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Old 04-24-2012, 14:11   #12
Pericles
Guerrilla
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: CONUS TX when not OCONUS
Posts: 177
Quote:
Originally Posted by GratefulCitizen View Post
I am curious.

Does the military select and train its officers to have a "bias for action"?
The black-and-white thinking versus open-ended ambiguity would seem to be the difference between bias for action and bias for waiting.

Which behavior is rewarded in officer promotion, and does this change at certain levels?
Generally, yes- unless you make the wrong decision ....... and something bad happens.

IMO, the best commanders are those who can quickly realize that the decision was wrong, and rapidly realize that and react.

The German General Staff school articulated the issue very well - most commanders failed because they reached a point where a decision needed to be made and failed to realize that they needed to make a decision. Quality of decisions made was less of an issue than just making a decision.
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