Respect is the Keystone of Success

I'm part of a small corporation in a big alliance. We're relative newcomers to this group of old friends. This has presented a few issues: for me, for us and for them. Lately it seems the issues bucket has been overflowing. Some of it has been outright drama, but nothing serious. Though it hasn't been serious, it has been thought provoking - and troubling.

See, I've had some reservations myself while adjusting to the new order of things. I was a lone wolf carebear for years before I joined HBHI. When I joined HBHI, it was only three other people and we were isolated in a Class 3 wormhole system. That was easier than high-sec to tell truth. I've never had to deal with large numbers of people in this game.

Those days are long behind me. Now I have dozens of people at any given time to deal with, many of whom I don't know from Adam. Some I like. Some I'd rather not say. But I try to be polite. And therein lies the rub - and the cure. I must remind myself to ALWAYS be polite, no matter how hacked off I am.

Politeness is the correct and respectful response to any personnel, or personal, issue. When someone in your organization is rude to you, don't antagonize the situation by being rude back at them. That only makes a bad situation worse. And questions, no matter how silly seeming, should always be treated as serious questions requiring a polite answer. Doing otherwise is not constructive in the least.

This is especially true in military organizations. You may not like the commander's adjutant, but you damn well treat him with respect and give him the careful consideration you'd expect to receive yourself. Officers are expected to be gentlemen, always. To act differently is an affront to the uniform they wear. I know. I wore one.

And officers are also expected to treat their subordinates with the same respect. As General John M. Schofield once said,

"The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army. It is possible to impart instruction and to give commands in such a manner and such a tone of voice to inspire in the soldier no feeling but an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey. The one mode or the other of dealing with subordinates springs from a corresponding spirit in the breast of the commander. He who feels the respect which is due to others cannot fail to inspire in them regard for himself, while he who feels, and hence manifests, disrespect toward others, especially his inferiors, cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself."

I have written about this before. This short paragraph has more wisdom packed into it about how to run an army than any similar length statement I have ever read. It is a statement to make even the legendary Sun Tzu proud. The essence of what General Schofield was on about is respect. Respect is the keystone of military discipline, and though this statement is addressed specifically to those in command, it applies to every soldier.

You can look at the commander-soldier relationship as an archway - a sallyport in military terms. The base of one side of that sallyport is military discipline. That is the discipline of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The other base is also discipline, but is the self discipline that translates directly into professionalism. The two manifestations of discipline balance each other; supporting the sallyport. Self-discipline prevents military discipline from being necessary, and military discipline reasserts self-discipline should it fail. The sallyport anchored by these two types of discipline leads to operational success, and respect is the keystone that keeps that sallyport from collapsing.

What are we in this big alliance if not soldiers? Our alliance CEO sends out a call to arms and it is because of self-discipline that we respond. That's what professional soldiers do. If we fail to respond, our alliance CEO has any number of options for disciplining our misconduct - from a public dress down to booting us from the alliance. We are a military organization by almost any definition.

Therefore Schofield's Definition of Discipline applies. If a leader does not treat his subordinates with respect, they will resent it. If he then attempts to apply military discipline, it will not work. At best the subordinate leaves, because this is a voluntary army. At worst there is outright mutiny. Neither outcome is beneficial to the organization.

So leaders, when you deal with the rank and file, be respectful. They are there because they choose to be there. Treat them with the respect they deserve for responding to the call. Subordinates, never forget the leaders have a far harder job leading than you have following. Treat them with the respect they deserve for accepting such responsibility.

If you do this, you will be successful. If you do not, you will eventually failscade. And commanders, the onus is on you to prevent that from happening. That is the responsibility you accept when you become the commander. Good leaders never forget how they act towards others is a direct reflection of their own character. That is what General Schofield means by, "spirit in the breast of the commander." Your character must be respectful beyond reproach. If you cannot live up to that expectation, you should step aside - or risk everything.

Fly Careful

(NOTE: This is a general discussion about leadership and nothing in this article directly relates to any specific person except myself. This is in no way meant as a recrimination of those I choose to follow, though current events may have served as a catalyst for these thoughts.)

We All Reap the Benefits

Six months ago this is what known space looked like.

Ships Destroyed Past 24 Hours - December 31, 2012

This became known as the big blue donut. All of that mostly peaceful area around the edges of known space is null-sec. There are a few areas showing fleet fights, but the entirety of the CFC area to the northwest, and the TEST area in the west and southwest, is quiet - very quiet. It had been quiet for many months before I recorded this data and it remained so for many months after.

