Study Says People Who Pass Military Entrance Exams Complete Programs (Diversity, Hardwork and Perception) Coast Guard

Recruitment in the military is a big thing and its important that the best of us make their way into public service. You can read about some of those problems in Smaller Eligible Populations. That of course doesn't need to be that way but people are not as exposed as they once were with the military lifestyle and there is a level of conceptual blending between the political process and military perception. It would seem that way but you have to understand how people process conversation to create brand.  Trust in Institutions Declines. 

Fixing the recruitment problems may require a greater commitment by our political class to lessen the woke/anti-woke rhetoric that often comes from self-interested politics and move more into higher levels of understanding of human nature and good governance. We want as many different kinds of people from as many different backgrounds as we can to enhance the recruitment pool of our armed forces. That is important for keeping the military fitted with society's best.

People are not always treated fair in life and they are not coming to the table with the same backgrounds because of things that range from poverty to poor schools. Its a major human capital problem we haven't resolved (blame both sides). We also know that there are also bigotries out there and that does block people from opportunities they are more than qualified to handle. (Another thing we don't want to recognize because of politics. I've seen it, lived and know it.). 

Read this study and see how once someone earns a position through hard work, knowledge, and performance they are more likely to succeed throughout the rest of the program. That occurs because everyone on the team and those who pass know they earned it and thus they have ever much of a right to be there as anyone else (The metric was the same). Whether someone needs to take the test 1X or 10X doesn't really matter (unless someone has another study that says something different)

According to a study on 16K+ US Coast Guard (USCG) recruits between 2013 to 2021 who retested and passed qualifications were just as likely as those who did not need a retest to make it through their training.  It also found that those who were given wavers were less likely to make it through training programs and spent much more time on remedial training. US Coast Guard Qualifications Test Study

Here is my suggestion. Feel free to discard quickly because its not a blind button pressing argument.

Let people prepare for these exams, let them study, when they fail give them feedback, give them materials, and encourage them to stay connected until they do pass. Recognize that some don't have the backgrounds and it is no fault of their own. It is the fault of those who haven't corrected our human capital problems and those who can't for one reasons or another see the big picture.  

Once they made it, they made it, and they made it through achievement they can be proud of because it is their own. Their confidence rises. I encourage our youth to join the military services and recognize that there is a difference between political rhetoric and the needs of our nation. If you are diligent you can pass these tests and you can make it. Let not the nay sayers stop or discourage you! 

Join the Coast Guard

McNeish, D., Dumas, D., Dong, Y., & Duellberg, D. (2024). Promoting inclusive recruiting and selection into military training schools: Admission waivers versus retesting. Journal of Applied Psychology, 109(3), 415–436. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001147

Language Impact on Organizational Culture: Social Groups and Identity

Organizational culture is created in part from the language people use, their social groups and their identity. Interconnected strings of words can create an identity of self, team, organization or even a nation. The words we choose, the way in which our language is constructed, and the symbolisms that are embedded in such words create a socially constructed reality that seems as real as the things our senses see but often fail to understand. Seeing versus sight that comes from experience and insight. Seeing and Understanding 

Organizations and businesses are collectives of human behavior through choices and those choices come from an identity that have developed a cultural lens in which everything in an environment is seen/interpreted. Fostering a strong organizational culture that takes in new information while maintaining the unique identity of that organization leads to increased global competitiveness. 

Each team creates a type of identity and that becomes defining for how they view themselves, their roles within the organization and even the rest of the world. You can read about Social Identity Theory to better understand what groups believe and how they form their perception of self. In modern globally competitive organizations, one would want to avoid overly exclusive identities, toxic personalities and language that creates divisions through stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination.

The symbolism of language helps socialize organizational members to a filter by which information is focused, how it is interpreted, conclusions and eventual behaviors. A type of cultural programming. Two different symbolism frameworks are indicative of two different cultures and ways in which symbolism had developed to construct subtle meanings. Organizational leaders can look at how language is used within group identities and how that fosters higher organizational performance (Language and Performance). 

