Posted by J. Donner on
URL: https://coalpha.arkian.net/Group-Cohesion-tp5588680p5589948.html

Drealm wrote

I've read and reread your "theory of three" many times. I can't seem to grasp it at even a basic level. This isn't a criticism against the theory or how it's written, I just think it's highly philosophical. I'm not the best at grasping abstract concepts. I prefer working with concrete details. I still applaud your efforts though for attempting to create a theory of super cohesion. This is a monumental undertaking.

There's also this, but it was written in the height of my condition so it's not....hmm....tailored for an audience.

Drealm wrote

My approach takes the lower road. I identify organization which succeed at cohesion and I scavenge these organizations for specific practices. This does not result in a grand overarching theory, but merely a list of examples. Perhaps we can recreate some of these examples within our own organization.

In the case of the Marine Corps there's a number of examples that come to mind:

- Buzz cut.
- Uniforms.
- Marching songs.
- Crucible (rite of passage).

I wish I still had my text on organizational communication, because then I'd have a good reference for this discussion, but anyway... The problem with this approach is that it can just as easily create dissent as it can cohesion. People who join the Marine Corps tend to join because they want to be a "Marine" - they have a preconceived notion of what a "Marine" is and what a "Marine" does and this appeals to them. People generally remain "motivated" throughout their training phase: boot camp, Marine Combat Training/School of Infantry, and any follow-on MOS schools. Once they get to the "fleet" (or operating forces), many people lose that motivation. They get fed up with the buzz cut, they think the way the uniform is maintained and inspected is stupid, nobody does marching cadences anymore, and all of us get sick as fuck of people who can't stop talking about boot camp (we all did the crucible, now shut your mouth about it!).

My intuition tells me that this is the result of a failure of leadership. In the fleet, core values are not reinforced. Often times, we didn't even feel like Marines - just cogs in a machine getting taken advantage of on a salaried pay scale. The buzz cut, the uniform, even the marching songs and the crucible are all just trappings and surface indicators of what it means to be a Marine. Many great Marines from the past had different hair cuts, different uniforms, different marching songs, and they didn't have a crucible - yet they were still Marines.

I feel that for any of these things to be effective, there must be a purpose or a good reason why a group should adopt them. (Marines DO take pride in their uniform, but that's also because they tend to know the history of the uniform, and what all the individual components mean - for example, the red stripe on the blue trousers that non-commissioned officers and officers wear signifies the battle of Chapultepec, where NCO and officer casualties were extremely high, something like 90% IIRC.) If all you have are regulations without a heart, all you will build is resentment.