On Entrepeneurship and Officer Retention

I figured I'd post a couple of items that fascinated me when they were published during the course of the last couple of years.

First, as I've found myself in a very entrepeneurial mindset over the last year or so, I found How to Get a Real Education by Dilbert author Scott Adams to be fascinating. Adams discusses lessons in entrepeneurship and other topics that he learned in college through activities, vice actual coursework. When I was an undergrad, I found that many of my extracurricular activities taught me far more than many of my required courses. That goes for both practical and abstract lessons; for example, working as a DJ at the campus radio station offered me lessons in technical troubleshooting and keeping good records, as well as teaching me followership and cooperation with people with whom I had little in common. While Adams' points don't apply directly to security, I've found that security professionals often benefit from experience and methods that are found outside the classroom.

Second, Dr. Tim Kane authored an excellent article in The Atlantic, entitled Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving. The Heritage Foundation hosted a discussion on the topic. I found Dr. Kane's discussions of the standards by which we ought to be measuring our officers (and, by extension, our officer candidates) poignant. My own goal of becoming a naval officer ended in its infancy in part due to the Navy's standards, and I have known a number of my peers whose careers have either stagnated or ended due to the military's sometimes arbitrary standards for officer recruitment and retention. Dr. Kane's research raises questions about whether the current standards are best suited to produce and retain the best possible officer corps for our military. Both the article and the discussion are excellent.

That's it for today.