Where have you seen military thoughts, procedures & tools work, and not work when transferred into civilian businesses?

As the owner of a business consulting LLC for over 24 years and an Army Reserve Officer for 33 years I walked that line often. Sometimes the training can come in useful, sometimes not. I will always hold people accountable, but it is the way you hold them accountable that is different and the way you explain that accountability is different from the military to the civilian sectors. It really revolves around the character of the entity (business process or people - or both) you are trying to train or improve. My military organizational training has helped me throughout my civilian career, but when I first started my civilian career holding people accountable and calling a pile of animal excretion a bunch of crap didn't. Now, I explain the need for, the resources required, and so far the shortfall of capabilities with a different tone, but I mean the same thing. A good rule to follow is "congratulate publicly and criticize privately" may seem weak to some, but it usually brings about a more successful outcome. There are many ways to come to decisions for leaders. Some are formalized, some are gut feelings, and some are both. It really depends on the environment a leader finds himself in and is subjected to culture, time, the information tools used to disseminate the information, and in what form the subordinate leader receives the message - as in For Your Information (FYI) or For Your Action (FYA). Does that help?

Operational risk management, SOPs, and incident reporting procedures to name a few. The only problem is that using the existing management structure in the same way as a military chain of command structure to facilitate the plan and procedures does not always produce the same results. If not enforced from the top down, the middle and bottom are not held accountable to comply and the system is not used to its full potential. The concept of empowering subordinate mangers in the same way as NCO's and junior officers to follow procedures is great on paper, but meaningless if senior and mid level management makes no attempt to enforce the standards and hold people accountable for complying with policy, tools, or procedure.

That is hilarious!