Soldato
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Do you know how cognitive diversity is defined?
My experience of successful leaders is they tend to be very much of a type.
RAF recruitment, has it gone a bit too far...
- Thread starter Uther
- Start date
Do you know how cognitive diversity is defined?
My experience of successful leaders is they tend to be very much of a type.
Permabanned
Diversity for diversities sake has brought some unfortunate and embarrassing consequences on those that pursued such tactics, just three off the top of my head.
Ali Dazaei, most senior Muslim Metropolitan police officer, moved quickly through the ranks to show how the Met embraced diversity at the highest levels. Given 6 years for misconduct in a public office and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Keith Vaz, senior MP, and longest serving Muslim MP in parliament, sat on various security clearance sensitive committees. Found engaging in homosexual, drug fuelled orgies with Eastern European rent boys, whilst under the pseudonym of "Dave" a supposed washing machine salesman. It would take most of the day to list the dodginess surrounding Vaz's career. The fact many in Parliament nicknamed him Teflon Vaz speaks volumes. Google will give a list of his known sketchiness.
Bristol's police force's ethnic and diversity relations adviser, the Rastafarian Judah Adunbi, tasered in the face by his own police force whilst resisting arrest.
I could go on....
Ali Dazaei, most senior Muslim Metropolitan police officer, moved quickly through the ranks to show how the Met embraced diversity at the highest levels. Given 6 years for misconduct in a public office and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Keith Vaz, senior MP, and longest serving Muslim MP in parliament, sat on various security clearance sensitive committees. Found engaging in homosexual, drug fuelled orgies with Eastern European rent boys, whilst under the pseudonym of "Dave" a supposed washing machine salesman. It would take most of the day to list the dodginess surrounding Vaz's career. The fact many in Parliament nicknamed him Teflon Vaz speaks volumes. Google will give a list of his known sketchiness.
Bristol's police force's ethnic and diversity relations adviser, the Rastafarian Judah Adunbi, tasered in the face by his own police force whilst resisting arrest.
I could go on....
so can i just ask, say entrance exam of say 500 and the top 100 go through and they find out that the top 300 are all white, should we say we will only take the lower achievers from 301 to 500 and only if ethnic. sorry don't know how to word it so as not to upset anyone, i think it should be the top 100 whatever their creed, colour or ethnicity
Permabanned
I don't follow the Ukrainian special operation that closely, but the photographs of Russian military I have seen don't seem to show any people of colour, nor women amongst their numbers.
To be blunt, when these ridiculous situtations in this country arise, where the need is claimed for more "ethnic diversity", they don't mean they desire more Icelanders or New Zealanders, they mean people of colour.
Soldato
Why on earth do these targets exist.
Same job, same standards. Shouldn’t matter who does it. I’d rather see someone do it because they want to do it rather than someone buffering the statistics.
Same job, same standards. Shouldn’t matter who does it. I’d rather see someone do it because they want to do it rather than someone buffering the statistics.
Soldato
I guess the basic problem as described is "we need more" which would be understandable if we actively prohibited ethic minorities and women from joining and there was a large demand from those groups to be allowed to join...........but there isnt.
Anyone can join as long as they pass a few simple tests (medical etc) so it's not the military preventing anyone from joining, there just isn't a large amount of those who have a desire in those targeted groups to join.
The benefit of diversity in the military isn't, in my own opinion, one of a diversity of life experience (as I mentioned in a previous post) being a benefit but mostly a mix of "we need more people irrespective of who they are or where they come from" and the corporatisation of the Military, where having a positive "corporate identity" is seen as more important to the militaries very upper management (who deal daily with civil servants in London) than maintaining a cohesive fighting force with a clear defined role.
Targets exist because some people see equality as equality of outcome, rather than equality of opportunity.
In most of society we do have equality of opportunity. But what is now being pushed is equality of outcome.
Soldato
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i am all for meritocisy as well> I accept there may be an issue with some gender and racial imbalances in some areas, but the answer isnt to discriminate (positive discrimination is still discrimination) it is to work out why this is the case and to encourage people at grass roots level to *apply* for certain positions but still expect them to compete on an even level with others.
example i can think of as i saw it myself...... microelectronics course at uni, my mate was on the course and only 1 female in his lecutures. The logic some use here would be to lower the standards for female candidates to get in. Utter nonsense this will just lower standards and create division and actually promote sexism. The answer is to have a push at pre GCSE levels in school to encourage more girls to go into physics etc and to try to fathom why they are not interested........... but ultimately IF they are not interested or for what ever reason cant make the grade that year then so be it.
