Cruisers Club

?'If we become preoccupied with prescribing, recording and counting the ordinary, and defining procedures for doing those things, then there is little opportunity to even tolerate, let alone promote the extraordinary.' - Associate Professor Stephen Cohen

We heard the Corporal Physical Training Instructor?(PTI) in the pre-dawn black before we saw him. Which is why we were shuffling and chatting instead of running and panting. We assumed the PTI was back at the gym from where we set off on our 5km 5am run twenty minutes earlier. The daily routine was the PTI told us to walk three circuits of the gym in a clockwise - or as we called it 'PT-wise' - direction accompanied by The B-52s'?Roam??- booming from the speakers. He then dispatched us to the other side of the RAAF Point Cook airfield and back.

Not this morning. He was waiting in the darkness to ambush us.

'Sirs!!' His shout bounced off the Second World War era huts flanking the road.

We fell silent and halted before the muscle bound shape of the Corporal. He didn't speak, allowing the silence and our absence of panting to further incriminate us.

'Sirs - except for Ma'am - youse are the last.'

'Ma'am' was one of our Officer Training School course members. Nicknamed 'Twenty One Forty' after her 2.4km run time in Week 1. The pass was 11 minutes.

The PTI put his hands on his hips and slowly scanned us. 'I've caught youse?out. I could make youse do it again. But I'm not. Why? Because the only people youse are letting down ... are yourselves. Sirs ... You're Cruisers. And you know what?'

'No, Corporal!'.

Although Officers, we respected his authority to give pushups - holding us painfully mid push. ('That's not six inches, Ma'am! I'll show you six inches!')

Another pause for dramatic effect.

'Because, Sirs,?Cruisers ... Are ... LOSERS!'

And thus was born the 1/90 Junior Officers Initial Course?'Cruisers Club'.

Membership?grew each morning as other Course members eased off and fell back to?join?our shuffling?chats. As long as we passed our fortnightly 2.4km run, the Corporals folded their biceps,?shook their heads and let us Cruise.

Part of our training was a video series called 'Investment in Excellence' (which we called 'Investment in Sleep' after the instructor made the error of turning the lights off while playing each lesson) in which the narrator encouraged us to 'work smarter, not harder'. So In that spirit, we started a competition to see who could get as close to the weekly 11 minute 2.4km run?pass time?and thus not waste effort. The winner was 10.59. Club activities broadened to stealing the Group Captain?pennants?from the Parade Ground?and the senior course's bar fridge. We called that heist 'Heartbreak Fridge' in recognition of the Clint Eastwood movie.

The Air Force taught me many things - the most valuable unintentionally - in what teachers call 'the hidden curriculum'. Rules - dumb, annoying, or redundant unless we were trying to kill an enemy before they killed us (thankfully for me that has been never) - are springboards for creativity and humour. 'Accountability' was boring and patronising. Instead I learned about Responsibility.

'Responsibility', as Professor Cohen convincingly argues, is a superior quality to accountability. Accountability promotes mediocrity and bare compliance. Rarely excellence or innovation. And it's never fun. Accountability is as inspiring and joyful as fifty pushups in the 5am rain and as humorous as a Corporal PTI.

The Corporals were right. We weren't accountable. As Officers - we were responsible. Responsibility is proactive. Unlike accountability, responsibility is a system of delegation - of authorisation or empowerment.? It’s delegation of authority not merely of a rote task. Responsibility requires judgement.?Compliance promotes bare minimum mediocrity. Which might explain many organisations.

Think carefully before promoting Accountability - let alone making it a slogan. Substitute the A for Accountability in the acronym LEAD - and you get ... LERN.

The founding members of the Cruisers Club conquered?our self-letting-down and graduated with Distinctions. One (not me) won the Officer Qualities?Prize.?Twenty One Forty never made 11 and was back coursed. She eventually passed and overcame her lack of speed to serve her country as a good Nursing Officer.

The Cruisers Club answered?The?B52s' call?each morning before we shuffled off:

'Fly the great big sky

See the great big sea

?Kick through continents

Bustin' boundaries.'