"Leaders throughout our future force must have both the authority as well as the judgment to make decisions and develop the situation through action. Critical thinking by Soldiers and their leaders will be essential to achieve the trust and wisdom implicit in such authority. The training and education of our entire force must aim to develop the mindset and requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities required to operate effectively under conditions of uncertainty and complexity."
TRADOC Pam 525-3-0 The Army's Future Force Capstone Concept - Dec 2009
"Lifelong learning and cognitive skills. Future Army forces require lifelong learners who are creative and critical thinkers with highly refined problem solving skills and the ability to process and transform data and information rapidly and accurately into usable knowledge, across a wide range of subjects, to develop strategic thinkers capable of applying operational art to the strategic requirements of national policy."
TRADOC Pam 525-3-1-2 The United States Army Operating Concept - August 2010
"While these experts note senior leaders are more prone to empower subordinate commanders than ever before in combat, these same senior leaders tended to micromanage subordinates in garrison. Senior leaders emphasized that mutual trust and confidence originates and is reinforced in garrison through day-to-day activities and procedures (figure 2-7). This evolved concept of mission command demands subordinates are entrusted with decisionmaking authority and placed in demanding and complex situations in garrison to forge the trust relationship and develop their competency for armed conflict. This is a profound cultural issue that calls upon leaders at every echelon to exercise nerve, restraint, and calculated risk."
TRADOC Pam 525-3-3 "The United States Army Functional Concept for Mission Command" - October 2010
Last night I went over to some friends of mine for dinner. They have both recently returned from a year long deployment and are now slowly easing their way back into life in the States. I am glad they are home and was really happy to have chance to get caught up. He is a Company commander and she works in an operations shop. They are both young, aware, self-confident people who have a great desire to serve and succeed in the Army. They are the next generation of Army leaders and I am proud to call them my friends and honored that they would consider me one of theirs. I always enjoy getting a chance to see them and share ideas and thoughts with them and get their input and ideas in return.
At one point in the evening, his phone rang and he suddenly got a look in his eye and his shoulders tensed up as he answered. Apparently it was a wrong number and as he hung up the phone there was a visible wave of relief and relaxation that passed over him. He had gone through an entire cycle of emotion from enjoying a quiet evening, to 'switched-on' and putting his professional brain back into gear, to relaxed again all in about 30 seconds. Kind of interesting to watch. When he hung up, I asked him about it and it started a discussion about things that had come up since the unit had returned. Soldiers in jail and other issues that happen upon redeployment and reintegration back into the much wider and much more free life back at home. He made the comment, "It's easier to command downrange because there are walls. Soldiers can only go so far." Since he has been home, he is finding out one of the limits of his authority as a commander. Whereas when the unit is deployed, he can track and control his subordinates activities due to the physical limitations of the environment, when he comes home many of those restraints are removed and his Soldiers have a much greater degree of individual decision-making autonomy. And while the vast majority will make proper and well thought out choices, there will certainly be those who do not.
As we were talking about the phone call and another incident he has been dealing with it came up that he really has no idea how to command his unit under his present circumstances (at home station) and that lack of familiarity and experience is unsettling. In many ways, because he has spent all of his command time so far in a deployed environment, his experience and knowledge, and expertise about command and leadership is almost completely formed by life downrange. He is now beginning a 2nd deployment cycle as a commander - only this time it is in the United States. He is finding out very quickly that it is a far more treacherous battlefield to navigate back home than it is downrange. I brought up an idea I have mentioned many times before that if we would treat the return back home as a deployment with all of the same preparations we give to understanding the downrange environment we would be much better off than we currently are. Is it really that much different to understand the social, structural, behavioral and cultural norms of an American Soldier than it is for the people in a province in Iraq or Afghanistan? Not really. We can do the same analysis of our Soldiers and their wants and needs and understandings as we do for indigenous populations downrange. We already have the tools to gain this insight, but we don't often use it to look at ourselves. Why not? Why not take all the tools for counterinsurgency operations we have been painstakingly learning over the past decade and put them to use in order to assist Soldiers in making the necessary behavioral changes that life in the States requires?
Look again at the opening quotations from the TRADOC publications above:
"While these experts note senior leaders are more prone to empower subordinate commanders than ever before in combat, these same senior leaders tended to micromanage subordinates in garrison."
"Leaders throughout our future force must have both the authority as well as the judgment to make decisions and develop the situation through action. Critical thinking by Soldiers and their leaders will be essential to achieve the trust and wisdom implicit in such authority."
"Future Army forces require lifelong learners who are creative and critical thinkers with highly refined problem solving skills....."
What do these things really mean? On their face, the fact that they are stated in the documents as a need, implies a recognition that we are not doing them now. That alone should give us all pause....
If we truly want to imbue these abilities in our junior leaders then here is what that phone call really means:
Instead of the relief- alert-action-tension-relief cycle there could be a calm understanding that the commander is trusted by his superiors that he can make the proper assessments and judgments regarding incidents with his Soldiers. He doesn't get tense answering the phone because it is not a challenge of his abilities or his judgment. Instead of nervousness he could concentrate on the problem itself. And as part of that he could recognize those times when he needs to ask others above him for advice and counsel, as confident in his knowledge of those things unfamiliar as he is with those things familiar. He would not spend time gaining approval before making a decision. He would make the best one possible using his experience and rest easy in that. After all, isn't that why he was selected to command the unit in the first place? And part of this confidence would come from a recognition throughout the command from top to bottom that after a year-long deployment there are going to be a myriad of issues, problems, and incidents - both major and minor -that will inevitably arise. Instead of trying to set the conditions for 'zero defect', all levels of leadership from the lowest to highest, should be working to create environments where there is an unwillingness on the part of the members to put themselves in those tenuous situations in the first place. Instead of, "If you do this, then I will punish you by doing that", everyone would be working to create units where we have increased Soldier judgment and esprit de corps so much that the individual does not want to let the unit down by doing something to discredit it.
There would also be the implicit understanding that when issues do arise, they are not always an indictment of the commander personally. Since there would be an acceptance that leaders cannot control every action or decision made then we would be forced to remove the personality and solve the problem. There really is no difference between solving a logistical problem regarding how to get water, food, fuel etc to Soldiers on the battlefield, and how to get a Soldier who has been arrested, arraigned, and back to post and through the remaining legal processes. The steps of the process are similar, only the conditions are different. That recognition seems to me to be the critical 'agility' and 'adaptability' steps that have become the buzzwords that describe the type of Army leader we are all looking for but don't seem to know how to develop. It is an implicit understanding of the operating environment. It's not a judgment of an individual person (Jane or Joe is a lousy commander because they lead the unit in XYZ incidents), but rather an acceptance that Jane or Joe is leading a unit in a new environment that neither they nor their Soldiers are familiar with and this spike in incidents will have to be reduced over time by the application of leadership.
Finally: "The training and education of our entire force must aim to develop the mindset and requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities required to operate effectively under conditions of uncertainty and complexity."
Yup. My friend got failed by the Army because it has done none of the above for his current environment. His command experience just became a lot more uncertain and a damn sight more complex! The Army has not provided him the knowledge he needs to have when a Soldier arrives home to a spouse who has decided to leave and take their children. It has not provided him the knowledge of why and how so many Soldiers engage in risky behaviors that can have horrible effects. It has not given him the skills necessary to navigate the many personal, human being challenges that will arise over the weeks and months ahead. We have the ability to do these things, but we have not because no one seems to realize that the critical understanding of the environment is equally as important back home as it is deployed. The problem is the same, it just needs to be Oriented to differently. Soldiers who were 'switched-on' for the better part of the last year will now have the ability to flip that switch on and off as they see fit. What have we done to prepare them for that personal responsibility?
Because we haven't done those things, the need for micromanagement will make a nasty and very swift return. And here's how it will happen. A senior leader will want to start tracking the number of incidents that occur in his or her unit. As the chart is built, inevitably it will be broken down by subordinate unit. This company or that platoon etc and then the number of DUI's or domestic violence, or speeding tickets all neatly charted in rows and columns. As soon as that happens, then the competition has begun and micromanagement has returned. As the senior leaders work to out-do each other to have the smallest number of incidents, it will require them to emplace further and further restrictions on their Soldiers actions. What gets lost in this contest however is that no one is actually doing the one thing that will, in the long run, make the most difference. No one is developing the critical judgment ability of the individual Soldier. They have not become any more self-aware or able to make sound judgments. I'm not kidding here. The thing that scares me the most for the Army as the rotation and deployment schedule slows down is the return of 'zero defect' mentalities and the frontal attack that is coming from micromanagement. It will take an amazingly strongly command climate to hold these things at bay and ensure that we concentrate our efforts of the development of trust, agility, critical thinking, and esprit de corps.
Thankfully, last night's phone call turned out to be wrong number. Imagine what might have happened had it been something serious.....
Why are we putting our young leaders in positions where they cannot wait to accept the challenge of command and then in very short order cannot wait until the mantel is passed? Could it be because we are not providing them the critical abilities they need, the trust they deserve, and the climates that truly care for them? Maybe. We'll have to wait and see if the next generation of leaders can fight back hard enough against micromanagement and competition to actually focus on what matters - developing Soldiers at all levels from Private to General capable of making sound decisions, under challenging circumstances with a wide understanding of the environment and their place in it.
Over 40 years ago, General Melvin Zais said the following:
"It is an interesting phenomenon and paradox that go to school after school and we spend 80% of our time on tactics, weapons, logistics and planning and 20% of our time on people matters and then we go to our units and what do we do? We spend 80% of our time on people matters and 20% on tactics, weapons, logistics etc."
Welcome to your second deployment as a commander. Too bad we didn't prepare you for it the way we should have.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#110 The Edge of an Understanding
I have no idea where this post is going to end up. Normally, I do. It will start with an idea formed by something I've seen or read, and then progress down a pretty clear path to a picture in my mind of the point I hope to make. The difficulty is only in getting the 3-D picture in my mind onto the page and trying to do justice with words that accurately describe the image. Today though, the picture itself isn't very clear, so I cannot see a way to describe it for you. I think the reasons for my confusion are actually pretty simple however. Too many fragmented inputs, too many questions, and not enough time to consider each of them in depth. I feel as if I'm on the edge of an understanding, but do not see the whole picture yet. Let's see where it ends up...
Inputs:
First, yesterday was the 5th anniversary of the crimes committed by my Soldiers. Regardless of what else happens in my life, March 12, 2006 will forever remain a definitive moment for me. In some ways, it is the defining moment. There was life - and all I understood it to be - before that day, and there is life after that day. The earth quake that hit Japan this week moved its' coastline 8 feet and changed the earth's axis. Whole systems within the universe will be changed ever so slightly because of that. March 12th did that for me. Through the looking glass we go...
Second, a former Soldier of mine died this week. She was a young woman, twenty-something years old. When I knew her she was a happy, smiling, vibrant young girl who was determined to have fun and she made your day brighter just being around her. She was also one hell of a Soldier. But she got lost somewhere along the way and ended up out of the Army and was trying so very hard to redefine and find her way in the world. She will be buried sometime next week, and the world has lost another pure soul much too soon. It just left me feeling sort of fragile. Hopefully, she is not searching anymore. The rest of us will be left asking why?
Third, a portion of an article sent to me by a friend entitled, "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education", written by Professor William Deresiwicz that speaks to recognizing how elite systems work, and how they create cultures of entitlement and conformity, rather than challenge and thoughtful consideration. How the intellectual elite end up separating themselves from the world they live in and insulate themselves from humanity.
And finally, from a mentor who sent me a very simple - yet very powerful thought. He reminded me that good leaders, "Don't personalize the profession, but rather professionalize the person".
Questions:
How do you lead other people? On slide #95 of "Patterns of Conflict", COL John Boyd made the following observation with regard to guerrilla warfare:
- "Guerrillas must develop implicit connections with the people or countryside."
- "Guerrillas must be able to blend into the emotional - cultural - intellectual environment of the people until they become one with the people."
- "The people's feelings and thoughts must become the guerrilla's feelings and thoughts and the guerrilla's feelings and thoughts must become the people's feelings and thoughts."
Result: "Guerrillas become indistinguishable from the people while government becomes isolated from the people."
Now remove the word guerrilla and replace it with the word leader. Seems awfully close to me to be the ideal of leadership. To become one with those we lead. To immerse ourselves in their experience to the point that who is in charge becomes less important than the mission we are collectively conducting. To become indistinguishable by any formal system from those we lead. The mission is the only thing. Who accomplishes it, who directs it, and who leads it become secondary concerns to getting it done.