Emotions derived from the symbolism of language further influence motivation or demotivation of individuals and groups. To broaden this idea, emotions are influenced by the symbols of language and how they are applied to create pictures and perceptions that prompts on how one should act (Symbolism and Identity). Be careful as a leader what you say because it creates frameworks that once created are difficult to uncreate. If you can understand the symbolism, you can understand the language and how a group is to likely perform under certain circumstances and the prompting cues it carries. Intergroup social influence on emotion processing in the brain

The importance of language and social identity should not be underestimated. Let us say you want to create an organization that is globally competitive and needs to draw in diverse team members to be successful. This study can help highlight how language can create divisions that are unlikely to be helpful to team cohesion. If your going to develop a strong organization master language and symbolism. The Language of Derogation and Hate: Functions, Consequences, and Reappropriation language and constructed reality

The dangers of group think can impact any group, organization, or society when poor decisions become increasingly worse leading to financial and market loss. Having a healthy flow of information, ideas and people while maintaining core group symbolism and identity can lead to stronger organizations. That will require a functional understanding of applied psychology and groups within organizations. Groupthink: Overcoming Its Dangers in Decision-Making

A Few Points:

-Language contains symbolism and that is an inherent reflection of values and beliefs. 

-Each person and culture may see the same thing but understand something different and that world view is the catalyst for conflict and future change. One can learn to hedge its power to transform organizations.

-Language creates identities that can be inclusive or exclusive.

-Leaders can frame the language of a group, its symbols and beliefs.

-People rely on language patterns to prompt them in behavior and thought. Social psychology

-It is possible to construction language, perception, and thoughts for organizations.

-Once an identity and language pattern is created it is difficult to undo or change.

  

Ending the Slave Trade: Modern Science and Good Judgement for a New Era

Our society is in a tough place right now and there is some work to do to get it into a less tough place. Many people are on the extremes and they are unable to see a middle path on lots of issues. Some also like to shout, yell, bully, call names, violate laws, and protect those violations if they feel it fits their personal and political agendas. At the same time, they also expect the laws to be misused to further their perspectives which hints at a lack of civility and balance. The best path forward is the middle path with some moral and ethical standards that ensure basic lanes of movement.

I found this story about ending the Slave Trade an important one that somehow down the road we eventually abolished slavery. In the last couple of years we made lynching illegal so we are on a positive trajectory (little slow on that one. 💁). The legacy of freedom will be a universal democracy where all people are judged on their merit and not on superficial differences in race and religion. A type of true north in our American values. The ultimate stakeholder should be the average American and not politicians or special interest groups that can at times warp outcomes of good decision making. From an end game perspective they serve at the will of the people. Its the same for every society and history has made that point from time to time.

The Science of What Makes People Care

Let me give you an example. I am 100% behind police and I'm 110% behind civil rights because all activities must fit within the general conception of our value systems. I want police to have great benefits, good pay, recruit the best and brightest, keep our streets safe, help the weak, and have lots of respect in the public. Maybe I even took some major risks to help them at various points in life; maybe not. To further enhance the system means we need to ensure bad apples are not ruining that trust or damaging the perception of the institution for everyone else. We can apply that metric to nearly any other public entity because integrity is central to their societal value. 

However, that is a lone judgement and being reasonable is more akin to a dirty word in some circles. Reasonable can get you on a group's/gang/extremist network's list for targeting. When people want stuff or believe theirs is the only perspective they may resort to increasing rudeness, blacklisting, violating rights, etc. and when the systems don't have effective internal mechanisms to deal with these issues, it is society that ends up suffering. The problem is that often the voices that are most heard are not the ones who should be leading the conversations because they have a radical stake in the outcomes. To them, there is only one way and that way typically includes power over versus power with dynamics that further heightens the problems. 

Let us say you were a target for hate but you were not a target because you were rude to anyone or destructive to anyone but simply because you disagreed with corruption, poor behaviors, bigotry and said some truthful things such power over groups can't stand to hear. Perhaps because of their aggressiveness most others would have been too afraid to say the truth-the herd. Such groups escalated quickly and showed their truest colors and how they deal with information that doesn't fit their false perceptions of self-entitlement! You were reasonable and they and their supporters were not so they used power over dynamics to violate freedom of speech and other freedoms. Protecting their advantages from misusing systems that were initially designed for the benefit of the public. It only partially worked.  (Campaign finance reform might be another example we might consider that is unlikely to be a popular discussion but could be necessary at some point in the future to ensue decisions are focused on the needs of the American public. 🗽 is more important than💸)

Teaching Controversy  

Now notice how things have become increasingly polarized and rationalists and people in the middle are either sidelined, targeted, thrown out, or resign leaving more polarization and grinding of values. We need people in the middle who have the highest amount of integrity focusing on bottom up perspectives to ensure problems can be resolved in a way that bridges the gap between older generational values and the fresh perspectives of younger generations (btw the young are the inheritors of our success and failures. Let us not blame them for our failures.). There are sociological reasons why this is happening and our system was designed to weather such change but we need to tie our shoe laces around our central values before we trip. The Greatest Risks Post Afghanistan

*This is part of a thought experiment on freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Take with a grain of salt. Feel free to discount as theoretical dribble.

