The Value of the Military’s Skill Set – Part VI

Part VI - The “Git ‘er done!” Factor Index to the Series: Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills Part II: Auditing Skills Part III: Operations 24/7/365 Part IV: “Point Papers” Part V: Collateral Duties Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor Part VII: “Total Care” Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace Part IX: "Give a smart person with potential a chance" Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better Part XI: The Military's Supply System Part XII: “Red Blood or Red Ink” Part XIII: Constructive Plagerism This segment is what I can best describe using some blue collar comedy. Let’s call it the “Git ‘er done!” factor. Well, it’s not a union shop and the following of orders is inbred, sometimes willingly, other times with a modicum of “persuasion.” Commanders, and other “line” supervisors get pretty used to slinging around direction to handle what ever comes up. I don’t say this in a negative way, just that it’s a fact. Since that’s the case, the majority of the troops will give a cheery “aye, aye!” and proceed to make things happen. The cheery is not required, and sometimes, the response from the newly assigned is not so cheery, but they manage to get it done anyhow. What this breeds in the service members is highly refined process of expending the least amount of energy to achieve the required results. This is necessary, because there are already many more things to be done than there is time for, so this is necessary to retain sanity. Time constraints tend to be a factor, so that’s factored into the equation by the person doing the work. The outgrowths of this are enhanced degrees of initiative, innovation and priority assignment, all great compliments to almost any job assignment. Also, I need to highlight that this may also allow the development of the Tom Sawyer like ability to informally delegate the newly acquired tasks to someone else. Watching the youth of our country slice into the center of a major country in a few short weeks demonstrated this skill. They proved their problem solving ability, added to innovation, and being given the latitude by their commanders to exercise initiative is very must alive, well, and subconsciously exercised in extremely intense and time critical circumstances. These young people have been on the news nightly for going on three years now. I submit they can quickly figure out most things and figure out how to “git ‘er done” for any employer, as well.