Nice post by Hugh MacLeod on creating belonging at scale.
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Military leaders throughout history have faced the same problem:
how do we keep everyone serving underneath us aligned with our aims, loyal and obeying orders, but at a scale far beyond what we’re evolved to do.
This is an important question to answer for them, of course, because a) troops all carry weapons and b) they outnumber leadership by a vast margin.
The British Army had a good way of addressing the problem.
Instead of making everybody loyal to the entire army, they emphasized soldiers being loyal primarily to their regiment (i.e. The Black Watch, The Irish Guards, The Parachute Regiment, The SAS, The Argyll and Suthland Highlanders, etc).
To this day, each regiment has its own way of identifying itself separately from all the others.
Different banners, different liveries, different traditions and customs, different drinking songs, different histories and myths.
So even if everyone is fighting on the same side, they still have a way to feel connected to something more personal and concrete.
Link to source below. H/T Darren Herman for sharing in OP newsletter.
