军队管理和企业管理中统一性的应用（英文论文）

The Application of Uniformity in Military Management and Business Management

Yang Rongrong

 BISU

The Application of Uniformity in Military Management and Business Management

Yang Rongrong【 Financial Management, BISU】

Abstract

The historical origin and connection of military management and business management were briefly reviewed and discussed.  The similarity and difference between the two systems were listed and compared.  The character of unity in military management was introduced in detail.  A concept of uniformity was proposed, which is a combination of a series of the unities from exterior to interior, regulation to execution, and routine action to deep thought.  The detailed diagrammatic analyses of how the uniformity is appplied in different types of business were presented.  Finally, it is concluded that the appropriately strengthening on uniformity can make business more effective and productive.

Key words: Military management, Business management, Uniformity, Unity.

Content

Looking back at the long history of human evolution, what so called "management" maybe initially arose from human collective hunting.  But it was more likely improved in the battles and wars between ancient clans and tribes.

According to a western scholar, the word "management" itself is derived from the ancient Latin word "manus", which means a driver by using the reins to control a group of horses, to drive a war chariot. ^[[1]] This seems to be a simple and vivid imagination of management, and refers the management concepts of "control" and "leadership".   And it also means that the initial management behavior was applied in the military field first.

It is said that the most advanced technologies and the newest theories are often used preferentially for the military usage by the ruler and leader, then the civil usage.  This is because which can make the same military forces get the biggest possibility to win the same battle, campaign, even entire war.  And the result is a matter of survival of a family, a clan, a tribe or even a nation.  It can be presumed that early sizable and systematic management practices could be used in the military first and civil later.

Ancient Chinese also paid great attention of the methodology in military warfare.  More than 2,000 years ago, Sun Tzu wrote a great monumental work "The Art of War" during the Spring and Autumn Period.  The total thirteen parts covered many concepts related to management.  The first part of the "The Art of War" named “始计”, its Chinese meaning are starting, planning and strategizing.  Sun Tzu emphasized a detail analysis, comparison, and plan before a war, based on the manpower, military power, financial power and overall country situation.  The comparison of strength and weakness was greatly emphasized between the two sides of war.  And moreover, different strategies should be chosen according to different results of the strength and weakness comparison.  This is a simply and purely "decision making".  Surely, this is 2000 years earlier than the SWOT analysis in the modern business management theory.

With the rise of the industrial revolution in the Europe in 1800s, a large number of medium and large industrial enterprises had been born.  Large-scale and labor-intensive industrial production needed the corresponding new management model and theory urgently.  Many scholars work from practice to theory and then to practice.  Management science has been completely separated from other academic fields nowadays, and forms into an independent, perfect and systematic branch of science. ^[[2]]

Figure1 Major Approaches to Management

Meanwhile in the military field, weaponry has evolved from cold weapon to hot weapon, warship, aircraft, missile, and satellite.  The type of army has developed from infantry and cavalry, to navy, air force, rocket force, and even the space force.  These complex weapon and equipment systems and the coordination among each type of army, require the military to create its own modern management theory and system.  As an example, seen from the PLA publicly available academy examination materials, its perfection and systematicity is no less than the modern business management. ^[[3]]

Henri Fayol, the founder of management science, successfully operated large coal mines in France and even lectured at French military academies.  He not only proposed the five functions of managers: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling, but also summarized the 14 principles of management. ^[[4]]  After reading the detailed explanation of the rules in Table 1.  It is clear to find that at least eight or nine of them are similar to the details of military regulations.

Table1 Fayol’s 14 Principles of Management

Advanced ideas always spread rapidly.  Similar fields usually learn from each other.  Table 2 shows a comparison between the four basic duties in primary military level and the five functions of the modern business management science.  They are almost identical except for one item, the innovation.  This shows that the basic management of military and the business are similar and even merged in the modern times.  Although the military management maybe preceded the civil management in the ancient times.

Table 2 Comparison between the military examination textbooks and management textbooks ^[[5]]

But what are the differences between the similar modern military management and business management?  A military scholar, Cao Qing, pointed out that the management of primary military level has characteristics such as politics and ideologies, unities, complexity, high-frequencies, compulsiveness and timeliness, etc.  He believed that focusing on these characteristics in management, and strictly implementing the regulations can ensure a strict and law-based governance over the military.  Thereby, the troops can be the saying "come when calling, battle when coming, and win when battling". ^[[6]]

These characteristics are distinctly different from civil businesses.  Take the timeliness‘ as an example, if the business production cannot be delivered on time, they can work overtime, the unqualified can even be reworked.  But when the military fight in a war, there is no chance for a minute to delay or a small error to correct.  Actually, it means defeat or even death.  The game has no chance to over.  As to other military characteristics, they are also inner-linked and specialized with some distinctive military features.