With regard to yesterday's anniversary of the crimes committed by members of my platoon, the aftermath of that tragic event has sent me down a path that has fundamentally changed the way I view leadership both practically and theoretically. My concept of what leadership is has changed and as a result of that how I exercise leadership has changed as well. I have become less directive and less sure of the outcome. I have gained a much greater respect and awareness for unfolding circumstances that can affect the mission. I spend a lot more time painting the picture and a lot less proscribing the steps. In many ways, I feel as if I have become much more adaptable and much more attuned - especially to those non-quantifiable things like perspective, and emotion. I no longer ascribe to the notion that everyone can be treated the same. Each individual must be treated as a unique set of understandings and interpretations. The key to successful leadership is find out how and why others view their world the way they do and then working with that understanding to accomplish a common mission.
Which leads me to the second input - the loss of Crystal Thompson. While I do not understand why she has passed, the fact that she has means that we will never understand completely who she was, or who she had the potential to become. Because she was no longer in the Army, her loss will not be viewed by many as combat related, or as a result of the war, but in the back of my mind I cannot escape the idea that had she had senior leaders around her who accepted her, who saw her as more than an interchangeable widget, who had helped her to see herself more clearly, she might not have gotten quite so far off track. She, at one time, was a Soldier - and a damn good one. I just feel like we owed her more than that. We owed her leadership in the sense that we viewed her as one of our children. We owed her the respect of her humanity. Throughout the week many of her former Soldiers and friends have expressed their grief and their love for her on her Facebook page. Maybe had she known that earlier, we wouldn't be where we are right now.
In Professor D's paper, I came across the following paragraph that reminded me of so many Army leaders I know:
"Because students from elite schools expect success, and expect it now. They have, by definition, never experienced anything else, and their sense of self has been built around their ability to succeed. The idea of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them, defeats them. They’ve been driven their whole lives by a fear of failure—often, in the first instance, by their parents’ fear of failure. The first time I blew a test, I walked out of the room feeling like I no longer knew who I was. The second time, it was easier; I had started to learn that failure isn’t the end of the world."
Leading people inherently means valuing them. Not simply as a means to an end, or from one limited understanding, but from a totality of their existence. Who they really are. The various roles they play. Why they think and act and color their world the way they do. You cannot lead others without this understanding. And yet, the Army creates many leaders who are colored a lot like Professor D's elite students above. They possess an absolute sense of their own surety and greatness. That they are the chosen few. That they are entitled to their world, their way. They cannot conceptualize or comprehend failure. A lot of last week's post outlined behaviors that fit this mold. Are we really raising our young officer corp to understand at the behavioral level those they lead, or are we continually perpetuating a class system of elites who see their subordinates as their minions? And to be completely fair, the idea of elitism is by no means limited to the officer corps alone. The NCO corps has become loaded with 'special' people who wrap themselves in titles and carry the accoutrements of position like a badge of honor. When we become disconnected like that, and begin to think we are entitled to something more, than we have already begun to fail. There is no entitlement in leadership. In its' perfect sense it happens regardless of rank, station, position, or education. And the only way to get to that place is through respect.
Finally, the quote from a friend and mentor. "Don't personalize the profession. Professionalize the person." Awesome, powerful statement because it requires the respect of the person first and the molding of them into the profession second. I have to value them individually first, recognizing their particular strengths, weaknesses, viewpoints, and filters, and then bring those attributes together inside of the profession that we share. There cannot be any nameless widgets in that phrase. It's not about the leader, it's truly about the led. As my friend does for me, the role of the leader is to help the subordinate see their environment more clearly, and to set the conditions for the subordinate to succeed in the professional arena.
March 12th will always remind me of how far I have come on my journey of understanding, and humble me when I realize how far I have to go. Crystal Thompson is a person who will remind me how quickly and permanently things can change. We must remain ever vigilant to guard against elitism in an Army system where the top could certainly be termed an 'educational elite', but the bottom can be very under-educated. We must guard against that gap becoming too large. John Boyd reminds me that to value them we must remain in tune with them. There can be no other way.
And we must ultimately respect those we work for. Not above us on the ladder, but those below us. They are the ones who matter. They are the ones who accomplish our missions, and they are the ones who look to us to provide them the opportunity to one day serve others. In order to do that, we may have to steal a page from COL Boyd and become a guerrilla....
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
Inputs:
First, yesterday was the 5th anniversary of the crimes committed by my Soldiers. Regardless of what else happens in my life, March 12, 2006 will forever remain a definitive moment for me. In some ways, it is the defining moment. There was life - and all I understood it to be - before that day, and there is life after that day. The earth quake that hit Japan this week moved its' coastline 8 feet and changed the earth's axis. Whole systems within the universe will be changed ever so slightly because of that. March 12th did that for me. Through the looking glass we go...
Second, a former Soldier of mine died this week. She was a young woman, twenty-something years old. When I knew her she was a happy, smiling, vibrant young girl who was determined to have fun and she made your day brighter just being around her. She was also one hell of a Soldier. But she got lost somewhere along the way and ended up out of the Army and was trying so very hard to redefine and find her way in the world. She will be buried sometime next week, and the world has lost another pure soul much too soon. It just left me feeling sort of fragile. Hopefully, she is not searching anymore. The rest of us will be left asking why?
Third, a portion of an article sent to me by a friend entitled, "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education", written by Professor William Deresiwicz that speaks to recognizing how elite systems work, and how they create cultures of entitlement and conformity, rather than challenge and thoughtful consideration. How the intellectual elite end up separating themselves from the world they live in and insulate themselves from humanity.
And finally, from a mentor who sent me a very simple - yet very powerful thought. He reminded me that good leaders, "Don't personalize the profession, but rather professionalize the person".
Questions:
How do you lead other people? On slide #95 of "Patterns of Conflict", COL John Boyd made the following observation with regard to guerrilla warfare:
- "Guerrillas must develop implicit connections with the people or countryside."
- "Guerrillas must be able to blend into the emotional - cultural - intellectual environment of the people until they become one with the people."
- "The people's feelings and thoughts must become the guerrilla's feelings and thoughts and the guerrilla's feelings and thoughts must become the people's feelings and thoughts."
Result: "Guerrillas become indistinguishable from the people while government becomes isolated from the people."
Now remove the word guerrilla and replace it with the word leader. Seems awfully close to me to be the ideal of leadership. To become one with those we lead. To immerse ourselves in their experience to the point that who is in charge becomes less important than the mission we are collectively conducting. To become indistinguishable by any formal system from those we lead. The mission is the only thing. Who accomplishes it, who directs it, and who leads it become secondary concerns to getting it done.
With regard to yesterday's anniversary of the crimes committed by members of my platoon, the aftermath of that tragic event has sent me down a path that has fundamentally changed the way I view leadership both practically and theoretically. My concept of what leadership is has changed and as a result of that how I exercise leadership has changed as well. I have become less directive and less sure of the outcome. I have gained a much greater respect and awareness for unfolding circumstances that can affect the mission. I spend a lot more time painting the picture and a lot less proscribing the steps. In many ways, I feel as if I have become much more adaptable and much more attuned - especially to those non-quantifiable things like perspective, and emotion. I no longer ascribe to the notion that everyone can be treated the same. Each individual must be treated as a unique set of understandings and interpretations. The key to successful leadership is find out how and why others view their world the way they do and then working with that understanding to accomplish a common mission.
Which leads me to the second input - the loss of Crystal Thompson. While I do not understand why she has passed, the fact that she has means that we will never understand completely who she was, or who she had the potential to become. Because she was no longer in the Army, her loss will not be viewed by many as combat related, or as a result of the war, but in the back of my mind I cannot escape the idea that had she had senior leaders around her who accepted her, who saw her as more than an interchangeable widget, who had helped her to see herself more clearly, she might not have gotten quite so far off track. She, at one time, was a Soldier - and a damn good one. I just feel like we owed her more than that. We owed her leadership in the sense that we viewed her as one of our children. We owed her the respect of her humanity. Throughout the week many of her former Soldiers and friends have expressed their grief and their love for her on her Facebook page. Maybe had she known that earlier, we wouldn't be where we are right now.
In Professor D's paper, I came across the following paragraph that reminded me of so many Army leaders I know:
"Because students from elite schools expect success, and expect it now. They have, by definition, never experienced anything else, and their sense of self has been built around their ability to succeed. The idea of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them, defeats them. They’ve been driven their whole lives by a fear of failure—often, in the first instance, by their parents’ fear of failure. The first time I blew a test, I walked out of the room feeling like I no longer knew who I was. The second time, it was easier; I had started to learn that failure isn’t the end of the world."
Leading people inherently means valuing them. Not simply as a means to an end, or from one limited understanding, but from a totality of their existence. Who they really are. The various roles they play. Why they think and act and color their world the way they do. You cannot lead others without this understanding. And yet, the Army creates many leaders who are colored a lot like Professor D's elite students above. They possess an absolute sense of their own surety and greatness. That they are the chosen few. That they are entitled to their world, their way. They cannot conceptualize or comprehend failure. A lot of last week's post outlined behaviors that fit this mold. Are we really raising our young officer corp to understand at the behavioral level those they lead, or are we continually perpetuating a class system of elites who see their subordinates as their minions? And to be completely fair, the idea of elitism is by no means limited to the officer corps alone. The NCO corps has become loaded with 'special' people who wrap themselves in titles and carry the accoutrements of position like a badge of honor. When we become disconnected like that, and begin to think we are entitled to something more, than we have already begun to fail. There is no entitlement in leadership. In its' perfect sense it happens regardless of rank, station, position, or education. And the only way to get to that place is through respect.
Finally, the quote from a friend and mentor. "Don't personalize the profession. Professionalize the person." Awesome, powerful statement because it requires the respect of the person first and the molding of them into the profession second. I have to value them individually first, recognizing their particular strengths, weaknesses, viewpoints, and filters, and then bring those attributes together inside of the profession that we share. There cannot be any nameless widgets in that phrase. It's not about the leader, it's truly about the led. As my friend does for me, the role of the leader is to help the subordinate see their environment more clearly, and to set the conditions for the subordinate to succeed in the professional arena.
March 12th will always remind me of how far I have come on my journey of understanding, and humble me when I realize how far I have to go. Crystal Thompson is a person who will remind me how quickly and permanently things can change. We must remain ever vigilant to guard against elitism in an Army system where the top could certainly be termed an 'educational elite', but the bottom can be very under-educated. We must guard against that gap becoming too large. John Boyd reminds me that to value them we must remain in tune with them. There can be no other way.
And we must ultimately respect those we work for. Not above us on the ladder, but those below us. They are the ones who matter. They are the ones who accomplish our missions, and they are the ones who look to us to provide them the opportunity to one day serve others. In order to do that, we may have to steal a page from COL Boyd and become a guerrilla....
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#109 Toxicity Revisited
I first became aware of the concept of 'toxic" leadership a few years ago in light of the circumstances surrounding my platoon. The first time I can recall hearing the phrase, it was used to describe my former battalion commander. Sometime last year, I was sent a document from one of my readers and I again brought the issue up in post #52 entitled "The Toxic Unknown". In light of some other recent events though, it seems to merit attention yet again.
Earlier this week, the Army Times ran a story about the commander of a brigade in Germany who has been relieved of his duties. You can find the link here:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/03/army-report-finds-toxic-command-climate-zachar-030611w/
After I read that story, and in light of the legal proceedings going on with 5/2 Stryker at Ft. Lewis (Google COL Harry Tunnell for more information), I began to do some further research on the idea of toxic leadership. As part of that, I came across a paper written in 2005 by COL Denise Williams, who was then a student at the U.S. Army War College. You can find the link to her paper here:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA431785&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
So where do we stand? What is toxic leadership, where does it come from, and more importantly, what do these two stories indicate that future leader development training needs to look like?
According to the introduction to COL Williams paper:
"Toxic leaders can be characterized as leaders who take part in destructive behaviors and show signs of dysfunctional personal characteristics. To count as toxic, these behaviors and qualities of character must inflict some reasonably serious and enduring harm on their followers and their organizations. The intent to harm others or to enhance self at the expense of others distinguishes seriously toxic leaders from the careless or unintentional toxic leaders."
The tough part about that paragraph is that most of us will fit cleanly inside that definition depending on who we ask. There are always people who will claim that the manner and method by which one person leads and organization versus another is doing some form of damage to either their subordinates or the organization itself. This puts a premium on having some form of feedback mechanism in place to truly hear what those above and below us in the organization perceive about us.
The paper then goes on to list 18 common traits that toxic leaders often possess and 18 different toxic leadership types and offers a quick paragraph that describes each in a little bit more detail. I highly suggest to anyone who is now, or has a desire to be termed a leader, download this paper and carefully consider which of the 18 characteristics apply the most to them, and which of the leadership styles they are most comfortable with and the effect it has on their organization. Having said that, if you are like me, you will find yourself in many of the traits listed. Since the paper concentrates on the negative effects of toxic leadership, there isn't much mention of what the opposite traits or behaviors would look like - a critical consideration in leader development. I need to know, understand, and gain insight into those parts of me that are harmful to others and the organization, but I also have just as much need to identify those traits that I possess that have a positive effect on them as well.
