Delivering Advantage: People as a Capability

One of the most pernicious myths in Defence, certainly in the UK, is that ‘people are our greatest asset’. Objectively, defence does not see People as a Capability– certainly at the macro level – which I hope to demonstrate here by talking about two discrete, but interrelated elements. The first is time, or the lack of it, and the impact of that on our personnel. And the second is culture – one which routinely places people below other elements of strategy, decision making, and organisational development.

How many officers…?

As a 14-year-old I was introduced Hammerstein-Equord’s famous four typologies of officer.¹ He graded officers along two axis – intelligence and industriousness. High intelligence, low industriousness – those are the generals (or admirals in our case). People who can think big thoughts, but know how to get others to do the hard graft and which corners to cut, normally because they have learnt the hard way in the first place! High intelligence, high industriousness – the staff officers used to great effect by the admirals; people who can grasp the big ideas with ease and work to make them a reality. Then come the low intelligence and low industriousness – cannon fodder, entrusted with basic tasks and used to great effect by both of the former. And finally, low intelligence and high industriousness, who are enemies of the state to be executed at the earliest opportunity.

Figure 1: The Hammerstein-Equord typology of officers. “I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.”²

Trait analysis

Now consider the traits of a learning culture or organisation, using, for example, Kolb’s experiential learning cycle.³ The first type could be supposed to sit across the ‘Reflective Observation / Abstract Conceptualisation’ axis; thinking big thoughts and leaving the experimentation and experience to others. Well, they have experience to fall back on and have time to consider new options. The second type – well, they incorporate all aspects of the model. They are industrious, they think big, and they seek continual improvement. The third type (stupid and lazy) sit firmly at the top, having concrete experiences, but not really venturing out to think or experiment. Finally, the fourth flits between experimenting and experiencing, but without stopping to reflect and think – the classic example of unthinking industriousness.

Figure 2: Kolb experiential learning model. Learners – whether individual or organisational – do not need to progress through each area and may naturally prefer one type of learning over others. However, for learning to be effective, all elements do have to be engaged.

People: Actual people, or mere assets?

So, we have two unrelated models which can and perhaps should tell us a little about humans and their behaviours. However, there is another explanation for why we may easily fall into the trap of acting and experimenting without reflecting or conceptualising: time, or rather, the lack of it. We demand increasing amounts of diurnal outputs, change or transformation projects, quality improvement programmes, not to forget operations, all whilst denying ourselves the time and space to think through second, third and fourth order effects. This is a direct consequence of treating personnel as ‘assets’ to be managed, maximised, and rationalised – as a function to be exploited and data-mined and measured against output efficiencies.

A NATO slant

If NATO are to achieve a fundamental advantage, the first step has got to be freeing up our people to think: to give them the time for reflection and conceptualisation; to let them ruminate and test ideas away from the pressures of diurnal activity. We know, through massive amounts of data samples and case studies, that this learning cycle and the development of learning cultures are good for individuals and organisations – indeed, this model is embedded in UK Defence training and education doctrine. This doesn’t mean a succession of time-limited, transactional professional military education and training courses – normally pedagogic, threshold competency, focussed on near-transfer of immediately required skills and knowledge. Rather, we are talking about indulging through-life curiosity and encouraging people to look and think beyond their immediate horizons. That is incredibly difficult to do if you are suffering from sensory overload or deprivation through the constant demand to perform and deliver near-term outputs. In a very simple analogy – we expect people to remain physically fit, but we struggle to justify daily learning or thinking time. Investing time in our people is the first step, and one that requires a wider cultural re-framing.

Is it really hard to do?

None of this is rocket science, I think you’d agree. The role of Naval Leadership is threefold – to set the vision of success, to develop the structures, and to ensure a positive lived experience for our personnel. To use a Sinek-ism (I recommend reading Simon Sinek’s books, by the way, if only out of curiosity), these might be termed as the ‘Why, What, and How’ of our organisations. Two of these are relatively simple: we know all too well what the vision of success is; and we also know What we need to do and have in terms of capabilities, force structures and platforms to achieve that vision. Both of which are relatively easy to measure in quantitative terms. The How is qualitative, and fundamentally, this relates to our people – they are the means by which the above are to be achieved. Ensuring that ‘positive lived experience’ is therefore a fundamental (one could argue the vital) element in this equation.

