Jamaica – 8 Nov 2005 – A weekend on the Hill

I spent the weekend in Newcastle. Just took some “me” time. I didn’t see anyone or talk to anyone. It was actually quite refreshing just to do nothing. The plan is to go to Hedo again this coming weekend. I think I will appreciate it again from having a weekend off.

Yesterday I sat in on one of our cloth model exercises. A cloth model exercise (CMX) is similar to playing army men as a kid. We put a piece of cloth that has rivers, trees and roads painted on it and use it to demonstrate some sort of military operation. Yesterday it was a withdrawal.

I forgot how much backstabbing goes on during these courses. What happens is that each group comes up with a plan and then presents it to the rest of the group. The other students, supposedly your friends, then attack you and pick on every aspect of your plan. It can be fun to watch individual techniques used when a person doesn’t know the answer. A standard one used is repeat the question. This is to stall for time while the student figures out what to say. Another one that you see a lot is when someone brings out some little detail that you did not consider. In this situation, the student usually just dismisses the question with a comment such as “That would be coordinated at a lower level”. This is the old somebody-else’s-problem response.

These are all individual techniques. The more advanced backstabbing avoidance techniques have to do with where you go in the order of presentation. Conventional wisdom is to go last, so that you can learn by the mistakes of those going before you. This has merit, however, trying to change a presentation that 4-8 people have planned on the fly can be difficult. Also, your brilliant ideas are not as appreciated, due to the feeling that your presentation should be good, since a number of others have already gone. I prefer to go first. This allows me to get “revenge” on anyone who asks difficult questions. I call this the Old Testament technique. The key thing with this technique is to inform everyone beforehand. You let them know whatever they do to you, you will do to them.

Of course, after you skate through your presentation, you can still hammer them.