Air University Review, July-August 1981

More On "Do More With Less"

An article, "The Do-More-With-Less Syndrome," by Captain Kenneth C. Stoehrmann in the November-December 1980 issue of the Review, strikes a discordant note for me. My response is not intended as a defense of the cliché but rather to justify the big idea peeping around the edges of that slick little do-more-with-less camouflage. A view counter to Captain Stoehrmann’s deserves to be heard.

To begin with, the military is not a business, and its organizational entities are not "production units." Ours is a profession providing a service that can be variously characterized as "defense," "security," or "deterrence." The lexicon of business management and related pseudosciences, devoid of these words, has only in the last decade invaded the vocabulary of our profession. Although the armed forces are not engaged in the production of capital and operate on principles radically different from those of business, it has become fashionable to use market jargon in awkward attempts to describe military processes and procedures. There is nothing wrong with this "newspeak" unless the verbal symbols used denote or connote ideas that alter the real thing or activity being described. Thus, a crew on nuclear alert does not produce a fixed amount of deterrence, it is deterrence.

Just as our profession is not a business, so our bosses are not managers--they are 1eaders. Managers are process superintendents who see resources transformed into capital-producing products for a profit. We do not make widgets, we serve. While business consultants and organizational theorists decry the manager who "liquidates human assets" to increase or sustain output, we cannot make that complaint. Our profession is founded on the commitment to provide our service even if we are liquidated in the process. Because of this commitment, our leaders, squadrons, and officers should never be denigrated as managers, production units, and workers.

When I recall that 28,851 United States Marines were killed on the eight square miles of Iwo Jima, I grimace in the expectation that some manager will glibly assert "that wasn’t a cost-effective allocation of resources." I am concerned that some of our peacetime force, alarmed as it seems to be by overtime and the heat or cold of offices, will be found wanting if ever put to a similar test.

The test is yet to come. However, in my opinion, we can measure our adequacy in advance by gauging our ability and willingness to accept the big idea I referred to earlier. That idea is posed as a question: "Are we willing to spend ourselves meeting the objectives with which we are tasked, no matter the sacrifice?" Our adequacy is measured by our answer.

If we are not and if we would rather hold back some of our precious "selves," we are in the wrong profession. If we would lie or cheat to meet or pretend to meet the symbolic objectives of peacetime, then again we are not wanted. A profession dependent on honor, courage, and self-sacrifice has mechanisms to deal with liars, cowards, and slackers.

Certainly we could efficiently employ more resources of all kinds, and certainly many of our problems could be solved by throwing money at them. But, like every other competitor for resources, the military has learned that all concrete resources are scarce and expensive. In the military, however, our leaders have an edge on managers. Leaders know and command that unquantifiable essence that managers only suspect exits, human will. Anyone who doubts that people can pit their wills against statistically insurmountable odds and overcome them has not led people. This is what our leaders have been trying to coax from us. What we can and should give them in return is not some banal academic formula postulating that one-plus-one is always and only equal to two, but that one-plus-one can equal whatever we will it to equal by sacrificing a little more self while still preserving our honor. And we can do it safely and without any reduction in quality, if we want to.

I believe that we need to go back to basics, to the fundamental truths that have held us together and make us the formidable force we have been, are, and will be. We have all the guts, energy, and integrity we need. We are fighters, not trades-people. We need to get away from all the slick analyses that explain why honeybees cannot fly and admit to ourselves (grudgingly, perhaps) that we can hack it. This force has more "more" in it than statistics can describe.

Major Richard Szafranski is Aide to the Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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