In response to Armed Liberal's inspirational story from Carl Hayden High about the illegal immigrant kids from a tough Phoenix school who beat an MIT group to win an engineering competition, Winds reader Peyton Randolph had a story of his own to share. In the spirit of the day there's certainly a fool in here - but it isn't the obvious candidate:
"I've known the depth of human talent for a long time. When I took command of a battery in the Army, the sergeants pointed out one of the soldiers and explained that he was "dumb." I watched him. He didn't ever hesitate to try, he was eager to be given something to do or work at, and he was sort of slow, mentally. Slow, but careful. "Hmmmmmm," thought I.
I talked to the First Sergeant about him, and Top seemed delighted with what I wanted. We went out of our way to give him tough tasks. We gave him clear instructions, careful guidance, and got out of his way. That guy would work at what he was supposed to be doing, and make it perfect. He'd ask questions if something unexpected came up. All he wanted was to be told that he'd done a great job, which was generally true. Apparently, though, he'd rarely if ever heard such a thing. Then, he wanted the next task.
I'd rather have 2 "dumb," hard-working, careful people working for me, than 100 smart, lazy, sloppy ones."
As a famous man once said, "stupid is as stupid does." In the words of Miyamoto Musashi, a warrior without peer and strategist par excellence:
"The master carpenter, knowing the the measurements and designs of all sorts of structures, employs people to build houses. In this respect, the master carpenter is the same as the master warrior.
When sorting our timber for building a house, that which is straight, free from knots, and of good appearance can be used for front pillars. That which has some knots but is straight and strong can be used for rear pillars. That which is somewhat weak yet has no knots and looks good is variously used for door sills, lintels, doors, and screens. That which is knotted and crooked but nevertheless strong is used thoughtfully in consideration of the strength of the various members of the house. Then the house will last a long time.
Even knotted, crooked, and weak timber can be made into scaffolding, and later used for firewood.
As the master carpenter directs the journeymen, he knows their various levels of skill and gives them appropriate tasks. Some are assigned to the flooring, some to the doors and screens, some to the sills, lintels, and ceilings, and so on. He has the unskilled set our floor joists, and gets those even less skilled to carve out wedges. When the master carpenter exercises discernment in the assignment of jobs, the work progresses smoothly.
Efficiency and emooth progress, prudence in all matters, recognizing true courage, recognizing different levels of morale, instilling confidence, and realizing what can and can't be realistically expected - such are the matters on the mind of a master carpenter. The principle of martial arts is like this."
-- Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of 5 Rings
(JK: Bows to Peyton Randolph, a true martial artist).
That is an important, but often overlooked point. We all have something to contribute, but we sometimes need a wise mentor to help discern where our talents can be put to the best use.
BTW, I loved reading Miyamoto Musashi. And I just received The Duel At Ichijoji Temple from Netflix. Toshiro Mifune, who is arguably one of the best martial arts actors ever, plays Miyamoto.
This makes me think of Eddie who worked for me many years ago in Maryland. Eddie was the kind of guy who had to be reminded how to do everything if he had not done it for a few days. What we did was have Eddie make notes to himself of certain everyday jobs and then schedule those jobs for him exclusively. They were always done exactly the way they should be done and we knew we could depend on that being so. That way we could take the swifter guys and give them the jobs that required being able to deal with problems.
It is all in the way you handle these people. For some jobs they are invaluable and a real credit to the organization. There is always a place for a dependable, hard working individual.
I'm a teaching assistant in the English Dept. at a big state university, and I teach students (freshmen mostly) whose academic abilities. Being generally A-hoarding meritocrats who've always been good at school, TAs and professors often, largely unconsciously, tend to favor students like them, kids who have an easy time grasping the materials, write well, and already have good academic habits and tactics in place.
However, I've found that my most satisfying teaching experience have been with students who struggle initially, but never the less want to improve and work hard to do so. I had a student named Chris who got a a D- on his first paper, but started coming to my office, writing more drafts, asking lots of questions about how to get better. He ended the class with a B for the semester. Students like this, who work hard, take advice, and genuinely care about understanding the material, these are my favorite to teach. You get the satisfaction of good, meaningful work from them.
I can only hope that the noncoms in the article were abused mightily for their predilection to classify and dispose.
There were a couple of times that I had to go to bat for folk that needed a bit of extra effort. One commander unfortunately tried to turn these decisions into career-determinants. Didn't back down from him, either and got good things done from 'black sheep'.