WRT the OP it isnt a problem anyway............... just do a Robert Downey Junior in Tropic Thunder and also tell them you associate as female or asexual.... what could possibly go wrong ?
example i can think of as i saw it myself...... microelectronics course at uni, my mate was on the course and only 1 female in his lecutures. The logic some use here would be to lower the standards for female candidates to get in. Utter nonsense this will just lower standards and create division and actually promote sexism. The answer is to have a push at pre GCSE levels in school to encourage more girls to go into physics etc and to try to fathom why they are not interested........... but ultimately IF they are not interested or for what ever reason cant make the grade that year then so be it.
WRT the OP it isnt a problem anyway............... just do a Robert Downey Junior in Tropic Thunder and also tell them you associate as female or asexual.... what could possibly go wrong ?
Soldato
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BBC does it all the time their adverts have even said unless you're ethnic minority don't bother applying. This is just more of the same not sure why everyone is so surprised, diversity drives are not new.
This is demonstrable nonsense and relies on 'studies' that get the cause and effect completely the wrong way around.
(Western) companies that are successful (by quickly growing large) in northern Europe and North America often decide to push for the superficial 'diversity' of skin colour and sexes to appease the DIE cult that has infected our society.
Meanwhile some of the most successful and in some cases fastest growing companies in places like China, South Korea and Japan can do just as well as their western counterparts without needing any such similar diversity.
There is of course a danger to companies if they lack some diversity of THOUGHT (usually only in the more senior roles) as they may miss opportunities or fail to spot pitfalls or deficiencies of current business models but filling a company with the superficial diversity of 'BAME' people and 'women' (a word that doesn't actually mean anything anymore) who all have very conformist 'corporate' views doesn't do anything meaningful to help companies perform and may actually cause harm in some scenarios.
But the most LOL DP tastic part is diversity of religion???!!! Like please be serious...
But then all this does come from a poster that now works 'for the man' in a Software company after the start up he was previously involved in went to the wall and filled for bankruptcy so we should definitely take his advice on how to set up a successful business model
Soldato
In an interview with The Times, Air Vice-Marshal Maria Byford, the head of Personnel in the RAF -
Which I believe shows a lack of understanding about how the "coal-face" of the military works, as per my post a few above this one, where individualism is the first thing to be drummed out of any new recruit in any service.
This was followed by a confirmation that she did in-fact stop recruitment (something previously semi-denied by an RAF spokesperson), but she turned it off for everyone, rather than solely white men -
but she also confirmed that -
Which is very worrying.
www.thetimes.co.uk
www.dailymail.co.uk
news.sky.com
As mentioned above, wanting more people is a good thing, they are quite under-manned (no pun) but the concern is that stopping people who want to join from joining and then hoping that communities who have shown that generally they don't want to join will suddenly enlist in record numbers, would be a very large mistake.
I find it very odd that she turned off all training for months when the RAF is still desperately short in what may/may not be an attempt to smudge a failed recruitment drive (they are falling short on EM and Women joining by about 5%) by stopping all recruitment so that further white male recruits are unable to join, preventing that 5% figure from becoming worse. It's sad that the MOD in general has decided that "diversity" is so important when the results are vastly different to expectations, with huge communities/sexes being targetted with fund and advertising yet clearly don't have the desire to join. Maybe finding out why those communities/sexes don't want to join and changing their minds is better than "turning off" training when the figures don't work for you.
Which I believe shows a lack of understanding about how the "coal-face" of the military works, as per my post a few above this one, where individualism is the first thing to be drummed out of any new recruit in any service.
This was followed by a confirmation that she did in-fact stop recruitment (something previously semi-denied by an RAF spokesperson), but she turned it off for everyone, rather than solely white men -
but she also confirmed that -
Which is very worrying.
I’m not ashamed of our diversity targets, says RAF recruiting chief
The woman in charge of RAF recruitment has said she is “unashamed” of a policy that could mean women and ethnic minorities in effect being prioritised for roles over white men
www.thetimes.co.uk
RAF recruitment boss says she is 'unashamed' of diversity targets
Air Vice-Marshal Maria Byford (left) said recruiting more women and ethnic minorities would be 'better' for the service 'in the long run'. It follows claims that the RAF paused recruitment of white men.
RAF personnel chief 'unashamed' of 'pausing job offers for white men' to employ more women and ethnic minorities
Sky News reported on Tuesday that the head of RAF recruitment had resigned in protest at what defence sources described was an "effective pause" on making job offers to white men in favour of women and ethnic minorities.
As mentioned above, wanting more people is a good thing, they are quite under-manned (no pun) but the concern is that stopping people who want to join from joining and then hoping that communities who have shown that generally they don't want to join will suddenly enlist in record numbers, would be a very large mistake.