Things have changed. It's been all over the news. Test Alliance Please Ignore (TEST) left the Honey Badger Coalition which collapsed and now the Cluster Fuck Coalition (CFC) has declared war, vowing to take Fountain away from TEST. As the days have progressed, more and more null-sec entities have chosen sides and joined the fray. It's the end of the big blue donut, at least for now.

Here is today's ship loss report.

Ships Destroyed Past 24 Hours - June 17, 2013

The picture is very different. Not only is there hugely increased ship losses in the northwest and west, but the routes through NPC null-sec leading to them are also much more aflame than they have been in the past. And it's combat in earnest. One look at pods destroyed in the past 24 hours shows the truth in that statement.

Pods Destroyed Past 24 Hours - June 17, 2013

This is how New Eden is supposed to be. CCP makes no secret of their position Eve Online is a PvP game. Even I accept this at face value. And yet for months and months the caretakers of the exclusively player run areas of New Eden acted as if caretaker equated to carebear. It does not. That way of thinking is more dangerous to the future of the game we love than just about anything else.

For all that I've run down the high-sec gankers of New Eden in past posts, the truth is they were never the threat to New Eden that these null-sec caretakers are. High-sec gankers, as much as they are a proverbial pain in the ass for every high-sec carebear, are actually a component of this PvP game that has lived up to its purpose. They keep carebears like me from becoming complacent because they are always willing to explain to us the price of complacency in New Eden. But their actions do not drive production.

Very little ammunition is used in a gank. The ships used are basic and cheap. The ships they most often gank are typically cheap, even if their cargos aren't. But what is lost of that cargo is literally a drop in the ocean. Very little of New Eden's industrial capacity is destroyed by ganks. Look at all the cargo haulers in high-sec at any given moment if you disbelieve this. The amount of goods moved is incredibly high and the vast majority of products reach their intended destinations intact.

So where are these resources used? They are used wherever ships are lost and need replaced. That is the overall driver behind New Eden's economy. From ammunition to Nanite Repair Paste to assault cruiser hulls to POS defenses, the products of New Eden are not consumed by carebears, or miners or most of the other high-sec dwellers including gankers. They are consumed in low-sec, null-sec and Anoikis. And of those three areas, CCP envisioned that null-sec should be where most of that output is consumed, but that has not been the way of it. It has been the place where the least has been consumed and, in fact, became a production center of critical T2 production components.

In an odd twist of fate, that actually helped forestall economic disaster I now believe. It caused a rise in price that was not justified by a true supply and demand equation. The demand did not rise. It remained constant so supply and price should have as well. As new players entered the economic market, supply should have increased causing prices to fall. This in fact is what has happened over the past several months as I pointed out in my post 10 days ago. Now prices seem to be rising.

There are no doubt many reasons for this. We could easily point to changes that came with Odyssey. That was just the catalyst though. I think one fundamental reason is that demand is once again increasing. As manufacturers work to ramp up production, prices rise. That's simple economics. So long as demand remains higher, prices should also remain higher than pre-war levels. This is what war in null-sec does. This is what CCP designed null-sec to do. This is what those in null-sec need to understand. Those who claim the capsuleer empires of New Eden as their own have not lived up to their economic responsibilities for a long time.

They complained it was too hard to go to war. They complained sovereignty grinding was stopping them because it was no fun. Really? From what I'm reading in the news, and on reddit, and seeing on YouTube, it looks like a lot of null-sec residents are having a lot of fun doing just that. Hell, I'm having a lot of fun just reading about it.

Actually, "it's too hard" is an excuse, not a reason. It's supposed to be hard. Who would want to fight and die in an area they could lose in the blink of an eye because it was too easy to conquer? Imagine the tears if one largish Anoikis alliance suddenly dropped out of a K162 in the heart of the CFC and took over sovereignty in a system or two just for the lulz; because it was easy.

That's why sovereignty grinding is hard. These null-sec caretakers benefit from it more than they don't. That's why it was always an excuse not to fight, but never a reason. The real reason is because they didn't want to. Why not? Well, the 100% Mabrick opinion on that matter is because they'd turned null-sec into an economic opportunity zone rather than the fighting arena it was designed to be. Moons full of ISK turned them from war to peace, from good fights to caretakers - still, YMMV.

Regardless, in the future when null-sec leaders whine about how hard they have it, remind them of this war which ushered in the end of the blue donut. Tell them it obviously isn't too hard to grind sovereignty because they are doing it. Remind them their rank and file actually seem to be enjoying themselves. In the process, they are once again living up to their purpose. They fight the big fights. They control vast capsuleer empires. They do this.

And we all reap the benefits.

Fly Careful