People rise to their best when it is expected out of them. Officers are one such lot. They have tremendous potential to be smart and lazy at the same time. If the need arises, they will perform, but given an option may take the easier way out.
I want you to think of your regiment as your self-run business. Assume that all the officers are your employees and you pay their salaries. Their output is what brings in the moolah. If they work, are productive, you can bring in revenues. For you the equation is cost = price - profit.
Price is what the market decides. If you want to earn profit, the only option is to cut costs or increase productivity.
Now using this as the backdrop, decide whether or not you want your employees to continue working for you. If you had the power will you sack some of them, reduce the salary of a few, etc.
To be on the top of your business, ahead of your competition you need to be on top of everything that happens in your production line - what was the output today, waste, inventory, carrying costs, cash flows, sales, pending orders, cancelled orders.
Think like a CEO who reports to the Board and has to answer their questions. Now extend the logic to your company commanders. They are the CEOs of their companys. They should be on top of everything all the time.
Birla group a few years back had the objective of earning a profit of 365 crores in a year. And the only easy way out was to earn a profit of 1 crore a day. Every day accounts were closed to determine what was going right, correcting the wrongs, eliminating the waste.
It is your duty to ensure that your company commaders are on top of everything that happens in their company. The following details should be on their finger tips
- Company strength, people on duty, on leave, on TD, on training
- Vehicle operation worthiness
- Troops operation worthiness - number of medical catergories, overweight, sick
- Equipment operation worthiness
- Promotions - people due for promotions, missed promotions
- Weapon worthiness - small arms and large arms
- Physical fitness worthiness
- Barrack repairs / married quarter repairs / state of bathrooms
- Surplus rations / FOL
- State of clothing
- Quality of food
You can outsource responsibility, not accountability.
As a CO you have to keep your officers on the go - they might crib today, but will later thank you for it. I always remember and respect those COs who made me work, grow and mature.
Try this litmus test
Ask your officers at random to brief you on their company worthiness every week. Let them prepare for it the first time, but next time onwards you want that information on their finger tips.
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