I find it very odd that she turned off all training for months when the RAF is still desperately short in what may/may not be an attempt to smudge a failed recruitment drive (they are falling short on EM and Women joining by about 5%) by stopping all recruitment so that further white male recruits are unable to join, preventing that 5% figure from becoming worse. It's sad that the MOD in general has decided that "diversity" is so important when the results are vastly different to expectations, with huge communities/sexes being targetted with fund and advertising yet clearly don't have the desire to join. Maybe finding out why those communities/sexes don't want to join and changing their minds is better than "turning off" training when the figures don't work for you.
Anyone with half a brain should be able to work out how this works out in practice....
and why reductions in expected standards, over time, so often accompany organizations that claim to work using the above principles.
All that happens is that standards are lowered so that many of the desired group now suddenly meet the 'required standard' and often more qualified and or suited candidates are then discarded from the pool of people hired.
In reality its rare to get or more two candidates that are going to be equally suited to a role save for their skin colour or sex.
Soldato
I may have misunderstood what you mean here, and as I read it, I disagree that individualism is drummed out of any new recruit. I did 8 years in the RN(R) on what was termed a short service commission and while everyone was “Ship’s Company” we were all encouraged to be individuals because character is valued. Characters raise morale. Characters make great leaders. And while it was genuinely painful to get something changed, there was a process and it worked. Was it sexist and racist? Yes. Was it institutionally sexist and racist? No. We had black and Asian officers and ratings and if they got past the first few weeks when their VERY racist nicknames were assigned they just melded into the crew. I never saw anyone flinch from drinking from the same water-bottle as a BAME crewmate or hot-bunk with one. And I suspect it’s the same in the other services. When you get into a team that you literally rely on for your survival there is no racism.
Why didn’t more BAME people join? Probably because they didn’t have family that were in. My father apond uncle were both Merchant Marine and the UK has a good seafaring history so most people know what the RN is about. I know many successful BAME people and they were all encouraged into other career paths by their families.
I don‘t think BAME people don’t join the forces because they know/think they’re racist - they just don‘t consider the forces as a career at all.
And anyone who really thinks the UK armed forces are racist, I would ask you to consider the Brigade of Gurkhas. In my experience everyone is happier when the Gurkhas turn up. Even at parties. And there is no shortage of willing Nepalis who want to be Gurkhas.
Soldato
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indeed. I agree with you.... it is.complicsted a little however (one could say it's not black or white.....
)there is a problem if 1 sex or ethnicity feels excluded from a profession, and there is definitely a post code lottery WRT the quality of education and the equipement and opportunities some people are given depending on where they live and what school they attend.
but rather than employing lesser qualified people because of this to balance things out, the answer is to try to fix the root cause not the effect
of course that is much harder, takes real commitment from the government (time and money)as well as in some cases putting pressure on parents and communities as well. positive discrimination is the easy "solution" and is just putting a plaster on the problem rather than actually fixing it
Soldato
I think you may have. Individualism in the context I used means thinking for yourself ie only thinking about yourself, doing what you want instead of what you've been told to do etc.
I made a bigger post about it above but effectively those forms of individualism are removed (as best it can be) in training so that personnel all do the same thing in the same way when given the same order, rather than having 100 different people doing 100 different things to get the same end result.
So it's not about removing "character" in any way, it's about diversity being claimed to be great in the military vs the rigid military "way of doing things" which is in opposite of diversity.
Soldato
Then I’m more confused. At no time have I seen any military recruitment where they are looking for loners. Are you saying BAME people can’t be drilled into the ways of the military? It’s simply extreme team building. There is nothing sinister about it and they definitely don’t tell people not to think for themselves, quite the opposite. You can follow an order without blindly following an order.
The perfect military is a holistic group all trying to achieve the same end while specifically not all achieving it the same way. That’s what tactics are all about. The Russian military have a set of doctrines for (supposedly) every eventuality and the first thing they tell their NCOs and JOs is these are the launchpad for your creativity.
I can’t remember which US military unit has the Improvies, Adapt, Overcome motto but that’s what you want. Thinking innovative people, not machine gun fodder. And I know plenty of thinking innovative BAME people who would do really well in the military but chose another path.
The perfect military is a holistic group all trying to achieve the same end while specifically not all achieving it the same way. That’s what tactics are all about. The Russian military have a set of doctrines for (supposedly) every eventuality and the first thing they tell their NCOs and JOs is these are the launchpad for your creativity.
I can’t remember which US military unit has the Improvies, Adapt, Overcome motto but that’s what you want. Thinking innovative people, not machine gun fodder. And I know plenty of thinking innovative BAME people who would do really well in the military but chose another path.
