Sims' Paradox

The Pernicious Lie of 'People First'

Placing wellness as the #1 priority of an organization directly undermines the wellness of those most committed to that organization.

-Sims’ Paradox

As I regularly argue here, spirtual readiness is the foundation for wellness/H2F, and that spiritual readiness can be understood as knowing your purpose and being aligned with that purpose. Within a given organization, those that are most committed to the organization can be defined as those individuals who have internalized fulfilling that organization’s mission as their primary professional purpose.

Exhibit A: Border Patrol

The mission of Border Patrol hasn’t changed since its inception in 1924: To detect and prevent the illegal entry of individuals into the United States. That is about as straightforward as it gets. We can say that individuals who go to work for Border Patrol that end up being the most committed and effective members of the organization have a deep sense of purpose rooted in… you guessed it, preventing the illegal entry of individuals into the United States. Observe what happens when the chief of Border Patrol argues that the #1 priority of Border Patrol should be to focus on resiliency in front of this group of committed professionals:

He even goes so far as to highlight the importance of spiritual readiness, and this is the crux of the paradox. These people don’t understand wellness, not really. To them, it is a good sounding word. An idea that can’t be argued with, just like the promotion of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This lack of understanding leads them to put the proverbial cart of wellness in front of the horse of organizational mission.

Exhibit B: U.S. Army

In the Army, we used to say Mission First. We even have creeds that start with “I will always place the mission first.” Although the Army’s overall mission isn’t as straightforward as that of Border Patrol, I think we can reasonably say that it is meant to deter, fight, and win wars with a focus on application of land power. So what is People First, then, other than a repudiation of one of the most fundamental truisms of military culture? Of course people are critically important. The saying that used to reflect this is “Mission First, People Always.” Because, yes, people are always important, but people, like safety, can never come first. It is the mission that makes people important to an organization in the first place. When I try to communicate this, people immediately assume that what I’m really saying is that people are unimportant. In fact, when I try to make these kinds of arguments I am often told that “wellness is important” which is quite ironic considering that promoting wellness is my sole professional purpose within the organization. It never seems to occur to anyone that placing wellness as the #1 priority simply isn’t effective. I think the reason I get this response is because apologists for the People First initiative have grown accustomed to dissent amongst the ranks the likes of which were plainly evident in the Border Patrol video above. Those committed to the organization can’t necessarily communicate this effectively. They don’t know why this fixation on wellness above mission chagrins them so, but they know that it does, and if they have moral courage they often say so. Simply telling them that wellness is important is a good way to shut them up, but this kind of reasoning doesn’t tend to persuade those who believe that the primary focus of the Army should be warfighting.

Perverse Selection Pressure

In case you’re not aware, there is a recruiting and retention crisis across the armed forces. Unfortunately, I am afraid that it is much worse than it appears. All of the people most committed to the organization are the ones heading for the exits. They recognize on some level that the prioritization of wellness over mission is eviscerating their own spiritual readiness. When they express frustration that the organization is losing proficiency at warfighting, they are reprimanded and told that if they simply obey and focus more on wellness, then the warfighting proficiency will take care of itself. No amount of gaslighting can convince such individuals, however. Sims’ Paradox ensures that all of the best, most committed people abandon the organization in the interest of their own wellbeing. When you’ve relied on your sense of purpose to put up with all of the bullshit that accompanies military life for so many years, direct challenges to that sense of purpose are predictably catasrophic. So who is left? While there are many personality types that may not be driven away, there is one type that actually thrives in this environment, namely Head Girls as coined by Bruce Charlton. It should be noted that Head Girls are not necessarily female. In fact, since the Army is about 80% male, most Head Girls in the Army are almost assuredly male. So what is Dr. Charlton’s description of a Head Girl? (emphasis mine)

The ideal Head Girl is an all-rounder: performs extremely well in all school subjects and has a very high Grade Point Average. She is excellent at sports, Captaining all the major teams. She is also pretty, popular, sociable and well-behaved.

Modern society is run by Head Girls, of both sexes

Modern Colleges aim at recruiting Head Girls, so do universities, so does science, so do the arts, so does the mass media, so does the legal profession, so does medicine, so does the military...

she does what other people want by the standards they most value. She will work harder and at a higher standard in doing whatever it is that social pressure tells her to do - and she will do this by whatever social standards prevail, only more thoroughly.

The Head Girl will not ever want to alienate potentially powerful allies.

So what we can see here is that the Head Girl is not animated by the mission of the organization, but by social pressure. This is an important point to consider, because when a policy undermines the organization’s mission, the Head Girl probably won’t even notice. What they will notice will be the social pressure to advance the policy. Head Girls are obviously valuable members of any organization, but only if there are enough people still around in leadership roles that are committed to the mission above conforming to social pressure. Perhaps it is inevitable that Head Girls will come to dominate any bureaucracy, which might be another way of restating Pournelle’s Iron Law. Even if it is inevitable, I think understanding the mechanisms that underlie how this all plays out is interesting, and that developing this understanding in the only hope of finding a way to stop it from happening. Sims’ Paradox is a key piece of this puzzle in the current environment.

Hard Truth

There is a hard truth underneath all of this that people don’t want to seem to acknowledge, and this applies to all organizations: Organizations Don’t Care About People. The people within them might, and definitely do in highly effective organizations, but the organization itself doesn’t care. The Army exists for a reason, and that reason isn’t to optimize human wellbeing. The truth always exerts itself in the end. What this means is that it will become obvious to everyone in the Army at some point (except maybe the Head Girls) that people aren't really first. What happens to the credibility of everyone who effectively sold the People First lie when that day comes? It is destroyed along with the morale of all those who brought themselves to believe. To adapt an adage from Mark’s latest article, this hard truth promises that the Army will hang itself on the tree that grows from the seed of People First. By understanding Sims' Paradox, we can get a glimpse as to why. Senior leaders must put the mission first. Putting wellness first doesn’t do anyone any favors and can be expected to undermine the spiritual component of wellness for the organization’s most committed members and destroy overall mission readiness as a consequence. Let people like me worry about optimizing wellness. I like to think that with all of our training and subject matter expertise we can at least avoid making the problem worse.