Skip to main content

On Marshall

Nobel peace price winner most known as state secretary and the Marshall plan, George C. Marshall, was one of the pillars on which the US military might founds on today

As army chief of staff, Marshall was responsible for who to fire and who to keep. When he stepped into the office on the day Germany attacked Poland, The US army was old dated, and their military tactics were as well.

The US was a third rate military power. Less than 200k men and a handful of tanks and bombers.

On his reign, it grew to be a force of 9 million and to be the world's most powerful army. His contributions to the war effort were so significant in his peers' eyes that President Franklin Roosevelt said that "I could not sleep at night with you out of Washington"

How did he do it?

Before the US got involved in the second world war, he was to retire hundreds of senior leadership. They did not fit the Marshall profile. In essence, it is a handful of character traits.

1. Good common sense
2. Professionally educated
3. Physically strong
4. Cheerful and optimistic
5. Energetic
6. Extreme loyalty
7. Determined

Marshall did not care if his subordinate was a bit eccentric; he just needed to fit the profile. The focus was on that the general was a team player, leaving their ego behind. He earned respect for his subordinates even though his hiring and firing methods were seemingly harsh.

Marshall gave you a chance if you fit the profile. Then you had a relatively short period to show if you are capable. Successful commanders were promoted, and the not so successful ones were relieved. Fortunately, getting fired was not the end of your career, but rather a temporary setback where you could step back into similar or even higher positions later on.


Sources
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm not a passionate developer

A family friend of mine is an airlane pilot. A dream job for most, right? As a child, I certainly thought so. Now that I can have grown-up talks with him, I have discovered a more accurate description of his profession. He says that the truth about the job is that it is boring. To me, that is not that surprising. Airplanes are cool and all, but when you are in the middle of the Atlantic sitting next to the colleague you have been talking to past five years, how stimulating can that be? When he says the job is boring, it is not a bad kind of boring. It is a very specific boring. The "boring" you would want as a passenger. Uneventful.  Yet, he loves his job. According to him, an experienced pilot is most pleased when each and every tiny thing in the flight plan - goes according to plan. Passengers in the cabin of an expert pilot sit in the comfort of not even noticing who is flying. As someone employed in a field where being boring is not exactly in high demand, this sounds pro
Post a Comment
Read more

Extracting object properties from an IFC file with IfcOpenShell

Besides the object geometry information, IFC files may contain properties for the IFC objects. The properties can be, for example, some predefined dimension information such as an object volume or a choice of material. Some of the properties are predefined in the IFC standards, but custom ones can be added. IFC files can be massive and resource-intensive to process, so in some cases, it helps to separate the object properties from the geometry data. IfcOpenShell  is a toolset for processing IFC files. It is written mostly in C++ but also provides a Python interface. To read an IFC file >>> ifc_file = ifcopenshell.open("model.ifc") Fetch all objects of type IfcSlab >>> slab = ifc_file.by_type("IfcSlab")[1] Get the list of properties >>> slab.IsDefinedBy (#145075=IfcRelDefinesByType('2_fok0__fAcBZmMlQcYwie',#1,$,$,(#27,#59),#145074), #145140=IfcRelDefinesByProperties('3U2LyORgXC2f_hWf6I16C1',#1,$,$,(#27,#59),#145141), #145142
Post a Comment
Read more

Hubristic developer

Almost half of any Finnish generation goes through a shared experience: the conscript army. An integral part of that experience is learning military slang, a set way people in the army talk. The stories told with said jargon often spread outside of the barracks. It is not uncommon to hear strangers bonding together over beers reminiscing and feeling nostalgic about freezing cold nights spent in tents. There is a similar phenomenon detectable among us coders. To be part of the coder tribe, there is at least one type of story that one must master. That is - of course - ranting about legacy codebases. "Can you believe how much of a mess the previous coders left? Hear, hear!" There is no better way to onboard a new team member than to blame some previous B-team for all the murky parts of the system at hand. This can be seen as harmless, a subject for a good  meme . Rarely do we hold real grudges against "the legacy folk" and can be the best of friends in a social gather
Post a Comment
Read more