For me, though, the articles about COL Zachar, and COL Tunnell raise a different series of questions. First, how did both men find themselves at this place? How is it that they have both served (and one would expect, served very well) the Army for so many years and then suddenly find themselves having their professional credentials questioned and ultimately, in COL Zachar's case being removed from command? What happened? Second, what role does the institution itself play in their current struggles? Is the Army and its' culture responsible for creating some of this? And finally, what does it say about the future of leadership in the Army if leaders like these are becoming the focus of the organization? I have been around the Army for over 20 years, and I don't believe that I have ever seen 2 senior leaders questioned in such a short period of time. Is the Army sending a message to other leaders that it's changing its' expectation of what successful leadership looks like, and using the challenges of these two (and I suspect others) to do it?
It may be easiest to answer the question about why and how toxic leadership exists first. According to COL Williams paper:
"Perhaps the most obvious reason, albeit, disturbing, is that toxic leaders seem to get the job done, at least in the short-term. I submit that whether it is because of of their superiors or because of their followers, it is always in spite of their toxicity. At the low-end of the toxicity spectrum: absentee, incompetent, and codependent leaders, the toxic leader's followers will carry him through. They have to. That is what military people do. However, at this end of the scale, the toxic behavior is probably not as tolerated by superiors because these are not traits the Army values in a leader. The harsher toxic who bear traits the Army values such as rigid, controlling, enforcing and confident, but take them to the extreme will find more success. Their superiors are either oblivious to the toxic behavior, or more likely, are so satisfied with the results in terms of mission accomplishment that they choose to overlook the human cost of getting the job done."
This is a very important paragraph because it clearly puts the instinct and ethic of the organization, and its' people, at odds with a leaders requirement to prize the people and to care for them across many different spectrum's: moral, physical, emotional, professional etc. The structure itself imparts part of the toxic development of the people. When the institution values certain traits over others people act to take on those characteristics in order to be successful in the organization. The problem is that doing so moves them further and further away from their more actualized selves and begins to create characters. As I have written about before, there is the leader as they really are, and then there is the leader who is role-playing in order to fit a predetermined idea of what success looks like in the organization. When we prize the created character over the real person, we eventually lose sight of who the real person is at all. Over the years, we have all worked for people who we knew to be one way at work and almost completely opposite in their off time. One of those two sides is more their 'true' self than the other. But if the organization doesn't value the 'truer' self, then you can guarantee that a character is about to be created.
An understanding of the above, should naturally raise the question, what can we do about it? If the institution is partially responsible for creating the environment that raises a toxic leader, then it will take the institution to remove that value set and replace it with something else that more closely accomplishes the mission without destroying the people in the organization. I think this is beginning to happen in many places, but without an absolute concerted and sustained effort at the very top, it will take a long time to root out all the destructive practices that occur because of differing understandings of the Army's ethic and what traits it values among its' members. Were the Army to suddenly place empathy, for instance, as it's top behavioral characteristic for successful leadership, it would still take years for people to overcome the hierarchical structure that enhances ego, self-worth, and power-by-position. In Maslow's terms, the Army does pretty well at level 1, but seems to live in levels 2 and 3 right now. Ten years of conflict have led us to understand that we must move toward higher levels of self-actualization in order to succeed in an extremely complex environment, but how exactly do we do that? In order to achieve the ideal of leadership, there would have to be a major shift in thinking to develop people who live at the actualized levels, 4 and 5.
But what about the people themselves? What role do they play in their own success or failure? When do they move to those higher levels that allow them to see more clearly the effect they have on their subordinates? In effect, if I am a product of my Army environment, and by all definitions have been successful at adapting and changing myself to meet it's demands, am I to be blamed when it suddenly changes direction? When do I take responsibility for myself? And what mechanisms do we have in place to assist me to do that? More critical than that however, will be the ability at the very top to recognize those who already possess these newly prized traits and put them in positions where they can have a greater effect on the organization as a whole. Can we suddenly take a Sergeant or a Major who does not appear to be the ideal using the current model and elevate them to places where they can demonstrate their type of leadership and become a new generation of role model that fits our new understanding of the requirements? How do you suddenly prize empathy over aggression?
When people ask me how I got to this place, I often tell them that I have been "through the looking glass". I went into the 'Black Hearts' ordeal with one set of understandings and came out of it with another. I now see the organization more differently than before. In many ways, I was exactly like COL Zachar and COL Tunnell. I believed in my understanding of the Army and that I knew better than others how to get things done. I did what I knew how to do using the tools the Army had provided me and used them to the best of my ability. At times, success came easily. The model provided was simple and the hierarchy always let me know exactly where I stood on the totem pole. But having gone through having my preconceived ideas about leadership, position, title, and judgment questioned, I now understand things differently. And the problem is that if you haven't had that happen, then it can be extremely challenging to try to help you understand that. That is a lot of the purpose behind my writing. I have been where many have not. And I realize how close the lines between success and failure, between dynamic and dysfunctional, and between self aware and self delusional really are.
As I read the 18 traits found in toxic leaders the other day, I started to worry that I was a complete failure because I could see parts of myself in all of them. It's tough to have 18 ways to fail and then realize that at one time or another you have used all 18! The truth though, is that after considering it for awhile, it is all a matter of degree. Arrogance and a strong sense of self are good traits - unless they are used to hurt others or blind you to seeing when you have made a mistake. A collaborative nature is a good thing - unless you never get anywhere because all you're doing is collaborating. Each of the traits listed are there for only one reason. In the extreme, anything is bad. Too much passivity is just as poisonous as too much aggression. Too much empathy is just as poisonous as too much arrogance. The question then is where do each of us fall on that scale? Do we have a way to recognize when we have drifted too far off center towards either one extreme or the other? If so, then we can auto-correct. If not, then we will ultimately fail both our Soldiers and the mission.
Self-awareness is the number one requirement for being a successful leader. We must have a healthy sense of who we are and why we are that way without succumbing to a delusional picture that is nothing more than caricature. This blog exists for 2 simple reasons: To help me to continue to see myself clearly, and to offer others the lessons that I have learned.
There will always be toxic leaders in the Army, in industry, and in the world. What we must do is become aware of the conditions that create them and then work to change those conditions. The future of an all-volunteer Army, and the magnificence of our profession of service just might depend upon it.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
Earlier this week, the Army Times ran a story about the commander of a brigade in Germany who has been relieved of his duties. You can find the link here:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/03/army-report-finds-toxic-command-climate-zachar-030611w/
After I read that story, and in light of the legal proceedings going on with 5/2 Stryker at Ft. Lewis (Google COL Harry Tunnell for more information), I began to do some further research on the idea of toxic leadership. As part of that, I came across a paper written in 2005 by COL Denise Williams, who was then a student at the U.S. Army War College. You can find the link to her paper here:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA431785&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
So where do we stand? What is toxic leadership, where does it come from, and more importantly, what do these two stories indicate that future leader development training needs to look like?
According to the introduction to COL Williams paper:
"Toxic leaders can be characterized as leaders who take part in destructive behaviors and show signs of dysfunctional personal characteristics. To count as toxic, these behaviors and qualities of character must inflict some reasonably serious and enduring harm on their followers and their organizations. The intent to harm others or to enhance self at the expense of others distinguishes seriously toxic leaders from the careless or unintentional toxic leaders."
The tough part about that paragraph is that most of us will fit cleanly inside that definition depending on who we ask. There are always people who will claim that the manner and method by which one person leads and organization versus another is doing some form of damage to either their subordinates or the organization itself. This puts a premium on having some form of feedback mechanism in place to truly hear what those above and below us in the organization perceive about us.
The paper then goes on to list 18 common traits that toxic leaders often possess and 18 different toxic leadership types and offers a quick paragraph that describes each in a little bit more detail. I highly suggest to anyone who is now, or has a desire to be termed a leader, download this paper and carefully consider which of the 18 characteristics apply the most to them, and which of the leadership styles they are most comfortable with and the effect it has on their organization. Having said that, if you are like me, you will find yourself in many of the traits listed. Since the paper concentrates on the negative effects of toxic leadership, there isn't much mention of what the opposite traits or behaviors would look like - a critical consideration in leader development. I need to know, understand, and gain insight into those parts of me that are harmful to others and the organization, but I also have just as much need to identify those traits that I possess that have a positive effect on them as well.
For me, though, the articles about COL Zachar, and COL Tunnell raise a different series of questions. First, how did both men find themselves at this place? How is it that they have both served (and one would expect, served very well) the Army for so many years and then suddenly find themselves having their professional credentials questioned and ultimately, in COL Zachar's case being removed from command? What happened? Second, what role does the institution itself play in their current struggles? Is the Army and its' culture responsible for creating some of this? And finally, what does it say about the future of leadership in the Army if leaders like these are becoming the focus of the organization? I have been around the Army for over 20 years, and I don't believe that I have ever seen 2 senior leaders questioned in such a short period of time. Is the Army sending a message to other leaders that it's changing its' expectation of what successful leadership looks like, and using the challenges of these two (and I suspect others) to do it?
It may be easiest to answer the question about why and how toxic leadership exists first. According to COL Williams paper:
"Perhaps the most obvious reason, albeit, disturbing, is that toxic leaders seem to get the job done, at least in the short-term. I submit that whether it is because of of their superiors or because of their followers, it is always in spite of their toxicity. At the low-end of the toxicity spectrum: absentee, incompetent, and codependent leaders, the toxic leader's followers will carry him through. They have to. That is what military people do. However, at this end of the scale, the toxic behavior is probably not as tolerated by superiors because these are not traits the Army values in a leader. The harsher toxic who bear traits the Army values such as rigid, controlling, enforcing and confident, but take them to the extreme will find more success. Their superiors are either oblivious to the toxic behavior, or more likely, are so satisfied with the results in terms of mission accomplishment that they choose to overlook the human cost of getting the job done."
This is a very important paragraph because it clearly puts the instinct and ethic of the organization, and its' people, at odds with a leaders requirement to prize the people and to care for them across many different spectrum's: moral, physical, emotional, professional etc. The structure itself imparts part of the toxic development of the people. When the institution values certain traits over others people act to take on those characteristics in order to be successful in the organization. The problem is that doing so moves them further and further away from their more actualized selves and begins to create characters. As I have written about before, there is the leader as they really are, and then there is the leader who is role-playing in order to fit a predetermined idea of what success looks like in the organization. When we prize the created character over the real person, we eventually lose sight of who the real person is at all. Over the years, we have all worked for people who we knew to be one way at work and almost completely opposite in their off time. One of those two sides is more their 'true' self than the other. But if the organization doesn't value the 'truer' self, then you can guarantee that a character is about to be created.
An understanding of the above, should naturally raise the question, what can we do about it? If the institution is partially responsible for creating the environment that raises a toxic leader, then it will take the institution to remove that value set and replace it with something else that more closely accomplishes the mission without destroying the people in the organization. I think this is beginning to happen in many places, but without an absolute concerted and sustained effort at the very top, it will take a long time to root out all the destructive practices that occur because of differing understandings of the Army's ethic and what traits it values among its' members. Were the Army to suddenly place empathy, for instance, as it's top behavioral characteristic for successful leadership, it would still take years for people to overcome the hierarchical structure that enhances ego, self-worth, and power-by-position. In Maslow's terms, the Army does pretty well at level 1, but seems to live in levels 2 and 3 right now. Ten years of conflict have led us to understand that we must move toward higher levels of self-actualization in order to succeed in an extremely complex environment, but how exactly do we do that? In order to achieve the ideal of leadership, there would have to be a major shift in thinking to develop people who live at the actualized levels, 4 and 5.
But what about the people themselves? What role do they play in their own success or failure? When do they move to those higher levels that allow them to see more clearly the effect they have on their subordinates? In effect, if I am a product of my Army environment, and by all definitions have been successful at adapting and changing myself to meet it's demands, am I to be blamed when it suddenly changes direction? When do I take responsibility for myself? And what mechanisms do we have in place to assist me to do that? More critical than that however, will be the ability at the very top to recognize those who already possess these newly prized traits and put them in positions where they can have a greater effect on the organization as a whole. Can we suddenly take a Sergeant or a Major who does not appear to be the ideal using the current model and elevate them to places where they can demonstrate their type of leadership and become a new generation of role model that fits our new understanding of the requirements? How do you suddenly prize empathy over aggression?
When people ask me how I got to this place, I often tell them that I have been "through the looking glass". I went into the 'Black Hearts' ordeal with one set of understandings and came out of it with another. I now see the organization more differently than before. In many ways, I was exactly like COL Zachar and COL Tunnell. I believed in my understanding of the Army and that I knew better than others how to get things done. I did what I knew how to do using the tools the Army had provided me and used them to the best of my ability. At times, success came easily. The model provided was simple and the hierarchy always let me know exactly where I stood on the totem pole. But having gone through having my preconceived ideas about leadership, position, title, and judgment questioned, I now understand things differently. And the problem is that if you haven't had that happen, then it can be extremely challenging to try to help you understand that. That is a lot of the purpose behind my writing. I have been where many have not. And I realize how close the lines between success and failure, between dynamic and dysfunctional, and between self aware and self delusional really are.
