Subscribe to This V3R or Carry On Twenty

V3R here referring not to the Motorola RAZR phone, but to "shared Vision, Rules, Roles and Relationships"---the tenets of the SAF's supposed team-building model. Every NSF in the Army now would have gone through at least two sessions in which their section / platoon / syndicate would be asked to sit around and discuss their vision for the course / posting and set down rules, describe roles and decide how they wanted their relationships to be, in order to achieve that vision. On paper, that is a Very Good Idea. Discussion produces synthesis, produces agreement, promotes participation and involvement. But it never quite works out. The "shared vision" usually ends up as a bland, unwieldy pastiche of generic, undescriptive homilies. Something that people would hesitate to believe in whole-heartedly even if they wanted to. The rules and roles are glossed over briefly, and a less unwieldy but no less bland homily stands in to describe the rules of conduct for "relationships". Hardly anyone is willing to put in the necessary effort needed to produce genuine synthesis, consensus and agreement. Instead, the participants invariably agree to cut short the session so that everyone can go for lunch, and acquiesce in the first semblance of a compromise that can be formulated. More time is needed, if it is really to be a Very Good Idea.
How many people really do partake in a Shared Vision, at the end of this somewhat farcical process? Not many, surely. And if that is the answer, how can the description, "Shared Vision", still stand, when it is only shared by so few of the people it should be shared amongst?
This isn't just a problem that presents itself in the narrow circle of Singaporean NSFs. Humankind could achieve so much if it were united in purpose---but, of course, we are not. We are all individuals with our own individual dreams and purposes, and these will invariably clash at times. And compromise and true alignment of purpose takes time and effort---plenty of both. Which means, considering how stingy people usually are with either of those, it doesn't happen.
Where shared intent fails, there arise incentive structures. That's why incentive structures pop up everywhere in human society---because shared intent fails so often. Think of all the instances where incentive structures are inducing people to align their actions with others' vision and intents: push-ups for not following your platoon sergeant's injunction to move fast, or execution by hanging for drug trafficking, or a potential $5 gain for selling that book you're not going to read again to a willing buyer, even though you're not particularly into sharing books. The spirit of Adam Smith still trumps that of Marx at resource allocation any day.