Among all these characteristics, the most obvious visible gap between the military and the businesses is uniformity.  The uniformity we are discussing here is unities in a broad sense.  This broad definition of uniformity is from the surface to the inside, from the shallow to the deep, from the top to the bottom, from the rules to the implementation and from the action to the mind.

First of all, let's talk about the appearance, the military has a uniform of clothes and all kinds of supplies.  This is good for life, training and combat.  Imagine that when you put on the uniform, you are already unified yourself to the troops in your thought.

On the action side, the military has a unified daily schedule, which is easy to be managed.  The whole military would be unified to wake up at 6:00 am and turn off the lights at 21:00 pm.  Meal times are at 7:30, 11:30 and 17:30.  Training is also unified and no other differences are allowed during the training time.  It makes the combatants to maintain timely responsiveness.

On the organizational side, the uniform rank system (Figure 2) has led to a significant increase in commanding efficiency internally.  The same unified rank systems to the different types of troops also greatly enhances the convenience coordination and communication among different troops externally.

Figure 2. Ranks of the People's Liberation Army

On the daily side, training is even more important for the military.  The subjects of training are unified.  During the training time, no one is allowed to do anything else.  During the parade formation training, a commander gives commands such as “At ease”, “Stand at attention”, “Turn left”, “Turn right”, etc.  The soldiers must obey, and the movements must be neat and unified.  The parade formation can keep the soldier’s thoughts highly concentrated, and make the sense of obedience and collective in their mind.  However, doing repetitive work at a set time every day may seem useless, but in fact it is a way to cultivate soldiers to follow command, and a way to ensure they can fight on time.

The unified management system is consistent for the whole military.  There is no distinguish between superiors and inferiors.  A uniform system of rewards and punishments allowed contributors and violators to be encouraged and punished openly.  In terms of economic treatment, soldiers who have the same ranks get a uniform pay and a uniform allowance, in order to give fair treatment and clear expectations to officers and soldiers.

Summarized, the broad sense of unity, or defined as uniformity in military management, should be thorough, strict, and comprehensive.  The military uniformity exists in the army in spite of whenever, wherever, whoever, whatever and however the background is.

Ultimately, all the unites in the aspects of outlooking, training, regulating, executing and operating come to an important thing, that is the unity in mind, in thought and in deep soul. And this kind of “uniformity” can make the army more cohesive, effective, capable in the war, can reach the saying “Nothing will be conquered, no battle will not be won”.  

However, is this military management suitable for civil business?  The answer is yes, a lot of successful companies introduced the military management and get very satisfied results.

Since there are many differences between the military and the civil, just copy is un reasonable.  It’s obviously that the uniformity is the most feasible and executable way to introduce to the military management.  To try the uniformity would be the best way to start.

This requires a specific analysis of the business size, the nature of the working way, the type of business and the stage of development, etc.  It also requires an analysis of the applicable departments and the degree of uniformity. The following analysis is only a diagrammatic example. In the Y axis, the uniformity refers to a broad sense of unities, while the degree refers the depth and width of the business to perform.   In the X axis, different business can decide its own position on different aspects. (See Figure 3)

Figure 3: Choose the right uniformity degree by different business types

1. Large businesses have many people, many departments, complex business, uniformity is important.  Small businesses have fewer people, fewer departments, or even one person with multiple jobs, and business crossover needs to be flexible. (2-1)

2. Some businesses are labor-intensive and production-oriented, the need for uniformity is great.  And some businesses are scattered workplaces, or even home office, the need for uniformity is small. (2-2)

3. In the start-up period of the businesses, many businesses are still in the exploration stage, the demand for uniformity is low.  However, after the maturity and growth of the enterprise, a lot of business needs to be standardized, the need for uniformity is large. (2-3)

4.Some businesses are labor production businesses, the demand for uniformity is great. While some businesses are research-based creative businesses, such as research institutes, colleges and universities, etc.  The need for uniformity is relatively weak. (2-4)

Different businesses can analyze their needs for uniformity based on the diagram above according to their own nature.  The last thing, the business should choose the uniformity policy wisely, scientifically and flexibly, as well as execute the chosen uniformity, strictly, thoroughly and compulsively.

Nowadays the business surrounding is the fiercest battlefield in the world.  Under the globalized, Internet-based and the Red Sea-based background, the first thing for any business is to survive, to stand, to fight back the challenge from the rivals, and finally to grow and develop.  If there are something to learn from the military, the uniformity could be the first step.

References

[1] Peel M, Introduction to management: a guide for better business performance, [M]. 1993, pp.1

[2] Stephen P. Robbins, Management the 11^th edition, [M]. 2012, pp.29

[3] Stephen P. Robbins, Management the 11th edition, 2012, pp.31

[4]曹青,范泓源.浅谈依据基层部队管理特征加强管理[J].现代国企研究,2016(10):226. 

[5]军事管理，中国人民解放军高等院校考试教材，[M]. 2021, pp.206

[6]军事管理，中国人民解放军高等院校考试教材，[M]. 2021, pp.233