Double Edged: Strict Heirarchy. More 'qualified' individuals give orders to others and such orders must be followed. This frees subordinates to expend mental function on how to carry out orders, and frees superiors to watch the big picture. Unfortunately promotion is not based on ability to convert a bigger picture into effective orders, and difficulties in coming up with good promotion criteria lead to it becoming largely a gerontocracy and promotion of highly unqualified technical experts out of areas of their domain-specific expertise.
One interesting implication of this is that if you're really good it's possible to have quite a wide impact.
In response to the question
I posted that my military experience seems effectively designed to increase executive function. Some examples of this from myself and metastable are
Uniforms- not having to think about your wardrobe, ever, saves a lot of time, mental effort, and money. Steve Jobs and President Obama are known for also using uniforms specifically for this purpose.
PT- Daily, routinized exercise. Done in a way that very few people are deciding what comes next.
-Maximum use of daylight hours
Med Group and Force Support-Minimized high-risk projects outside of workplace (paternalistic health care, insurance, and in many cases, housing and continuing education.)
After a moment's thought it occurred to me that there are some double-edged swords in Military Rationality as well, some of which lead to classic jokes like 'Military Intelligence is an oxymoron.'
Regulations- A select few 'experts' create policies which everyone else is required to follow at all times. Unfortunately these experts are never (never ever) encouraged to consider knock-on effects. Ugh.
Anybody else have insights on the military they want to share here? I feel a couple of good posts on increasing executive function might come out of a discussion on the rationalities and irrationalities of the armed forces.