As I read the 18 traits found in toxic leaders the other day, I started to worry that I was a complete failure because I could see parts of myself in all of them. It's tough to have 18 ways to fail and then realize that at one time or another you have used all 18! The truth though, is that after considering it for awhile, it is all a matter of degree. Arrogance and a strong sense of self are good traits - unless they are used to hurt others or blind you to seeing when you have made a mistake. A collaborative nature is a good thing - unless you never get anywhere because all you're doing is collaborating. Each of the traits listed are there for only one reason. In the extreme, anything is bad. Too much passivity is just as poisonous as too much aggression. Too much empathy is just as poisonous as too much arrogance. The question then is where do each of us fall on that scale? Do we have a way to recognize when we have drifted too far off center towards either one extreme or the other? If so, then we can auto-correct. If not, then we will ultimately fail both our Soldiers and the mission.
Self-awareness is the number one requirement for being a successful leader. We must have a healthy sense of who we are and why we are that way without succumbing to a delusional picture that is nothing more than caricature. This blog exists for 2 simple reasons: To help me to continue to see myself clearly, and to offer others the lessons that I have learned.
There will always be toxic leaders in the Army, in industry, and in the world. What we must do is become aware of the conditions that create them and then work to change those conditions. The future of an all-volunteer Army, and the magnificence of our profession of service just might depend upon it.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#108 Revelations
On Friday evening I sat for a 5 hour video interview regarding my time as a platoon sergeant in Iraq from February to December 2006. The Center for the Army Professional Ethic is putting together a series of videos in order to look at the "Black Hearts" incident from multiple viewpoints to see what lessons there are for leaders at all levels throughout the Army. This is something I have been pushing for for years, and am glad it is finally coming to fruition. There are many lessons to be learned from that time and I am more than happy to try to help in any way I can. I do not believe that events like this can simply be washed away or written off as anomalies. The extremes of any situation demand as much, or more, consideration as any other point on the spectrum. The extremes create the middle. Any norm must have a left and right limit. While those limits are not often reached, when they are, we are provided an opportunity to look at them and consider whether or not our concept of where the 'middle' is remains true.
As we concluded the interview session, and I was getting ready to leave, the interviewer and I were standing around talking and he asked me if there was anything about that time that I would have done differently. I have been asked that question many times before and it is one that I've considered at least once a day for the last 4, almost 5, years. My answer has always been no, I would make the same decisions now that I made then given the same set of circumstances. You cannot go back after the fact, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, and craft a new response that includes information or knowledge that was not present at the time. You have to make the best choice you can, with what you have available. That's what leaders do. They make, as the TRADOC pamphlet points out, "A series of discretionary judgments." They take the facts and circumstances that are known to them, filter them through Orientation and judgment, arrive at a conclusion, and make a determination. One can never have perfect knowledge, and circumstances are continually changing, so the key becomes to do the best you can, with what you have and then remain aware enough to recognize when the unfolding circumstances require an adjustment.
However, in the past when asked that question, "What would you do differently?", I have always framed it very closely tied to the events surrounding March 12 and the attack on the al-Janabi family. The tactical choices I made when the platoon was assigned the mission to guard the traffic control points during that period. What squad went were, the mission that we were going to accomplish etc. As I have often stated, those choices were mine, they were sound, and if presented with the same set of people and circumstances again, I would choose the same course of action as I did back then. During the course of the interview though, the questions and answers and thoughts and recollections had focused much earlier in my tenure than I had really considered before. So much energy has been focused around the rape/murders etc that it some ways it begins to lose it's context. It becomes a moment in time from which there is no going backwards and everything forward becomes uncharted territory. But now I began to think about the manner and method I chose when taking over the platoon back in early February.
I arrived to 1st platoon of February 5th, 2006. That day is permanently seared in the mind of any member of that company because it is also the day that the living quarters for the American contingent on the Forward Operating Base (FOB) burned completely down in a manner of minutes. Faulty wiring and an overloaded circuit caused the entire U.S. portion of the FOB to go up in flames. In the rush to get all the people out of the building, there was no time to remove equipment, mementos etc. Soldiers lost everything they owned or had been issued. We flew people out that day in Flip-Flops, their PT shorts, and fleece jackets which equaled the sum total of their worldly possessions at that moment.
A few days later was the first time that I could gather the platoon in one place and formally introduce myself to them. And I remember almost word for word what I told them. [It is important to remember that at this point, they had already suffered 4 KIA, had been facing some very intense pressure from their higher headquarters, were on their 3rd platoon sergeant in 45 days and had just had their 'home' burned to the ground.]
I told them that, "There are no more victims in this platoon".
I told them that "We would drive on and complete our missions in honor of those who had perished."
I told them that, "If given a mission to accomplish and someone got killed and after review it was found that the mission was valid, that given the order to do the same mission again, we would."
For the first time last Friday evening, those words came slamming home. And I wondered out loud to the interviewer if I lost that platoon at the very moment that I thought I was gaining them.
From my perspective, by saying, "That there were no more victims in this platoon" meant that we would continue to serve proudly in spite of our losses. In fact, we would use the memories and respect for those who had already perished to provide the motivation and dedication needed to carry on. From their perspective, that statement likely has multiple flaws. First, simply by using the pronoun 'we' I was including myself in something that they felt belonged to them. Their pain, their losses, their hardships. There was no 'we'. There was them and there was me. And who was I to make a claim to their pain and pretend that I understood? Second, they were the ones who (in their minds) were victims. Victims of unfair judgment from higher headquarters, victims of abandonment when they tried to make sense of why they were being singled out. I was not a victim because I hadn't been there long enough. In fact, from their perspective, I was probably part of the problem because I had been sent there from their higher headquarters and sure as hell wasn't the answer. Finally, I spoke in absolutes. This is how it will be. This is how it won't be. There was no gray. And by this time they had already figured out that in reality, everything was gray. The 'black and white' that they had deployed with 4 months earlier simply didn't exist. Now there was nothing but shades of gray. And I was just another part of that equation. While I meant what I said to provide a set of bookends or something they could anchor to, that was not what they heard at all.
The second quote about missions probably damned me in their eyes even more than the first. They had lost 4 people to this point, and both sets of losses had been particularly gruesome and not in the expected context of a firefight or direct combat. Additionally, the road that had caused them casualties had now been closed and deemed of no tactical value. Then why had they gone there and why had their platoon mates been killed there? Tough questions that don't have any good answers if you have had to search for remains after a catastrophic explosion. And to claim that we would do it again if required simply meant that I didn't get it either. While I meant to put things back in operational terms that would focus them on the missions ahead, what they heard was another stupid leader who would consign them to die without thinking through what that meant.
There is an old Army axiom that when taking over an onganization, a leader should sit back for awhile and observe how the group works first before making substantive changes. Sure. In a perfect world with plenty of time, that makes sense. When a unit will go outside the wire and patrol again tomorrow, sometimes there just isn't time. Given the fire and trying to refit everyone and continue to operate, time was a luxury I just didn't feel I had. Things had to be done right now, and those things had to stick. One chance to get the message across and that message had to have staying power. The platoon had had too much change and variation lately, there had to be as much consistency as possible. Structure would help. But structure takes time and time was not available.
We often speak of Task, Purpose and Intent. And we spend a lot of time on the Task and the Purpose. The Intent often ends up being nothing more than an almost step-by-step offering of how the Purpose will be achieved. It ends up being the order in a paragraph form instead of the normal order form. But maybe we need to concentrate our efforts a lot more on Intent and spend a little less time on the Purpose. After all, if you give me a mission, 9 times out of 10, I can already tell you what the Purpose is. What might not be so clear is the Intent. How you perceive success and how I perceive success. How you see the mission being accomplished and how I do. How you understand the environment and how I do. Maybe we need to spend more time developing that understanding of mutual Intent. It might just be the answer.
As I have pondered Friday night's conversation a little piece of my journey became a bit more clear. My platoon and I had a very different understanding of Intent. And that misunderstanding between us caused a lot of friction for the remainder of our tour. And I own a piece of that friction because, most certainly, I created it. What I could not see then was that although my words were very carefully chosen, and were designed to achieve a particular Intent as seen through my eyes, all they really did was further separate me from the men who's trust and loyalty I needed to gain. Even today, it's not what I said that distanced them so, it was the manner in which I said it.
At one point Friday night, the interviewer said that when he first heard of me and then started to read my work on the blog, it seemed as if I had come to enough understanding of that time and place to bring me a sense of closure. After talking with me on the phone and then again the other night he said that what he saw now was that this still lives right underneath the surface for me. That my journey is not complete. He saw how real it still remains. He is right. That time and that place and those circumstances must never move too far from my consciousness. They must never get put on the shelf to gather dust. There are still too many lessons for me to learn.
Thanks, Jamey, for increasing and helping to clarify my understanding of myself. It can only serve to make me a better leader somewhere down the road. I'm grateful for you helping to point that out. Another small piece of the leadership puzzle falls in place.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
As we concluded the interview session, and I was getting ready to leave, the interviewer and I were standing around talking and he asked me if there was anything about that time that I would have done differently. I have been asked that question many times before and it is one that I've considered at least once a day for the last 4, almost 5, years. My answer has always been no, I would make the same decisions now that I made then given the same set of circumstances. You cannot go back after the fact, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, and craft a new response that includes information or knowledge that was not present at the time. You have to make the best choice you can, with what you have available. That's what leaders do. They make, as the TRADOC pamphlet points out, "A series of discretionary judgments." They take the facts and circumstances that are known to them, filter them through Orientation and judgment, arrive at a conclusion, and make a determination. One can never have perfect knowledge, and circumstances are continually changing, so the key becomes to do the best you can, with what you have and then remain aware enough to recognize when the unfolding circumstances require an adjustment.
However, in the past when asked that question, "What would you do differently?", I have always framed it very closely tied to the events surrounding March 12 and the attack on the al-Janabi family. The tactical choices I made when the platoon was assigned the mission to guard the traffic control points during that period. What squad went were, the mission that we were going to accomplish etc. As I have often stated, those choices were mine, they were sound, and if presented with the same set of people and circumstances again, I would choose the same course of action as I did back then. During the course of the interview though, the questions and answers and thoughts and recollections had focused much earlier in my tenure than I had really considered before. So much energy has been focused around the rape/murders etc that it some ways it begins to lose it's context. It becomes a moment in time from which there is no going backwards and everything forward becomes uncharted territory. But now I began to think about the manner and method I chose when taking over the platoon back in early February.
I arrived to 1st platoon of February 5th, 2006. That day is permanently seared in the mind of any member of that company because it is also the day that the living quarters for the American contingent on the Forward Operating Base (FOB) burned completely down in a manner of minutes. Faulty wiring and an overloaded circuit caused the entire U.S. portion of the FOB to go up in flames. In the rush to get all the people out of the building, there was no time to remove equipment, mementos etc. Soldiers lost everything they owned or had been issued. We flew people out that day in Flip-Flops, their PT shorts, and fleece jackets which equaled the sum total of their worldly possessions at that moment.
A few days later was the first time that I could gather the platoon in one place and formally introduce myself to them. And I remember almost word for word what I told them. [It is important to remember that at this point, they had already suffered 4 KIA, had been facing some very intense pressure from their higher headquarters, were on their 3rd platoon sergeant in 45 days and had just had their 'home' burned to the ground.]
I told them that, "There are no more victims in this platoon".
I told them that "We would drive on and complete our missions in honor of those who had perished."
I told them that, "If given a mission to accomplish and someone got killed and after review it was found that the mission was valid, that given the order to do the same mission again, we would."
For the first time last Friday evening, those words came slamming home. And I wondered out loud to the interviewer if I lost that platoon at the very moment that I thought I was gaining them.
From my perspective, by saying, "That there were no more victims in this platoon" meant that we would continue to serve proudly in spite of our losses. In fact, we would use the memories and respect for those who had already perished to provide the motivation and dedication needed to carry on. From their perspective, that statement likely has multiple flaws. First, simply by using the pronoun 'we' I was including myself in something that they felt belonged to them. Their pain, their losses, their hardships. There was no 'we'. There was them and there was me. And who was I to make a claim to their pain and pretend that I understood? Second, they were the ones who (in their minds) were victims. Victims of unfair judgment from higher headquarters, victims of abandonment when they tried to make sense of why they were being singled out. I was not a victim because I hadn't been there long enough. In fact, from their perspective, I was probably part of the problem because I had been sent there from their higher headquarters and sure as hell wasn't the answer. Finally, I spoke in absolutes. This is how it will be. This is how it won't be. There was no gray. And by this time they had already figured out that in reality, everything was gray. The 'black and white' that they had deployed with 4 months earlier simply didn't exist. Now there was nothing but shades of gray. And I was just another part of that equation. While I meant what I said to provide a set of bookends or something they could anchor to, that was not what they heard at all.
