I have encountered a great deal of situation that also contains some discipline and punishment. As a son in my family, as a student in my classroom, as a member in military, I have seen or involved in the situation of disciple and punishment. Especially, I want to talk about my experience at military about punishment.
In military, there are specific and strict rules to follow, which applies to all soldiers in the organization. If the rules are not obeyed, the people who are against the rules, will be punished according to the accredited rules guideline. It is like a law in the society. For example, if a soldier is convicted as a driver under influence, he or she cannot be promoted, decrease monthly salary, statement submission, and so on. The specific amount is followed by the rules and details can be decided by highest rank of that squadron or organization. In addition to this, if it is related to violating law, then it is connected to the department which takes care of laws related issues.
I agree with that this strictly ruled punishment has a great deal of influence on the organization itself. It surely maintains the organization from any unexpected problems that are harmful to the organization. However, I think that the more important thing is discipline than punishment. In my opinion, the definition of discipline is broader than punishment. Discipline can involve some punishment. But discipline also contains the whole process of educating, which can be extension of punishment.
As an example, there was an airman who newly coming to our flight group office. Even though he was trained in the training camp, there should be something that is still vague or unfamiliar to him. He made a security accident at the first week of his placement to our office. In the flight group office, for security reason, it is prohibited to insert any kind of USB cable to computer without permission. It was somewhat basic common sense in the military community. However, he inserted his MP3 player USB cable to the office computer to charge his device. This is a pretty scary moment. Right after he inserted it, the information security department called to our office and figured out what is going on. Then, he got punished as the following rules such as reducing vacation days. The crucial thing in this situation is to realize him to make sure he is not going do this kind of problem again. But the method was wrong, in my opinion, from this point (after punishment). Every member in the office started to label him as a problematic person. They treated him like the transparent, which means that they ignored him. They blamed all the problems including subtle things on him, which was almost bullying. It was obviously not a proper method to discipline him.
If I were the man who has the authority to discipline him, I would have conversation with him at first than shouting and ignoring his opinion. He was new to the organization, which means that he needs some time to adjust the circumstance. After the ruled punishment, I would help him to adjust the circumstance as person to person. I would teach him about responsibility as getting punished, then make him understand what he has done.
He who was treated like the transparent or a problematic person, had very long time to adjust to the office due to wrong method of discipline. Therefore, it is very important to make moderate or adequate discipline and punishment in the organization for itself and each member in it as well.
That the military is harsh with punishment and discipline is to be expected. It is an organization where following the rules would seem a must, though we'll talk about this some next week when we do the class session on conflict. There are some orders, perhaps, that even in the military should not be followed.
ReplyDeleteYour story about the airman speaks to the issue of what caused the poor performance. In this case it certainly seems to have been ignorance of the rules. A new person on any job may be quite ignorant of how things are done. As you pointed out, the solution in this case is mainly education, though it might also require some reprimand if the conclusion was that the airman was sloppy in not considering his own ignorance, so being insufficiently cautious.
One does want to know if after being punished like this airman was, did he ultimately come back to be a good soldier? Maybe the time that took was too long, but if he did eventually become a good soldier, you might say the punishment was justified. Certainly there is a requirement of fairness. If somebody else in the unit broke the rules this way, what would have happened to him? Does the punishment need to be dealt out equally for there to be fairness? If so, the officers who administered the punishment may have thought they had no other choice.
After being punished, he took long time to get back on the right track. He seriously had a problem with adjusting to the office. I was always trying to cheer him to get back up. He ultimately became to be a good soldier, since there were people who help him.
ReplyDeleteFor fairness, the punishment has to be dealt out equally. However, it can be always controlled by the context. For example, if someone who broke the rules is new, the punishment should be more moderate.