When Freedom is More Important than Hate

 There are those who know the difference between right and wrong and there are those who do not. There are those know that the best path forward is to universalize our values and treat everyone based on the quality of character and promote them based on the merit of their performance. For some of us challenging hate has nothing to do with politics, it is about preserving the essential freedoms of this nation. If our generation fails, the next generation will suffer. 

Let me give you a hypothetical example for learning purposes only as it relates to environmental shifts based in the destructive nature of hate chatter against out group members. Pick any race or religion you want because it doesn't matter. In this example it's a Catholic-Muslim-Jew with mixed members of family. Let us say your involved in lots of clubs and activities in various places. For the most part everyone treats you well and no one seems to have much of an issue with anything. However, in one place there are noticeable differences in microaggressions, condescending belittling words and behaviors and mistreatment. Assuming you have been polite to everyone then you can come to a reasonable conclusion it has something to do with environment. You may be even able to trace it back through to a group of people causing those issues; also causing issues for others.

Hate groups are not particularly concerned about our essential values as Americans. Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, Bill of Rights and Constitution are just words on a piece of paper. Few expect them to make choices to preserve those freedoms and when they don't no one really cares; the danger of identity politics. None of them would be willing to lose much to protect those values and preserve them for the next generation. Its mostly about self benefit.

However, for some of us those words have meaning and we have a responsibility to stand against hate, hate groups, and corruption to ensure the next generation can continue to live with certain rights and freedoms. It is a sacred oath many have sworn and continue to stand with because they know that the one thing that keeps this nation growing and developing are those shared values. Not all are on the same page with those values. 

Challenging hate isn't about just being stubborn. It has a purpose. While we sometimes enforce the laws when they are caught on tape, enough witnesses come forward, or when the evidence is overwhelming but we are also very slow in doing so. This means we are still confused about what values we should be promoting.

No matter how many rumors are created, micro aggressions, violations of the law, free passing of crimes, rumor spreading, blocking of opportunities, political gamesmanship, etc. etc. etc. preserving those freedoms is essential for our future. Sure you may be thrown out of or blocked from this or that job, you may be mocked here, you might be treated rudely there, someone might violate the law over here, but your more true to your oaths than they will ever be.  That is what makes a patriotic American. Race and religion don't factor into that; at least those who still believe in their oaths- Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.  Being positive and polite and encouraging helpful change is the name of the game...it is what will make all of us winners.  This is not a one sided convo...we all have responsibilities to the next generation with moral conscious.

*This article is a thought experiment in freedom of religion and speech.  Take with a grain of salt.

Possible and Profitable: Clean Energy & Decarbonization (Detroit Economic Club)

Clean energy is becoming a big thing and consumers are expecting more clean energy from companies. One would expect this trend to continue as investments in the cost of clean energy are starting to find a type of parity with return. While clean energy is the long term goal we should consider diversity in energy until a transition is made. Likewise, once that transition is tipped we should further develop multiple forms of clean energy that range from hydro all the way over to nuclear as options. Diversity ensures that the system continues to run without major problems or disruptions if there is a problem with one source over another. 

A pretty big discussion on energy and how it is created. There is also a discussion on reducing carbon footprints. U.S. Department of Energy

You can also request an S&P report on Top Ten Cleantech Trends 2024 HERE. The report indicates solar and wind are two of the largest, average cost will decline, decarbonization is growing in manufacturing, oversupply, and you can read the rest in the report. There are many ways to look at energy and there are some arguments of why older versions of energy still have value. So it is not a one sided discussion. I like to listen to the different sides of an argument. However, in general we should be reducing waste and getting more clean. Maybe not a popular idea.

What is it like to be a Target of Hate? 5 Things to Learn!