 

Figure 3: The Role of Naval Leadership, as defined by Prof Richard Harding. ‘The quality of leadership lies at the heart of [military organisations’] perceptions of success and failure, organisational design and the real, lived experience of the members of those forces.’⁴

So what can we do to positively foster the lived experience?

Well, for one I would argue we need to stop having people strategies, and instead adopt people cultures. Take, for example, the most recent UK Defence People Strategy, that whilst aiming to ‘improve the employee experience for people in Defence’ in one breath, seeks to ‘deliver affordable outcomes and drive down the costs of the People Function’.⁵ Firstly, whilst not mutually exclusive, those two statements are in tension if not outright contradiction. Secondly, by describing people as a ‘function’, the implication is that people are not valued in and of themselves, but rather solely for the quality and quantity of their outputs. Indeed, drives to increase the efficiency of the ‘People Function’ – ie, getting more outputs from our people for fewer inputs – is having the opposite effect, with entirely predictable results. Since 1968, Herzberg’s Motivation and Hygiene factors have been in the mainstream literature.⁶ Increasing motivation creates satisfaction, whilst dealing with hygiene factors reduces dissatisfaction. The hygiene factors – things we could term our ‘people inputs’ – include things like our bureaucratic policies, working conditions, salaries, quality of accommodation, food, etc – all things that are increasingly put under pressure in drives to become more efficient and provide value to the taxpayer. The net result of such drives is an increase in dissatisfaction, and an explosion in bureaucratic processes leading to organisational inertia; the latter contributing directly to the dearth of time available for higher-order thinking.

Conclusions

Changing course means viewing people differently at the macro level. We need to stop seeing people as a function or an asset to be managed, but instead treat people as a capability to be invested in, both in time and resource. That means giving their needs the same weighting as major equipment programmes, not as an afterthought, but at the heart of every project. People are not cheap, never have been, and should be treasured and husbanded. This should not be ‘new’ to us – indeed it isn’t when we consider how well we look after our people at sea. But we must also look after their families and needs when shoreside as a priority. There are moral and ethical reasons for this, as well as practical ones – and should not need elucidating. But we should point out that investment in people infrastructure is an investment in resilience, both maritime and societal, is the basis of all naval activity, and is the historic naval way. It is only by doing so that we will attract and retain talent.

Author note: This paper was given at RUSI’s Sea Power Conference in May 2024. The thoughts presented here are most definitely my own and not those of the RNSSC, RUSI, or the MoD.

1. This was courtesy of my father handing me a book being disposed of by the Officer’s Mess at Commando Training Centre Royal Marines, the contents of which deeply influenced my career choices and leadership style. Charles Black, ‘Fourteen Proverbs Gleaned From A Damp Foxhole’, in From the Horses’ Mouth: Selected Thoughts on Small-Unit Leadership ed Capt Ted McKeldin USMCR (Quantico: Marine Corps Association), pp.24-32 (32).
2. Horst Poller, Bewältigte Vergangenheit. Das 20. Jahrhundert, erlebt, erlitten, gestaltet [Conquered Past. The 20th century, witnessed, endured, shaped.] (in German) (Munich: Olzog Verlag, 2010), p.140.
3. See also Andrew Young, ‘Intellectual Discipline: the missing core value’, Wavell Room, November 5, 2020: https://wavellroom.com/2020/11/05/intellectual-discipline-the-missing-core-value/
4. Richard Harding and Augustin Guimera, ‘Naval Leadership in the Age of Reform and Revolution, 1700-1850’, in Naval Leadership in the Atlantic World, eds Richard Harding & Augustin Guimera (London: University of Westminster Press, 2017), p.4.
5. Ministry of Defence, Defence People Strategy (2024), p.7.
6. Frederick Herzberg, ‘One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?’, Harvard Business Review, January, 2003: https://hbr.org/2003/01/one-more-time-how-do-you-motivate-employees