People at all levels need respect

Like most other men my age, I was obliged to complete military service.

Luckily, I was conscripted into the Air Force and apart from six weeks of constant drilling and endless cleaning, I spent most of my nine months of duty playing Defence League soccer and updating 1 Air Depot's stock records on an old- fashioned Cardex system.

As a scrawny 17-year-old, I was hardly equipped to fly jet fighters or repair malfunctioning undercarriages. Still, I was regarded as a pretty keen shot and was even asked to think about being trained as a sniper. I could hardly lift my "303" let alone fire it accurately and the only explanation I could find for my surprising skill was that Wiese, the "Sad Sack" of our platoon - but a recruit who had spent his childhood hunting on his family farm in Malmesbury - had fired into my target, instead of his, during a crucial marksmanship test.

As conscripts we were a very close-knit group. It was difficult to understand what bound us together. We came from a diverse range of social and educational backgrounds, practised different religions and were poles apart when discussing politics. It may have been that we were all thrown together through no choice of our own. We desperately missed our family and friends and ceremoniously ticked off the days until our discharge. We supported each other through tricky times; appreciating that someone's failure to iron the nape of his shirt or square the corners of his bed could result in hardship for the entire squad.

Although we were never in danger of losing our lives in combat or suffering any major stresses, other than separation from our home comforts, in a small way I empathised with acclaimed author and journalist Sebastian Junger's compelling description of the brotherhood that existed among a combat team of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. They were stationed in the remote, heavily contested Korengal valley in eastern Afghanistan (in his Academy Award-nominated movie, Restrepo).

Junger's speech followed the talk, dealt with in my last column, delivered by Alavaro Uribe, the former president of Colombia, at a recent conference in Monarch Beach, California.

Junger believed brotherhood had little to do with friendship. He discovered that many of the soldiers observed on his numerous visits to the hostile and isolated outpost in Afghanistan did not necessarily like each other, but the bond between them was not a variable; it surpassed individual feelings. In the same way family members may quarrel from time to time, their grudges seldom transcend a durable loyalty and allegiance to each other.

Junger alleges the ties were most intense in squads of less than 10 men, but could also exist in platoons of up to 30 soldiers. In the corporate world, he inferred, smaller teams were more likely to prosper than larger groups, which were far too hierarchical to build the same level of kinship.

Junger was part of a panel that included retired army generals John Abizaid and Jay Garner, whose brief was to deliberate team dynamics in extreme conditions. Abizaid oversaw US operations in North Africa and the Middle East, while Garner was initially responsible for the reconstruction and humanitarian assistance in Iraq after the invasion in 2003.

Unlike business, they agreed, in the military a soldier's role was clearly defined and a failure to perform that duty could sometimes cost lives. But the importance of this responsibility provided each soldier with an investment in the outcome and a vital sense of belonging. In many respects it explained why soldiers found it difficult to return to civilian life.

Corporate leaders could learn a lot from the armed services, the panel urged. To gain trust and loyalty an officer had to visibly demonstrate he would expose himself to the same dangers as the men under his command. Only then would they bravely defend his safety.

In combat, Abizaid explained, an army doesn't fight fairly, it fights with an advantage. As Stephen Covey pointed out, organisations move at the speed of trust and, in battle, troops must be assured they have the support of all the services, like the navy or air force, to drive home that advantage. He also stressed that, before you engage the enemy, it is imperative to plan your chain of command to ensure an automatic assumption of control if someone falls.

While a number of other useful management tips were passed on to business leaders attending the conference, perhaps the most noteworthy was Junger's view that people at all levels need access to respect.

In the military, he revealed, if a lowly-ranked, 19-year-old combat soldier is awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest award for bravery in the US, even a general with 50 years' experience is duty-bound to salute him. That says it.