There are five things that one can learn from being a target of hate. This is a hypothetical example for learning purposes only. Because we live in a society and we have responsibilities to improve that society during our short lifetimes these types of discussions are necessarily but rarely appreciated. People have long made up their minds on what to believe and only a percentage of them can be persuaded to adjust their patterns of thinking. Most are beholden to their self-perceptions gained from socializing and adapting the values from "influencers" around them so expecting them to free themselves from these socially embedded perspectives is difficult if not impossible. 

The hypothetical example (Take with grain of salt): Someone wanted something and made up a number of rumors, engaged in highly manipulative behaviors and spread those to as many people as they could causing a long chain of aggressive hate based behaviors. The clan was all to willing to hear, add, spread and act on them. They were also associated with a number of officials who were able to be easily manipulated to misuse their authority to help "the clan" achieve inappropriate objectives. Anyone who disagreed with mistreatment was quickly retaliated against. While they don't recognize it, most of their behaviors were based on deep seated bigotries and longer patterns of behaviors. The targets were told they were being targeted for their religion and the group used racially charged language much of their lives and felt the world should be more like them-entitled ethnocentrisms (Pick a religion Catholic, Muslim, Jew or Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, etc.) 

1.) Groups Struggle to Change: Groups will self-confirm their bias and when they do this it is unlikely they will change until the group leaders are held to a level of account. Microaggressions, rumor spreading, blocking of opportunities, etc. will continue to go forward because of the background chatter these groups support and spread. While these may be illegal they are nevertheless common and unlikely to be corrected. They can do no wrong!

2.) Bigotries are Deep: Bigotries are deep and people don't recognize them but will act on those beliefs. It really doesn't matter the race or religion as people like to self-confirm their value by devaluing others. People's identities are tied to things like race and religion so without internal change we should expect no change from the environment. They may not understand the value of diverse genetic processes for strengthening of the species or even the essential messages of their religion but because they are herd creatures they do not have the awareness to know what they don't know. 

3.) Systems Struggle to Correct: There is some struggle by systems to correct so at times perpetrators who knew they were being destructive and manipulative are likely to get away with such behaviors. Something we should work on but it is again tied to peoples perceptions so expect slow moving change there. While systems don't inherently seek to allow this happen there are limitations and co-supporters that derail the process of justice (not always.)

4.) There is No Glory in Doing the Right Thing but Their is a Silver Lining: Doing the right thing when people have a stake in protecting the wrong thing isn't going to win you a lot of friends; especially in a hate group. However, those who know you and respect your willingness to stand for a bigger purpose will begin to see the dishonesty and in their own way show a level of support; even if they are afraid of social backlash (i.e. the dangers of group think have sunk whole societies). 

5.)The World is a Big System: We as human species intuitively know the difference between right and wrong and on a deep species level continue to improve our environments. Things change slow but they do change. Things fluctuate between good and bad but in general we get better as a society. Change is a process and we are just a small drop in that process. There are systems at play that encourage us to adapt and change to our environment and no single person can stop it as it is generational by nature. 

I can give you no advice to challenge hate but I can say how you approach the world and what you believe the world should look like will come to define you. Are you the type who stands for core values or are you the type that follows the herd? There is no right or wrong but "just is". How we deal with this as a society also comes to define us as well and we can see that when we read history; the good, the bad, the better.

Conversations on Firefighters Hotshot Elite Team: Michigan Opportunities

The other day I was standing in line in CA just off Shelter Island and I saw a guy wearing a firefighter t-shirt. Being a P/T volunteer FF who seeks to find grants for our local fire department near Escanaba MI. I wanted to pick his brain a little. I also have one child that did not show interest in college but did show interest in potentially being a FF, as well as another who wants to join the National Guard as well as is currently attending college. I like to reach out and gain as much information as I can so I can pass it on.

He said he was a FF for about 20 years and loved the work and has seen some of the country and  world. I asked about college requirements and he said there are none. I further inquired if they need more FF and he said that they are struggling to find people. He did recommend Hotshots and the chance to work for the Forest Service. Thus, if anyone is interested in firefighting jobs you may want to consider some of the resources in Michigan and the Forest Service below. 

If you are a company/business that wants to donate some resources for a local fire department in Michigan please reach out to the contact form on the right and I will point you in the right direction. Tax deductible. 

Michigan Opportunities in Firefighting. HERE

DNR Firefighting Opportunities HERE

U.S. Hotshot Forest Service HERE