The second quote about missions probably damned me in their eyes even more than the first. They had lost 4 people to this point, and both sets of losses had been particularly gruesome and not in the expected context of a firefight or direct combat. Additionally, the road that had caused them casualties had now been closed and deemed of no tactical value. Then why had they gone there and why had their platoon mates been killed there? Tough questions that don't have any good answers if you have had to search for remains after a catastrophic explosion. And to claim that we would do it again if required simply meant that I didn't get it either. While I meant to put things back in operational terms that would focus them on the missions ahead, what they heard was another stupid leader who would consign them to die without thinking through what that meant.
There is an old Army axiom that when taking over an onganization, a leader should sit back for awhile and observe how the group works first before making substantive changes. Sure. In a perfect world with plenty of time, that makes sense. When a unit will go outside the wire and patrol again tomorrow, sometimes there just isn't time. Given the fire and trying to refit everyone and continue to operate, time was a luxury I just didn't feel I had. Things had to be done right now, and those things had to stick. One chance to get the message across and that message had to have staying power. The platoon had had too much change and variation lately, there had to be as much consistency as possible. Structure would help. But structure takes time and time was not available.
We often speak of Task, Purpose and Intent. And we spend a lot of time on the Task and the Purpose. The Intent often ends up being nothing more than an almost step-by-step offering of how the Purpose will be achieved. It ends up being the order in a paragraph form instead of the normal order form. But maybe we need to concentrate our efforts a lot more on Intent and spend a little less time on the Purpose. After all, if you give me a mission, 9 times out of 10, I can already tell you what the Purpose is. What might not be so clear is the Intent. How you perceive success and how I perceive success. How you see the mission being accomplished and how I do. How you understand the environment and how I do. Maybe we need to spend more time developing that understanding of mutual Intent. It might just be the answer.
As I have pondered Friday night's conversation a little piece of my journey became a bit more clear. My platoon and I had a very different understanding of Intent. And that misunderstanding between us caused a lot of friction for the remainder of our tour. And I own a piece of that friction because, most certainly, I created it. What I could not see then was that although my words were very carefully chosen, and were designed to achieve a particular Intent as seen through my eyes, all they really did was further separate me from the men who's trust and loyalty I needed to gain. Even today, it's not what I said that distanced them so, it was the manner in which I said it.
At one point Friday night, the interviewer said that when he first heard of me and then started to read my work on the blog, it seemed as if I had come to enough understanding of that time and place to bring me a sense of closure. After talking with me on the phone and then again the other night he said that what he saw now was that this still lives right underneath the surface for me. That my journey is not complete. He saw how real it still remains. He is right. That time and that place and those circumstances must never move too far from my consciousness. They must never get put on the shelf to gather dust. There are still too many lessons for me to learn.
Thanks, Jamey, for increasing and helping to clarify my understanding of myself. It can only serve to make me a better leader somewhere down the road. I'm grateful for you helping to point that out. Another small piece of the leadership puzzle falls in place.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#107 Do We Really Want Change?
When I have some free time in the evening, I usually try to find articles or websites to use as references here. Normally, I'll download something worth considering and then store it in a work folder on my hard drive. So yesterday I went looking through my archives and came across an interesting article from Small Wars Journal written in September 2010 by COL (Ret) Christopher Paparone entitled "Design and the Prospects for Deviant Leadership". You can find the link here:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/530-paparone.pdf
COL Paparone's article raises some very interesting questions regarding leadership, change agents and the institution. Consider the following:
"Interestingly, Ron Heifetz, in his 1994 book Leadership Without Easy Answers, does not use any version of the word ―follower throughout his 348 pages of text. His thesis is that leaders help others lead themselves through difficult, complex, and even life-threatening circumstances (leaders beget self-leaders). His principal argument is that leadership is adaptive work that occurs where technical definitions and solutions are not available. The implications are clear for the military: if you and your troops are not dealing in adaptive work when faced with unique, novel, and complex situations, you are engaged in something else other than leadership.
According to Heifetz, adaptive work involves influencing others away from reliance on authoritative response. An undesirable feature of the more traditional way of framing leadership is that it creates inappropriate dependencies where others are not motivated to discover or create solutions because they rely on the leader to do it for them. In other words, the traditional (culturally, habit-forming) view is that leadership is a kind of technology that troops depend on as a source for authoritative response. This dependency is a constraint when adaptivity is needed.
Heifetz’s alternative view challenges the values, attitudes, and habits that comprise the military’s proclivity to see leadership as a socially-acceptable form of follower dependency. Heifetz argues that the preferred purpose of leadership is to lessen dependence, promoting a more decentralized adaptivity in individuals, groups and, organizations when faced with novel, highly complex, and ambiguous situations. Instead of authoritative response being the currency of leadership, reorienting the attention of others on creative deviance (or what others have called ―craftwork) becomes the important aspect of leaders’ work. ―Leading without authority‖ displaces the authoritative-technical mindset. From this view, leadership is provocative in nature – spurring the debate while not resolving it (―with no heat, nothing cooks‖). In Heifetz’s terms, ―A sense of purpose is not the same as a clearly defined purpose, and the former (purposeful sensibility) is more efficacious than the traditional norm – that leaders are supposed to provide clarity of purpose. While the difference may be subtle, on deeper reflection, his argument reflects the worldview shift demanded by postpositivism (leadership draws attention to the unsurely) from positivism (where leadership is expected to provide surety)."
In plain terms, our current leadership definition and model creates a dependent nature within the organization and when faced with challenges that do not have a proscribed, preordained, answer, the subordinate has no appropriate response.
I found the following sentences of particular interest:
1. "Leaders help others lead themselves through difficult, complex and even life-threatening situations."
2. "Adaptive work involves influencing others away from reliance on authoritative response."
3. "An undesirable feature of the more traditional way of framing leadership is that it creates inappropriate dependencies where others are not motivated to discover or create solutions because they rely on the leader to do it for them."
4. "Heifetz argues that the preferred purpose of leadership is to lessen dependence, promoting a more decentralized adaptivity in individuals, groups and, organizations when faced with novel, highly complex, and ambiguous situations."
For the last three years or so, the Army has been touting adaptability as a cornerstone for leader development. We need to develop leaders who have the ability to discern unfolding conditional changes in real time, understand the potential implications of those changing conditions and then craft appropriate responses to them that will lead to the organizations larger desired outcome. Much like Gen Dempsey expressed the idea that we have embraced decentralization as an "absolute good" without necessarily considering it's complete impacts, I also believe this is true for the buzzword of adaptability. We say it, that we need adaptive leaders, but have we really embraced what it means? And how long will it take until we come to a consensus on how to achieve it? By the time that we get there, the conditions will have changed again. It becomes a never-ending cycle of playing catch up.
But, here's the real question, do we really want this adaptive change? Are we truly interested in developing the ability to move away an authoritative response? Really? Or are we just playing another set of word games while continuing to reinforce at every level the authoritative structural model that currently exists? Right now I am inclined to say that we are really only dabbling around the edges. True reform of the leader development system is still very threatening to the organization as a whole.
Consider this...Last week a discussion was started on the Army Website that asked people to consider what negative impacts the last decade of war and constant deployment cycles has had on the Army. These forums are going on all over the Army right now as we try to understand the American Profession of Arms after a decade on conflict. One of these forums is for ILE (Intermediate Level Education Program) students - normally Army Majors. Some of their responses appear to demonstrate to me that even if we have a somewhat fuzzy understanding of what adaptability and agility requires, the idea of it is positively scary to many folks.
One student wrote: "With changing economic constraints, it is imperative that we focus our efforts on specific goals and priorities. While we would like to imagine dealing with every possibility, we should adapt to what is "the likely" and build aggressive teams that are grounded in the basics and can think through problems."
Thought: By the time we could determine what those 'likely' possibilities are and develop training mechanisms for them, they undoubtedly will have already changed.
Another: "The past nine to ten years have had the effect of making us jacks of all trades, but masters of none. Although it is advantageous that we are building a diverse skill set, it is presenting a critical challenge as we move forward. How do we, as leaders, begin to resharpen not only our but our Soldier's skills as a conventional Army? Moreover, will we ever be the conventional Army of the past again? As we learned the other day from a speaker doctrine is evolving that will, one would hope, address how we get to the crux of this challenge."
Thought: How can you recognize on one hand that the skill-sets needed for unconventional warfare are advantageous and yet not recognize that they are also critical skills in a conventional conflict?
Another: "We spend a lot of time and energy training our Soldiers and leaders to be prepared to fight the current battle, sometimes to the detriment of basic skills and knowledge sets. Our Soldiers and junior leaders know a lot about the insurgents and how to accomplish this mission, but sometimes tend to forget the basic tenets that set us apart from those we fight."
Thought: What war should we be fighting? If not the current one, then which one?
Sadly, although this discussion forum is posted on a website for all Army leaders, so far, I am the only NCO to reply. Interestingly, although I always include my contact data at the bottom of any posting, no one has bothered to challenge any of my assertions.
What bothered me most about their replies however, was an almost plaintive desire to return to an army that no longer exists. 'Back to the basics'...'Conventional skill sets'...Our Soldier have learned how to fight the insurgents to the detriment of basic skills'. If we accept that counter-insurgent warfare presents a much more complex series of problems for people to solve, then why are so many people wanting to return to a conventional mindset? We have been playing chess for 10 years, why return the checkers?
There was another response though that really brought this home:
"Those of us who have been in the Army longer than the War on Terror remember being OICs or RSOs at ranges. We remember planning FTXs for our platoons outside of the company, battalion, and brigade-level exercises. We remember police call, mandatory training events, and a myriad other things we don't do as much or at all anymore. Many of these lost skills of garrison leadership and activity are leading to the discipline problems we're now experiencing, because the younger leaders are unfamiliar with what to do in garrison, but let the soldiers do as they did while deployed."
I'm sorry, I guess I forgot that mandatory police calls of the motorpool and mandatory chain teaching events equaled a 'lost' leadership skill. Hands across the motorpool and herding people into an auditorium to watch an Equal Opportunity video isn't leadership at all. And, unless that particular Major is a former enlisted Soldier, it is not very often that officers engage in police calls anyway. While his argument that we have a need to learn how to operate in a garrison environment is true, as I have often stated before, this only requires an understanding of the 'new' environment using the skills that a decade of war have provided us.
Truly adaptive leadership will require that we develop more 'jacks of all trades'. In fact, that would be an expressed purpose. In order to become a 'jack of all trades' one must possess the mental agility to rapidly bring together various pieces of information and arrange them in a manner that provides possible solutions. To be a 'jack', means that we will inherently have to foster an environment that moves away from authoritative responses and moves towards an environment of self-awareness, self-confidence, self-initiative, and self-reasoning. The purpose of the leader becomes not to give the answer, but to help others discover the answer by assisting in developing their awareness. In effect, true adaptive leadership training will require less, not more. It is also true that this type of leader development may suit the Millennial generation more so than their predecessors. Their world is one of rapid changes, instant access, and continually evolving and redefined realities. The Army is already beginning to deal with this with it's reinforcement of the basic tenants of Mission Command, but I truly believe that it is the institution that resists this change. Many people still secretly want to remain a top-down, check with the boss, type organization. They still want operational and personal validation. And coupled with that validation is the idea of responsibility sharing. They don't want to be the only one holding the bag if the outcome of an event is different than what was intended. Especially if it ends up with dead or wounded Soldiers. The current model makes risk aversion and risk sharing the norm. An agility based model would inherently place the burden of risk, it's awareness, and it's mitigation at the singular point of the event itself. I alone would be responsible for the decisions I make. The institutions responsibility is to develop my ability to make them.
Further on in Paparone's article is the following:
"Adaptive (deviant!) leadership is dispersed, linked primarily by common values and sense of purpose. Instead of directing operations, those in senior positions would instead seek to foster support to these diverse and disperse island-communities of action-learning."
First, I find it interesting that he terms the Army's new favorite word 'adaptive' deviant. Since deviance usually has a negative connotation, I'm positive that this was done by design. The idea that we could (and should) have an 'inverted' system that focuses all effort at the bottom and those efforts are supported by the top, instead of our current top down solution would truly be a deviation for many people. Think about all those titles and egos and self-professed leaders who would then have to reorient themselves to the idea that they play second fiddle to a 25 year old Lieutenant or Sergeant who is operating at the point of attack. Generals and Colonels, and Majors and Command Sergeants Major and all other 'senior' people would exist for the singular purpose of clearing space for the smallest element to effectively work in.
