Today’s culture is one in which everyone is supposed to be able to make everything. If people fail or quit, something is considered unfair and someone is going to have their feelings hurt. I have attended two military colleges and grew up with four brothers. Safe to say, I have not passed every challenge in my path and I have lost a lot more sports and games than I have won. I used to complain and be upset when things were too hard, but now I realize that to make something easier so people don’t get their feelings hurt is to completely throw away what makes something so valuable.
For example, at my military high school there was a group known as the Crusaders. They were considered the elite of the military aspect of the school and for good reason too. To make it into the club, one had to endure a week of grueling physical fitness challenges including an army physical fitness test, 20 climbs up a hill appropriately named The Widowmaker, cold water survival test, obstacle course, a five mile timed run, and a 10 mile road march. All of this was done without eating (except a piece of bread halfway through) and on less than four hours of sleep a night. When you consider the guys trying to do this were high school students, it becomes pretty amazing. I tried out for Crusader two times and failed both. Once I made it to the third evening and then failed the rope climb at the end of the obstacle course. At the time, I was dying for an exception, to be given a free pass because of the bad condition of the rope we had to climb. But if I was allowed to continue, it would have meant less to the guys already in the group to be a Crusader. Changing the standard so someone who couldn’t pass would weaken the entire group. When I finally made it on my third try, it felt so good to know I had fulfilled all the requirements exactly as they were supposed to be done.
Growing up with all the brothers I did, I played a lot of sports in the backyard and driveway. I am ashamed to admit I was a pretty bad loser, and I lost a lot. I was pretty famous for my tirades in defeat and one time I broke my glasses and had to work off a debt of $100 to my parents. My mom could have told my brother to go a little easier on me, to let me win, but I needed to learn to lose the right way. I still hate to lose, but thanks to how much of it I have done, I have gotten pretty good at it. It would have been unfair to my brothers if they had to lose on purpose because I was such a bad loser. They would have felt cheated and I would never have learned that there is a new chance to win tomorrow. I am definitely better because of the times I was defeated or met with failure in the backyard at home.
This brings me to my main point. As a cadet at The Citadel, I have gone through four years of “leadership training” to bring me to the point I am today. Possibly the most frustrating thing I have heard in all my time here is that it is a failure of leadership when a freshman quits. WHAT!?! When I first showed up here, I was under the impression that people who didn’t belong here, would leave. They would quit because they knew this wasn’t where they belonged. I think that this happened to some degree in my freshman and sophomore years, but it was still easier than I expected and it was more trouble than it was worth to quit. You would be dragged around campus for days while everyone talked you out of it. Meanwhile everyone else was enduring the harsh training they came for.
The problem is that our culture is trying to eliminate the belief that there are some things that not everyone can do. In fact, that is how most things worthwhile are. If everyone makes it through, the reward is not the same. The people who didn’t make it through that particular challenge should either try again when they are more prepared, or find a new place to earn their keep. Everyone has heard that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If we want to build strong organizations within industry and the military, we have to stop worrying about people’s feelings and encourage the people who fail to either train harder for next time, or find a new place to go.
