The quote, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics” has always been a true statement, even if it feels even more so now. In my daily work, I use statistics and see them used all of the time. I also served 27 years in the Air Force, so I’m well aware of how they can be tweaked to tell the story the user wants told. But behind it all, stats also represent something – quite often, actual people – and when an organization points to the stats just for the sake of improving the stats themselves without actually doing anything meaningful to help the people that the stats represent, they fail.
I say this being mindful of my own actions. I’ve got to be willing to ask myself, “Am I manipulating the statistics? Am I forgetting the people behind the numbers?” I’ve got to remind myself to use the statistics as a measure of where we are and where we’re going – and then work on ways to help the people I’m serving. Above all, I want to avoid the management trap of using statistics as a means to manipulate – of trying to change the stat with little regard for what the stat means. I’ve seen far too much that can be summed up with the line, “as soon as we get ten people to do this training, everything will get better.”
But the person who says this forgets that the people doing the training actually have to do what the training is preparing them to do. Sadly, it’s been engrained in us for so long that the training itself (and the numbers that tell us how many people attended) will solve the problem, when in fact it is the actions of the people who did the training that matters.
The Air Force (and probably a lot of other organizations of which I’m not readily aware) has ceded one of the main responsibilities of its supervisors to faceless computers. They’re just interested in the measurables. But what are they measuring and what does it mean in the end? Well, even these questions are somehow just fed into a machine that spits out a nice chart or graph to show us…something. But is it working on the ground? I like to point to the incidence of sexual harassment in the military to give me a clue as to the answer. According to the “measurables,” we’ve been trained incessantly about the evils of sexual harassment, and yet the real-time numbers tell us that it’s still happening at an alarming rate. Likewise, we’ve gone through countless hours of suicide prevention and awareness training only to be told that suicide continues to be out of control in the military.
And this is ultimately what I’m talking about: doing the training on line, or even attending in person, is far too often being treated only as a box to be checked. This approach still thinks of people as numbers, and that the accumulation of numbers somehow demonstrates “success” – if only so leaders in the hotseat can point to something and say, “see how hard we’re trying?” But we already know (and know quite well) that numbers lie. In reality, the stuff that’s being taught through computer-based training (CBT) is just bouncing off most people. We’ve been conditioned elsewhere – through our social media and incessant internet access – to either take things we see on a screen with a grain of salt or to respond with a cynical and combative attitude. We’re at a disadvantage before we even log in.
The personal touch has always a challenge – going back to before my time in the military – but the internet and rise of CBTs has driven meaningful interaction even further from our daily lives at work. I was speaking to an officer recently who lamented this disconnect in the supervisory chain. It seems that “supervision” of Airmen has devolved to a point where lack of personal involvement is a real thing thaste threatens unit cohesion. Again, long before the days of the internet, this was a challenge – getting leaders to communicate with their people; to sit down and give them feedback that touches on all of these important things. How can a CBT in suicide prevention and awareness compete with a supervisor who actually looks someone in the eyes and asks (sincerely) “how are you doing?” Someone needs to break the dam. Someone needs to let others know that they matter more as a person than as a number on a spreadsheet that tracks whether the training’s been done. I’m convinced that this approach would be a huge step in alleviating the problems we’re seeing today.
So I take lessons from my career to figure out how, and I think the key starts with setting clear goals and expectations, but then goes on by empowering people to do what’s being asked of them. By backing them up and helping them along the way if they need it. And then by holding them accountable for the results. These days, each element of this progression may be present to a degree, but when leaders would prefer to go the easier route and leave so much to a wave of the hand and a “that’s OK, you tried your best,” I don’t think they’re doing their people any good.
And while all of these aspects of leading are important, I think the one that is most neglected these days is accountability. Especially in the Air Force. While you’ve seen me rail about parking here on Osan Air Base, my point in doing that is not to about the parking itself – I ride my bike most days, and however people park doesn’t actually affect me. I’m really only using the example of parking as a small but glaring demonstration of the lack of accountability that quite likely permeates to a much larger scale elsewhere. The fact that, unbelievably, it’s gotten even worse makes the illustration all the more alarming in its urgency. It epitomizes the lack of accountability we’re seeing across the board. I actually had a senior enlisted leader tell me that “the Air Force expects people to know what’s right and do it,” meaning, rather than encumbering anyone with a standard, they would just rely on everyone to do the right thing. But what is the right thing? With no standard to apply across the board, we have nothing to which anyone can appeal to say, “See here? This is how it has to be done.” And if we can’t even tell people how something is to be definitively done, how can we expect to hold them accountable for the result?
We treat people like statistics, then try to get them to do things that are ill-defined (and thus, seemingly without a real purpose), and for which there is no accountability to a clearly measurable result. It sounds to me like the main ingredients in a recipe for disaster, and the only way out is for someone at the very top of the chain to put their foot down and say, “I want this done in this way to this standard; and if you fail, there will be a meaningful consequence.”
Do we have anyone with the fortitude to do this? At the moment, I say quite confidently, “No.” I don’t see anyone who is pushing for tougher standards that hold their people accountable. I only see constant reminders that they’re cutting back on telling people what to do and how to do it. That they’re neglecting or outright eliminating the means to gauge performance. That they’re dumbing things down and making their guidance more permissive and open to personal preference.
We should never do things just because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” But members of a fighting force who, by the very purpose of their obligation, are being called upon to sacrifice so much, have to know that there’s also a reason for having always done things in certain ways. Dying for one’s country is a serious business that deserves a discipline that prepares one to actually do such a thing. The ones being called to do it deserve better. Not to be treated as a number. Not to have their leaders push off their interactions to a computer. And not to be let down by being told that “so-so is good enough to get by in this business.” Because it isn’t.