Second, notice that the role of the senior is very broad and generalized. The role of the hierarchy becomes to foster common values, build teams, thematically support objectives. It would expressly remove a lot of the directive top down approaches we are all familiar with today.
Col Paparone's article should be mandatory reading for everyone. If we truly desire to build adaptability into our system, and we commit to building leaders who possess mental agility and the ability to rapidly reorient themselves to changing conditions, then we need to study this work. Start with one Soldier - anyone, doesn't matter who. Determine their mental / moral / behavioral start point. Outline, define and demonstrate the institutional values, ethic, and norms. This creates a line with a new Soldier on one side and the Army on the other. Then drive the Soldier's development by constantly challenging them with growth opportunity. Challenge their knowledge - and develop it. Challenge how they think and develop it. Challenge their moral convictions and develop them. Challenge their behaviors and develop them.
The singular purpose of all leaders is to create the conditions by which their subordinates can be successful. If you believe that, then you likely believe that Soldiers are our centerpiece. If you don't believe that then you likely place your faith in systems and structures. Sooner or later we all have to choose. Right now, for all the talk about developing mental agility and adaptability, it still appears that there are many who prefer the systems and structures method. Maybe what this period requires is a whole bunch of deviants. Those who challenge and question, and grow. Count me in that group.
I was watching one of Col Boyd's videos the other day I came across this quote:
"I don't have a problem with doctrine as long as those who write it understand that it is never final. It is doctrine one day and dogma the next."
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/530-paparone.pdf
COL Paparone's article raises some very interesting questions regarding leadership, change agents and the institution. Consider the following:
"Interestingly, Ron Heifetz, in his 1994 book Leadership Without Easy Answers, does not use any version of the word ―follower throughout his 348 pages of text. His thesis is that leaders help others lead themselves through difficult, complex, and even life-threatening circumstances (leaders beget self-leaders). His principal argument is that leadership is adaptive work that occurs where technical definitions and solutions are not available. The implications are clear for the military: if you and your troops are not dealing in adaptive work when faced with unique, novel, and complex situations, you are engaged in something else other than leadership.
According to Heifetz, adaptive work involves influencing others away from reliance on authoritative response. An undesirable feature of the more traditional way of framing leadership is that it creates inappropriate dependencies where others are not motivated to discover or create solutions because they rely on the leader to do it for them. In other words, the traditional (culturally, habit-forming) view is that leadership is a kind of technology that troops depend on as a source for authoritative response. This dependency is a constraint when adaptivity is needed.
Heifetz’s alternative view challenges the values, attitudes, and habits that comprise the military’s proclivity to see leadership as a socially-acceptable form of follower dependency. Heifetz argues that the preferred purpose of leadership is to lessen dependence, promoting a more decentralized adaptivity in individuals, groups and, organizations when faced with novel, highly complex, and ambiguous situations. Instead of authoritative response being the currency of leadership, reorienting the attention of others on creative deviance (or what others have called ―craftwork) becomes the important aspect of leaders’ work. ―Leading without authority‖ displaces the authoritative-technical mindset. From this view, leadership is provocative in nature – spurring the debate while not resolving it (―with no heat, nothing cooks‖). In Heifetz’s terms, ―A sense of purpose is not the same as a clearly defined purpose, and the former (purposeful sensibility) is more efficacious than the traditional norm – that leaders are supposed to provide clarity of purpose. While the difference may be subtle, on deeper reflection, his argument reflects the worldview shift demanded by postpositivism (leadership draws attention to the unsurely) from positivism (where leadership is expected to provide surety)."
In plain terms, our current leadership definition and model creates a dependent nature within the organization and when faced with challenges that do not have a proscribed, preordained, answer, the subordinate has no appropriate response.
I found the following sentences of particular interest:
1. "Leaders help others lead themselves through difficult, complex and even life-threatening situations."
2. "Adaptive work involves influencing others away from reliance on authoritative response."
3. "An undesirable feature of the more traditional way of framing leadership is that it creates inappropriate dependencies where others are not motivated to discover or create solutions because they rely on the leader to do it for them."
4. "Heifetz argues that the preferred purpose of leadership is to lessen dependence, promoting a more decentralized adaptivity in individuals, groups and, organizations when faced with novel, highly complex, and ambiguous situations."
For the last three years or so, the Army has been touting adaptability as a cornerstone for leader development. We need to develop leaders who have the ability to discern unfolding conditional changes in real time, understand the potential implications of those changing conditions and then craft appropriate responses to them that will lead to the organizations larger desired outcome. Much like Gen Dempsey expressed the idea that we have embraced decentralization as an "absolute good" without necessarily considering it's complete impacts, I also believe this is true for the buzzword of adaptability. We say it, that we need adaptive leaders, but have we really embraced what it means? And how long will it take until we come to a consensus on how to achieve it? By the time that we get there, the conditions will have changed again. It becomes a never-ending cycle of playing catch up.
But, here's the real question, do we really want this adaptive change? Are we truly interested in developing the ability to move away an authoritative response? Really? Or are we just playing another set of word games while continuing to reinforce at every level the authoritative structural model that currently exists? Right now I am inclined to say that we are really only dabbling around the edges. True reform of the leader development system is still very threatening to the organization as a whole.
Consider this...Last week a discussion was started on the Army Website that asked people to consider what negative impacts the last decade of war and constant deployment cycles has had on the Army. These forums are going on all over the Army right now as we try to understand the American Profession of Arms after a decade on conflict. One of these forums is for ILE (Intermediate Level Education Program) students - normally Army Majors. Some of their responses appear to demonstrate to me that even if we have a somewhat fuzzy understanding of what adaptability and agility requires, the idea of it is positively scary to many folks.
One student wrote: "With changing economic constraints, it is imperative that we focus our efforts on specific goals and priorities. While we would like to imagine dealing with every possibility, we should adapt to what is "the likely" and build aggressive teams that are grounded in the basics and can think through problems."
Thought: By the time we could determine what those 'likely' possibilities are and develop training mechanisms for them, they undoubtedly will have already changed.
Another: "The past nine to ten years have had the effect of making us jacks of all trades, but masters of none. Although it is advantageous that we are building a diverse skill set, it is presenting a critical challenge as we move forward. How do we, as leaders, begin to resharpen not only our but our Soldier's skills as a conventional Army? Moreover, will we ever be the conventional Army of the past again? As we learned the other day from a speaker doctrine is evolving that will, one would hope, address how we get to the crux of this challenge."
Thought: How can you recognize on one hand that the skill-sets needed for unconventional warfare are advantageous and yet not recognize that they are also critical skills in a conventional conflict?
Another: "We spend a lot of time and energy training our Soldiers and leaders to be prepared to fight the current battle, sometimes to the detriment of basic skills and knowledge sets. Our Soldiers and junior leaders know a lot about the insurgents and how to accomplish this mission, but sometimes tend to forget the basic tenets that set us apart from those we fight."
Thought: What war should we be fighting? If not the current one, then which one?
Sadly, although this discussion forum is posted on a website for all Army leaders, so far, I am the only NCO to reply. Interestingly, although I always include my contact data at the bottom of any posting, no one has bothered to challenge any of my assertions.
What bothered me most about their replies however, was an almost plaintive desire to return to an army that no longer exists. 'Back to the basics'...'Conventional skill sets'...Our Soldier have learned how to fight the insurgents to the detriment of basic skills'. If we accept that counter-insurgent warfare presents a much more complex series of problems for people to solve, then why are so many people wanting to return to a conventional mindset? We have been playing chess for 10 years, why return the checkers?
There was another response though that really brought this home:
"Those of us who have been in the Army longer than the War on Terror remember being OICs or RSOs at ranges. We remember planning FTXs for our platoons outside of the company, battalion, and brigade-level exercises. We remember police call, mandatory training events, and a myriad other things we don't do as much or at all anymore. Many of these lost skills of garrison leadership and activity are leading to the discipline problems we're now experiencing, because the younger leaders are unfamiliar with what to do in garrison, but let the soldiers do as they did while deployed."
I'm sorry, I guess I forgot that mandatory police calls of the motorpool and mandatory chain teaching events equaled a 'lost' leadership skill. Hands across the motorpool and herding people into an auditorium to watch an Equal Opportunity video isn't leadership at all. And, unless that particular Major is a former enlisted Soldier, it is not very often that officers engage in police calls anyway. While his argument that we have a need to learn how to operate in a garrison environment is true, as I have often stated before, this only requires an understanding of the 'new' environment using the skills that a decade of war have provided us.
Truly adaptive leadership will require that we develop more 'jacks of all trades'. In fact, that would be an expressed purpose. In order to become a 'jack of all trades' one must possess the mental agility to rapidly bring together various pieces of information and arrange them in a manner that provides possible solutions. To be a 'jack', means that we will inherently have to foster an environment that moves away from authoritative responses and moves towards an environment of self-awareness, self-confidence, self-initiative, and self-reasoning. The purpose of the leader becomes not to give the answer, but to help others discover the answer by assisting in developing their awareness. In effect, true adaptive leadership training will require less, not more. It is also true that this type of leader development may suit the Millennial generation more so than their predecessors. Their world is one of rapid changes, instant access, and continually evolving and redefined realities. The Army is already beginning to deal with this with it's reinforcement of the basic tenants of Mission Command, but I truly believe that it is the institution that resists this change. Many people still secretly want to remain a top-down, check with the boss, type organization. They still want operational and personal validation. And coupled with that validation is the idea of responsibility sharing. They don't want to be the only one holding the bag if the outcome of an event is different than what was intended. Especially if it ends up with dead or wounded Soldiers. The current model makes risk aversion and risk sharing the norm. An agility based model would inherently place the burden of risk, it's awareness, and it's mitigation at the singular point of the event itself. I alone would be responsible for the decisions I make. The institutions responsibility is to develop my ability to make them.
Further on in Paparone's article is the following:
"Adaptive (deviant!) leadership is dispersed, linked primarily by common values and sense of purpose. Instead of directing operations, those in senior positions would instead seek to foster support to these diverse and disperse island-communities of action-learning."
First, I find it interesting that he terms the Army's new favorite word 'adaptive' deviant. Since deviance usually has a negative connotation, I'm positive that this was done by design. The idea that we could (and should) have an 'inverted' system that focuses all effort at the bottom and those efforts are supported by the top, instead of our current top down solution would truly be a deviation for many people. Think about all those titles and egos and self-professed leaders who would then have to reorient themselves to the idea that they play second fiddle to a 25 year old Lieutenant or Sergeant who is operating at the point of attack. Generals and Colonels, and Majors and Command Sergeants Major and all other 'senior' people would exist for the singular purpose of clearing space for the smallest element to effectively work in.
Second, notice that the role of the senior is very broad and generalized. The role of the hierarchy becomes to foster common values, build teams, thematically support objectives. It would expressly remove a lot of the directive top down approaches we are all familiar with today.
Col Paparone's article should be mandatory reading for everyone. If we truly desire to build adaptability into our system, and we commit to building leaders who possess mental agility and the ability to rapidly reorient themselves to changing conditions, then we need to study this work. Start with one Soldier - anyone, doesn't matter who. Determine their mental / moral / behavioral start point. Outline, define and demonstrate the institutional values, ethic, and norms. This creates a line with a new Soldier on one side and the Army on the other. Then drive the Soldier's development by constantly challenging them with growth opportunity. Challenge their knowledge - and develop it. Challenge how they think and develop it. Challenge their moral convictions and develop them. Challenge their behaviors and develop them.
The singular purpose of all leaders is to create the conditions by which their subordinates can be successful. If you believe that, then you likely believe that Soldiers are our centerpiece. If you don't believe that then you likely place your faith in systems and structures. Sooner or later we all have to choose. Right now, for all the talk about developing mental agility and adaptability, it still appears that there are many who prefer the systems and structures method. Maybe what this period requires is a whole bunch of deviants. Those who challenge and question, and grow. Count me in that group.
I was watching one of Col Boyd's videos the other day I came across this quote:
"I don't have a problem with doctrine as long as those who write it understand that it is never final. It is doctrine one day and dogma the next."
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#106 The Three of You
This idea has been rolling around in my head for some time now but just hasn't quite made it to the blog yet. It centers around self-awareness and the importance of seeing yourself from a somewhat independent view. It came into focus a little more sharply this weekend from two conversations I had with two people at different points in their careers.