Are you saying racism is acceptable because it helped with team bonding? Holy ****!
I wonder what the Black and Asian officers really thought of their "VERY racist nicknames"?
Soldato
I agree
As you're confused about my meaning I'll try just one more time, anymore just gets in the way of the thread but just to be very clear - none of what "you've" said is even close to what "I've" said.
To try again, Recruit A (irrespective of race, colour, sex, gender age etc) during recruit training will be trained in the same way as every other recruit and they will be expected to carry out an order in exactly the same way as every other recruit - that is not diversity, nor is individualism - it is the military way to ensure an output of consistently trained recruits (irrespective of race, colour, sex, gender age etc). Once those people join their units, the unit (RAF, Army, Navy, RM etc) then indocrinates that person into the specific ways that their specific unit operates and they learn what their role within that unit will be and they train to carry out that role in exactly the same way that thousands of other people have done before them - again that is not diversity, nor is individualism - once that person is trained and experienced they can move to other units and the process starts again with them learning the same things in the same way that thousands of others have done before - once more that is not diversity, nor is individualism. This holds true whether your a lowly Army Private, whether you are a Navy Commander or an RAF Air Vice Marshal, at every point the training you go through as you advance through your military career, the way you are expected to carry-out your role is the same way it's been done by so many before you - that is not diversity, nor is individualism.
The Air Vice-Marshal is suggesting that simply making the RAF "diverse" (i.e. recruiting more women and more ethnic minorities) will improve it's capabilities yet it can't and it won't, because we train that diversity out of people from the instant they join, because we want a repeatable output when the input is the same. For example, when an Army JNCO mechanic is told to fix a tank then irrespective of race, colour, sex, gender age etc they will fix the tank the same way following a set procedure or when an RAF Admin Officer writes a report they will do so following the set procedure for writting that type of report, or if a Navy Captain in charge of an Aircraft Carrier is told to sail from Portsmouth to Gibralter, they will follow the same procedure which tells that what they need such supplies, routes, timings, notices to be given etc - that is not diversity, nor is individualism - everyone is just following a set of pre-written procedures, so how will "diversity" help in any of these situations - it can't, because every single member of the military, irrespective of race, colour, sex, gender age etc, still has to follow procedures, no-one is allowed to just "do what they want" or to say "hey, I'm from the Bangladesh community, I'm going to do things my own way", thats not how they military works as you should understand.
However, for certain units or personnel there will be some leeway to change things. Someone, for example, has to write the procedures and these are open to change based on operational experience (Afghan and Iraq are great recent examples of rapid procedural changes due to combat) but those who get to write/change procedures are a very limited set of people within the military, and they require a great deal of evidence to be presented before any changes occur.
Now, none of this takes away the individuals ability to make small-level day to day decisions such as "where to eat lunch, should we run 3 miles or 5 miles, should I start working on a repair job now or have a tea-break first" etc but when orders are given, processes and procedures take precedence so, for example, a Junior Army Infantry Officer will have some leeway when given the order "I want you to capture that ridge" but that very limited leeway is down to "which side to I want to attack from, where does the enemy look strongest/weakest" etc and not "I know the procedure written for a Ridge Line attack says attack where the enemy is weakest using overwhelming firepower and manoeuvre skills backed up with heavy support from other units, but as I'm a woman I know a better way" because when they do something outside of procedure, everyone dies and the attack fails - thats a military fact, those procedures are written in blood for a reason.
So again "diversity" would have zero effect because irrespective of race, colour, sex, gender age etc people are trained to do the same job in the same way time after time after time, and people who deviate from procedure are very heavily frowned upon, even if their idea is fantastic. What happens then is the idea is sent up the chain of command (following the procedure written for "I have a better idea") and if it's agreed then the procedures are changed and the better idea is now the new procedure - and that only happens very, very rarely outside of direct combat.
Anyway, thats far longer than I wanted to type, I think if thats still coming across as myself sayiing "the military only take loners" or "BAME can't work in the military" to you then we'll just have to agree to disagree as we seem to talking at cross purposes.
Soldato
I’m saying it was a different time and there is a vast difference between people identifying each other by a ethnically localised nickname and institutional racism. Given that I knew a two-ring admiral whose nickname I couldn’t type on here it clearly didn’t affect his career.
I was one of two Scots in my intake and so I was Haggis and the other was Jock. No-one asked me if I liked it, it was how I was identified. There was no malice in it, it was part of the process. And there’s a chasm of difference between calling someone Blackie or Midnight and calling them a Black ******* or the N-word. Or shunning someone because of their ethnicity, gender or orientation. I actually saw far, far, greater tolerance in the RN and RNR than in general society at the time.