Generalizing a particular experience to the entire world is perilous :-)
True, but that wasn't what I was doing. And if you can describe an empirically detectable difference, I WOULD appreciate it.
However, the specific adage "if someone is irreplaceable, fire them immediately" was repeated to me many, many times, by many different consultants and managers, even before I started that training.
(The original argument for it was apparently different - "anyone who is irreplaceable must spend more time defending their territory / looking for opportunities to be irreplaceable than actually doing their job, therefore they must be unproductive and contentious, therefore firing them will improve company culture" - but it evolved reasonably quickly into "anyone who understands things better than you is a threat to your power base")
And if you can describe an empirically detectable difference, I WOULD appreciate it.
I am not quite sure what are you asking. What is proper management training? How to recognize it? Are you doubting that management training is a legitimately useful activity?
By the way, having irreplaceable people is bad, but not because they are a threat. The issue is the "hit by the bus" problem (will your organization survive if the irreplaceable person is hit by a bus tonight?) and the solution is to train more people to the same skill/competency level.
Oh, and, of course, anyone you can fire is not really irreplaceable.
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.