On Friday evening I went to dinner with a dear friend who will retire next Summer after 22 years of service. When I first learned of her choice, I doubted its' truth because she has been suffering under a boss lately who has done a lot to change her overall feeling about continuing to stay in the Army. I wondered if she might be taking a long term solution to a short term problem. On her last night in America on leave we went to a quiet restaurant and I asked her why she was hanging it up now. Her answers were truthful, poignant, and I think, reflect the thoughts and feelings that many of us face as we reach the end of our career. Essentially, her comments came down to this: She has served the Army since she was 17 years old. Her entire adult life has been in service to her Nation, her Army, and her Soldiers. She does not know how to do, or be, anything else. A lot of her self-definition comes from her professional being. But now she has started taking stock of that life and found out that along the way, she denied herself a lot of things. While service can provide focus and purpose and meaning, she is now becoming much more aware of the emptiness that sometimes surrounds her life. She desires something more complete. No more 16 hour days and coming home to an empty house. No more weekends where her dogs equal her companionship. No more requirement for 24 hour a day dedication to dealing with what someone else feels is the 'crisis of the moment'. It is time for her to dedicate some time to her in the hope that she can fill some of the empty spaces that her 22 years of service have created. She is not bitter about them, nor angry, nor sad, just aware. She is feeling a more acute need to fill those spaces, and that cannot only be done by the Army. Her definition requires more.
As we were talking, I asked her to consider what message, what legacy, she wanted to leave behind for those Soldiers who look at her as a role model. What message did she have for them?
The second conversation was with a female Drill Sergeant who had asked me for some advice concerning a follow-on assignment after her current tour ends. We had a great talk about a lot of things, but towards the end came upon the question of how her Soldiers view her. What do they see when they remember or think about her? What message does her presence and her service send? She is at a much different place in her career than my other friend. She is in the middle of the fray right now, fighting and searching and learning, and developing. The 'game' of the Army is still challenging and provides her with a lot to do, see, and learn. Her adventure is only just beginning. She is in many ways, the very same person as my first friend - totally absorbed in the requirements of the profession and somewhat unaware of the costs it extracts. She strikes me as willing to think deeply about herself, her awareness, and her roles, she just needs a mentor to foster the discussion.
Those two conversations set the stage for this:
There are 3 distinct people in each of us and as leaders we need to be aware of each of them equally. First, there is you. Who you really are - all alone in the dark by yourself. The you that that no one can see. This one admits your fears, your weaknesses, your hopes, desires and dreams. It admits your failings and foibles and those things that the outside world is generally not privy to. It accepts your idiosyncrasies, and habits. It's the you that only a life-long spouse might know after all the layers have been stripped away. It is the you who is both conceited and contrite, arrogant and fearful, generous and hateful. It is the you who admits it's shallowness and bigotry as equally as it lauds it's importance and contributions.
Then there is the professional you. That person who steps out into the world everyday and presents an image of something. This you is the interaction with the world and is full of judgment and doubt and role-playing. This is also the world of expectation. This you is partially a character created by the 'alone' you to hide those things you do not want others to see, and to navigate your way through the requirements of your outside world. This you generally paints the prettiest, most competent picture for others to consume. This you is often like a movie set where the picture on the screen is of an idyllic view of what the director wants the viewer to see, but it is only the store-front, or paint on canvas. Behind it there really is no structure.
Finally, there is the you as seen by that outside world. How others view you. What they see, hear, and feel through their interaction with you. It equals their interpretation of you. Their Orientation. An understanding of this you is very important because it has a lot to do with how your thoughts, ideas, plans, visisions, orders, directives etc get (or do not get) implemented. A lack of understanding that, who you think they see and interact with can be very different from their understanding of who they see and interact with, might be the least explored (and potentially most important) area of any leader development program. While we spend a lot of time trying to get folks to know themselves and to see the impact of that awareness on how they lead, we generally do not spend a lot of time fostering an awareness that the message we think we are sending might not be close to the message that those around us are receiving. To follow the movie set theme, this is the audience. They sit in their seats and think they are seeing a picture of downtown USA, but do not realize that it is partialy a facade. They are not permitted to look behind the wall. And if that is true, then aren't we selling them that facade? Soldiers follow because they believe in you and what you represent and their understanding of those things. If all we are is a facade of professionalism, haven't we done them a huge disservice?
The goal for true leadership competency should be to gain awareness of these three parts, and to bring them all together as closely as possible. Who I am when I am alone should closely resemble who my world sees as I interact with it, and if that happens, then in all likelihood, my world's interpretation of me will be pretty close as well.
Why does all this matter? Why can't I create two seperate people - the one I am by myself, and the one I give away for public consumption and interpretation? Why can't the professional and the personal me be separate? Simply stated: If you choose to live that way, sooner or later you will be undone by one or the other and then those you lead will never trust you again. Soldiers do not act, have faith in, or follow you because you hold a rank, position, or title. Not really. They may follow originally because they must based upon those things, but ultimately they do so reluctantly and without faith. Soldiers follow because they believe in you and that faith generates from their being able to find things in you that they can relate to. If they cannot find traits and behaviors and ideas to consider in their interaction with you then they are merely employees who will serve for only as long as the cost/benefit ratio makes sense to them. Soldiers who truly believe in you will follow you almost instinctively and with a faith that cannot be quantified or proven. And they cannot do that, and will not do that, if they think you are merely an actor playing a role in some long drawn out drama. Sooner or later they will decide to change the channel.
I try very hard to be honest about who I am with my Soldiers. Sometimes probably too much so. There really aren't too many secrets to my life. If you ask me, I'll likely tell you. My life and my experiences are pretty much an open book. I have found that it is a much more honest and ultimately positive way to lead. While I may not always be proud of myself or things I have done, I have found that there is not too much to be afraid of there. I try very hard not to sell an illusion. I may be a role model, but it is a role model with all the warts and failings and cheapness that can be me. When I speak to them about the roles we each have to play in the organization, it is not about personal acting or role-playing, it is about institutional positions and the expectations of each part of the organization. I play the role of the senior leader. It is the job I have. It has requirements and expectations. I have obligations to it. But it is not completely who I am. My Soldiers have roles to play as well, but they are not completely who they are. These are only one part of the larger awarenesses that we all possess.
My friend who is getting ready to retire appears to me to have recognized this. She gave all she had for a lot of years to her development and to living in the professional world. And now she recognizes the cost of that commitment. My friend the Drill Sergeant isn't fully aware yet, or hasn't totally recognized, the power of the role she is playing. And yet both are outstanding leaders. I wonder what words of wisdom the retiree will leave behind to her young acolytes who look to follow in her footsteps? I wonder if the Drill Sergeant can see that who she is all alone at night is a hell of a lot more powerful as a leader than the role she plays during the day? I wonder if either of them recognizes that they are being looked at, studied and emulated by others. And the greatest message there is that if you recognize that they want to be like you, shouldn't you at least provide them the fullest understanding of who you are?
Sometimes I wonder why I have been able to affect some folks the way that I have. Although I don't fully understand it, I am aware that there are people who look up to me, emulate me, and try to model themselves after me. When it comes up in conversation and I ask them why they feel that way, a lot of them seem to struggle a bit for an answer. They are not quite sure why they feel that way, but most will generally settle on this idea: I am real. I am not acting. My emotions are not crafted or hidden. I am human. Ultimately they find more to look up to in Jeff Fenlason than they do in Master Sergeant Fenlason, and somehow, it seems to me, there is a great lesson in leadership there. If only we all weren't so busy trying to hide all the time.
To my friends - Thank you both for helping me get to this place. I appreciate and celebrate the journeys you both are on. Thanks for letting me spend a small part of it with you.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
On Friday evening I went to dinner with a dear friend who will retire next Summer after 22 years of service. When I first learned of her choice, I doubted its' truth because she has been suffering under a boss lately who has done a lot to change her overall feeling about continuing to stay in the Army. I wondered if she might be taking a long term solution to a short term problem. On her last night in America on leave we went to a quiet restaurant and I asked her why she was hanging it up now. Her answers were truthful, poignant, and I think, reflect the thoughts and feelings that many of us face as we reach the end of our career. Essentially, her comments came down to this: She has served the Army since she was 17 years old. Her entire adult life has been in service to her Nation, her Army, and her Soldiers. She does not know how to do, or be, anything else. A lot of her self-definition comes from her professional being. But now she has started taking stock of that life and found out that along the way, she denied herself a lot of things. While service can provide focus and purpose and meaning, she is now becoming much more aware of the emptiness that sometimes surrounds her life. She desires something more complete. No more 16 hour days and coming home to an empty house. No more weekends where her dogs equal her companionship. No more requirement for 24 hour a day dedication to dealing with what someone else feels is the 'crisis of the moment'. It is time for her to dedicate some time to her in the hope that she can fill some of the empty spaces that her 22 years of service have created. She is not bitter about them, nor angry, nor sad, just aware. She is feeling a more acute need to fill those spaces, and that cannot only be done by the Army. Her definition requires more.
As we were talking, I asked her to consider what message, what legacy, she wanted to leave behind for those Soldiers who look at her as a role model. What message did she have for them?
The second conversation was with a female Drill Sergeant who had asked me for some advice concerning a follow-on assignment after her current tour ends. We had a great talk about a lot of things, but towards the end came upon the question of how her Soldiers view her. What do they see when they remember or think about her? What message does her presence and her service send? She is at a much different place in her career than my other friend. She is in the middle of the fray right now, fighting and searching and learning, and developing. The 'game' of the Army is still challenging and provides her with a lot to do, see, and learn. Her adventure is only just beginning. She is in many ways, the very same person as my first friend - totally absorbed in the requirements of the profession and somewhat unaware of the costs it extracts. She strikes me as willing to think deeply about herself, her awareness, and her roles, she just needs a mentor to foster the discussion.
Those two conversations set the stage for this:
There are 3 distinct people in each of us and as leaders we need to be aware of each of them equally. First, there is you. Who you really are - all alone in the dark by yourself. The you that that no one can see. This one admits your fears, your weaknesses, your hopes, desires and dreams. It admits your failings and foibles and those things that the outside world is generally not privy to. It accepts your idiosyncrasies, and habits. It's the you that only a life-long spouse might know after all the layers have been stripped away. It is the you who is both conceited and contrite, arrogant and fearful, generous and hateful. It is the you who admits it's shallowness and bigotry as equally as it lauds it's importance and contributions.
Then there is the professional you. That person who steps out into the world everyday and presents an image of something. This you is the interaction with the world and is full of judgment and doubt and role-playing. This is also the world of expectation. This you is partially a character created by the 'alone' you to hide those things you do not want others to see, and to navigate your way through the requirements of your outside world. This you generally paints the prettiest, most competent picture for others to consume. This you is often like a movie set where the picture on the screen is of an idyllic view of what the director wants the viewer to see, but it is only the store-front, or paint on canvas. Behind it there really is no structure.
Finally, there is the you as seen by that outside world. How others view you. What they see, hear, and feel through their interaction with you. It equals their interpretation of you. Their Orientation. An understanding of this you is very important because it has a lot to do with how your thoughts, ideas, plans, visisions, orders, directives etc get (or do not get) implemented. A lack of understanding that, who you think they see and interact with can be very different from their understanding of who they see and interact with, might be the least explored (and potentially most important) area of any leader development program. While we spend a lot of time trying to get folks to know themselves and to see the impact of that awareness on how they lead, we generally do not spend a lot of time fostering an awareness that the message we think we are sending might not be close to the message that those around us are receiving. To follow the movie set theme, this is the audience. They sit in their seats and think they are seeing a picture of downtown USA, but do not realize that it is partialy a facade. They are not permitted to look behind the wall. And if that is true, then aren't we selling them that facade? Soldiers follow because they believe in you and what you represent and their understanding of those things. If all we are is a facade of professionalism, haven't we done them a huge disservice?
The goal for true leadership competency should be to gain awareness of these three parts, and to bring them all together as closely as possible. Who I am when I am alone should closely resemble who my world sees as I interact with it, and if that happens, then in all likelihood, my world's interpretation of me will be pretty close as well.
Why does all this matter? Why can't I create two seperate people - the one I am by myself, and the one I give away for public consumption and interpretation? Why can't the professional and the personal me be separate? Simply stated: If you choose to live that way, sooner or later you will be undone by one or the other and then those you lead will never trust you again. Soldiers do not act, have faith in, or follow you because you hold a rank, position, or title. Not really. They may follow originally because they must based upon those things, but ultimately they do so reluctantly and without faith. Soldiers follow because they believe in you and that faith generates from their being able to find things in you that they can relate to. If they cannot find traits and behaviors and ideas to consider in their interaction with you then they are merely employees who will serve for only as long as the cost/benefit ratio makes sense to them. Soldiers who truly believe in you will follow you almost instinctively and with a faith that cannot be quantified or proven. And they cannot do that, and will not do that, if they think you are merely an actor playing a role in some long drawn out drama. Sooner or later they will decide to change the channel.
I try very hard to be honest about who I am with my Soldiers. Sometimes probably too much so. There really aren't too many secrets to my life. If you ask me, I'll likely tell you. My life and my experiences are pretty much an open book. I have found that it is a much more honest and ultimately positive way to lead. While I may not always be proud of myself or things I have done, I have found that there is not too much to be afraid of there. I try very hard not to sell an illusion. I may be a role model, but it is a role model with all the warts and failings and cheapness that can be me. When I speak to them about the roles we each have to play in the organization, it is not about personal acting or role-playing, it is about institutional positions and the expectations of each part of the organization. I play the role of the senior leader. It is the job I have. It has requirements and expectations. I have obligations to it. But it is not completely who I am. My Soldiers have roles to play as well, but they are not completely who they are. These are only one part of the larger awarenesses that we all possess.
