldier had a good plan to drive to Missouri I would have his leader pull the soldier aside and say, tell me about how you're getting out to Missouri. There's no way you're going to get to Missouri in one day. Okay, let's talk about it. Alright, you're going to go with Smith? Alright, okay that's fine. Alright tell me where you're going to - you see what I'm saying? We create all these what I call - academics call, substitutes for leadership.
Rob: And they're really centralized rules and algorithms aren't they?
LW: Exactly. We're trying to substitute for a leader. We create systems and processes to substitute for a leader. What I'm advocating is get the leader back in. Take a person, take a person and put them back in the loop and the person understands another person. So they can look at this soldier and say, there's no way you're driving to Missouri in one night, you go get yourself a friend that could help you drive and I want to see the plan. Now come on back and then we'll talk about it. That's the way leadership should be exercised, not get online and tell that program what it wants to hear and then sign it at the end digitally.
Rob: So, are you suggesting that it tends to - you know, I've done interviews on bottom up and top down with economists and, one in particular, said that the economic crash that we experienced in two thousand and eight was because of centralized algorithms that took away local decision making.
LW: Yeah, I'm not -
Rob: Sounds like you've got the same situation happening here.
LW: Yeah, I'm not - don't get me trying to explain the economic crash, but what I'm looking at is, is that we don't - the army should be an effective organization, it doesn't need to be an efficient organization. And so efficiency comes in with, hey, we could just make a computer program, ask all the soldiers how far they're driving, what they're doing and all of that. No, that would be very efficient because it doesn't take many people to do that, but a more effective way is to have their squad leader pull them aside and say, where are you going for the weekend? Tell me your plans, tell me this, and then it becomes a personal effective thing.
Rob: And it seems to me that what it does is it keeps leaders connected -
LW: Absolutely
Rob: --to their--
LW: Absolutely
Rob: --subordinates.
LW: It makes it a human thing and so - because you don't lie to a human, but we'll lie to a computer. All of us do that. You know, in England they advertised free WIFI, just answer the splash sheet, and everyone who brought it up immediately clicked I agree and they got free WIFI. Well, what no one read in there was I promise I will give you my first-born child. And so - because we don't - most of us don't have any qualms about lying to a computer or lying to a system or lying to a process; you put a person in there, then we're reminded of the importance of our integrity.
Rob: In this case, it could be life or death.
LW: Exactly. We don't need to risk the trust in this organization.
Rob: So is there a part of the military that is advocating for more and more digitization, computerization of the leaderships in management?
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