My friend who is getting ready to retire appears to me to have recognized this. She gave all she had for a lot of years to her development and to living in the professional world. And now she recognizes the cost of that commitment. My friend the Drill Sergeant isn't fully aware yet, or hasn't totally recognized, the power of the role she is playing. And yet both are outstanding leaders. I wonder what words of wisdom the retiree will leave behind to her young acolytes who look to follow in her footsteps? I wonder if the Drill Sergeant can see that who she is all alone at night is a hell of a lot more powerful as a leader than the role she plays during the day? I wonder if either of them recognizes that they are being looked at, studied and emulated by others. And the greatest message there is that if you recognize that they want to be like you, shouldn't you at least provide them the fullest understanding of who you are?
Sometimes I wonder why I have been able to affect some folks the way that I have. Although I don't fully understand it, I am aware that there are people who look up to me, emulate me, and try to model themselves after me. When it comes up in conversation and I ask them why they feel that way, a lot of them seem to struggle a bit for an answer. They are not quite sure why they feel that way, but most will generally settle on this idea: I am real. I am not acting. My emotions are not crafted or hidden. I am human. Ultimately they find more to look up to in Jeff Fenlason than they do in Master Sergeant Fenlason, and somehow, it seems to me, there is a great lesson in leadership there. If only we all weren't so busy trying to hide all the time.
To my friends - Thank you both for helping me get to this place. I appreciate and celebrate the journeys you both are on. Thanks for letting me spend a small part of it with you.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#105 A Fragile First Step
"Boyd's sin was no less than a complete challenge to the way the American people and military were used to doing business. Schooled to prefer formulaic answers, checklists, and school solutions...it shuns openess, non-linearity and auftragstaktik (mission orders) in favor of technology, attrition and mass. It dislikes the political aspects of war and would prefer to apply merely military force to the targets selected. The syllogism works something like this: strategy equals targeting. The number and nature of targets destroyed best measure success. When all the targets are destroyed, the war is over. It is playing checkers, not chess. It's an attrition approach to war. It ignores the reality that it is the adversary who may determine if he will surrender, when, and on what terms. The American military in general sees war as a science and not an art, and are disposed to treat it as such. Despite using terminology stressing strategic effects, the military still tends to focus on the outputs (keeping score on targets) instead of on outcomes (the effects they seek to achieve).
Grant T. Hammond "The Mind at War - John Boyd and American Security"
I found this last night and started thinking about whether or not we have really made a true shift in how the Army thinks and does business despite all of the changes that have occurred over the last 10 years. Are we truly a changed culture? Will the requirements for adaptation firmly take hold, or will they simply be a small asterisk in our history books, "* For a 10 year period surrounding the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army dedicated itself to decentralization and agility. Sadly, with the end of those conflicts, the change did not last." In effect, this period of war has the potential to end too soon. Because change in the Army is so slow, we are only now beginning to see the human development requirements that decentralized warfare demands. If the Army comes home for good and the deployments and requirements for adaptation and development are no longer there, then I fear that a lot of the progress that has been made in leader development might simply fade away.
I lead in a very messy manner. I truly believe in subordinate empowerment and try as hard as I can to encourage and (at times) force my subordinates to provide their input and ideas to a problem. This leads to arguments and frustration and confusion on all sides. Sometimes they do not understand what I'm getting after and many times I do not understand their point of view and we must continually confront each other until we reach some form of common understanding. It can be time consuming and slow. It is inherently inefficient. It often leads to people feeling very frustrated and angry when they don't 'win' the argument, or I don't choose their preferred course of action. In the long run however, I still believe that this is the right method, not only for personal leadership at the one-on-one level, but also for the institution. I believe sincerely that the Army is going to have to fully adopt a more inclusive, a more questioning, and a more argumentative leadership model if it wants to retain any of the positive behavioral changes that the last 10 years have begun.
Why? Why would I choose to believe in a leadership model that encourages dissent, disagreement, and open questioning of authority and knowledge? The answer is actually very simple. In most cases, all of those things equal development. It teaches how to think. By allowing my subordinates to openly challenge me and my assumptions, they are being forced to think harder about the problem itself. They are being forced to question preconceived ideas about a potential solution. They are being required to think more deeply about what might, at first glance, appear to be a very surface level issue. And those same forces are at work from them to me. They make me think and question and challenge. They make me work harder to develop the best solution to the problem. They force me to continue to learn and grow. Success becomes collective, not individual. And of all the things that we need to hold on to that have been outcomes of our decade at war, the ability to think deeply and understand the variety of effects an individual action can have, is certainly the most critical.
Consider this from "The Mind of War":
"The implicit contract in maneuver warfare is mission type orders or auftragstaktik. The subordinate agrees to take near-term actions in keeping with the higher commander's intent. The superior agrees to allow his subordinate the freedom of judgment necessary to determine exactly how that should be accomplished. He is thus empowered to both recognize and take advantage of opportunities that he may encounter. The purpose is to harmonize, as Boyd would say, the actions and initiatives of the subordinate commanders with the superior's intent.....It provides a bottom-up, outside-in, real-world response in real time to transformations on the battlefield and thereby creates operational fluidity." Counterinsurgent warfare requires these things. We know that and have begun to encourage that initiative taking, but only in the last 3 years or so. It has not yet become the model for continued leader development. It is akin to an experiment that has had great results, but does not yet have developed protocols.
What that quote above doesn't say is that the development of those abilities to judge, perceive, and take advantage of situations to create advantage takes time, trust, and above all, a system that encourages initiative and growth. It is slow, inefficient, and extremely personal. The results will be a question mark, rather than empirical data. It is a system that for the Army, is in it's infancy. A system that is still very vulnerable to being discounted and written off only as a short term solution to the unique challenges of this period and type of warfare.
Why am I worried that the changes that have been implemented might not have developed a strong enough root structure yet to withstand the systemic assault that they will soon face? Because the evidence of the attack is everywhere. We are being told now that suddenly money will become scarce, so we will have to act efficiently to make the most of our resources. We are already seeing the return of the Power Point army of endless briefings and charts. We are already programming the expected training levels for units who don't even have a stated mission. I have read document after document that lays out a particular path that must be followed to achieve some arbitrary readiness state. And most disturbing of all, I have seen implementation guidance for personnel strength that extends the periods of service for those at the top of the NCO structure, but shortens the service for those at the bottom. The system is pushing back. It is trying to mount a counter-attack against the gains made by those who favor personal development as the key component in leader development in the years ahead. We have senior leaders stating that we must enhance and expand the educational opportunities of our mid-grade officers and (to a much lessor degree) NCO's, but when the bean-counters say, "Well, you can send X-thousand officers to grad school and hope they come back with expanded knowledge and judgment, or you can buy a new piece of equipment, but you can't do both.", which side do you think will win? And why are we extending the service life of those at the very top of the pile, when at the same time we are closing, compacting, and reducing the sheer number of units and formations, and organizations we have? How many senior NCO's and officers work at Joint Forces Command? If it gets closed, where will they go? If you add only 100 senior NCO's back into the Force, it has a trickle down effect on the entire structure for years to come. Advancements slow down, people become disenchanted because they cannot contribute in a meaningful manner and have their contributions pay off. A move like this almost begs for a return to a CYA, bureaucratic, keep-your-head-down-and-weather-the-storm response. We are headed in the wrong direction. What we should be doing is clearing the top out and elevating the middle while at the same time implementing these nascent leader development strategies we now have and then turning this back to the Force.
The most critical skill or attribute that anyone who would lead Soldiers in battle must possess is judgment. The ability to perceive, and then examine, and then create a course of action that will lead to the desired outcome. As long as war will be fought by men, this requirement is paramount. Without it, the amount of firepower a nation or group possesses won't matter. The key to prevailing in a struggle is knowing when, where, how much, and why you want to use it. And sometimes having the courage to decide not to.
We have taken a fragile first step toward enhancing the personal development of our younger leaders. We must be extremely careful not to have it washed away because we will not be able to accurately measure it's success or failure until the next war comes along.
A final thought: Earlier this week, I came across the following quote from Steven Covey:
"I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a transformer in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that leavens the entire loaf. Ir requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage and faith to be a transforming leader.
To understand the power the system can have as it fights back to against change, consider this. Last week I had a conversation with someone who has been a supporter of my writing from almost the beginning. When I asked if there was a place for me and my ideas on leader development in the Army, he replied, "Not really. What you need to do is go be a First Sergeant. That way you become (my words not his) eligible to stay in the game." 105 straight weeks, hundreds or written pages, and tons of emails telling me to keep thinking, and pushing and writing, and the system has no place for me? That is how the system exerts it's pressure. That is the pressure we all must resist. Messy leadership, defined by mutual respect, a desire to learn, dialogue and the development of increased judgment is the road ahead. Those who think it is only relevant to counterinsurgency operations are simply wrong. If we truly prize adaptability, then we have to develop leaders who possess the ability to discern both sides of an issue, can see emerging trends, and take advantage of opportunities when presented. All in keeping with the trust they have been given by their superiors. This period of leader development is like a new-born baby. There will be a lot of messy nights along the way, but someday we can all look back with pride at a future leader and say, "I helped create that." We owe it to those at the bottom. We most often pay the price for failure at their level.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
Grant T. Hammond "The Mind at War - John Boyd and American Security"
I found this last night and started thinking about whether or not we have really made a true shift in how the Army thinks and does business despite all of the changes that have occurred over the last 10 years. Are we truly a changed culture? Will the requirements for adaptation firmly take hold, or will they simply be a small asterisk in our history books, "* For a 10 year period surrounding the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army dedicated itself to decentralization and agility. Sadly, with the end of those conflicts, the change did not last." In effect, this period of war has the potential to end too soon. Because change in the Army is so slow, we are only now beginning to see the human development requirements that decentralized warfare demands. If the Army comes home for good and the deployments and requirements for adaptation and development are no longer there, then I fear that a lot of the progress that has been made in leader development might simply fade away.
I lead in a very messy manner. I truly believe in subordinate empowerment and try as hard as I can to encourage and (at times) force my subordinates to provide their input and ideas to a problem. This leads to arguments and frustration and confusion on all sides. Sometimes they do not understand what I'm getting after and many times I do not understand their point of view and we must continually confront each other until we reach some form of common understanding. It can be time consuming and slow. It is inherently inefficient. It often leads to people feeling very frustrated and angry when they don't 'win' the argument, or I don't choose their preferred course of action. In the long run however, I still believe that this is the right method, not only for personal leadership at the one-on-one level, but also for the institution. I believe sincerely that the Army is going to have to fully adopt a more inclusive, a more questioning, and a more argumentative leadership model if it wants to retain any of the positive behavioral changes that the last 10 years have begun.
Why? Why would I choose to believe in a leadership model that encourages dissent, disagreement, and open questioning of authority and knowledge? The answer is actually very simple. In most cases, all of those things equal development. It teaches how to think. By allowing my subordinates to openly challenge me and my assumptions, they are being forced to think harder about the problem itself. They are being forced to question preconceived ideas about a potential solution. They are being required to think more deeply about what might, at first glance, appear to be a very surface level issue. And those same forces are at work from them to me. They make me think and question and challenge. They make me work harder to develop the best solution to the problem. They force me to continue to learn and grow. Success becomes collective, not individual. And of all the things that we need to hold on to that have been outcomes of our decade at war, the ability to think deeply and understand the variety of effects an individual action can have, is certainly the most critical.
Consider this from "The Mind of War":
"The implicit contract in maneuver warfare is mission type orders or auftragstaktik. The subordinate agrees to take near-term actions in keeping with the higher commander's intent. The superior agrees to allow his subordinate the freedom of judgment necessary to determine exactly how that should be accomplished. He is thus empowered to both recognize and take advantage of opportunities that he may encounter. The purpose is to harmonize, as Boyd would say, the actions and initiatives of the subordinate commanders with the superior's intent.....It provides a bottom-up, outside-in, real-world response in real time to transformations on the battlefield and thereby creates operational fluidity." Counterinsurgent warfare requires these things. We know that and have begun to encourage that initiative taking, but only in the last 3 years or so. It has not yet become the model for continued leader development. It is akin to an experiment that has had great results, but does not yet have developed protocols.
What that quote above doesn't say is that the development of those abilities to judge, perceive, and take advantage of situations to create advantage takes time, trust, and above all, a system that encourages initiative and growth. It is slow, inefficient, and extremely personal. The results will be a question mark, rather than empirical data. It is a system that for the Army, is in it's infancy. A system that is still very vulnerable to being discounted and written off only as a short term solution to the unique challenges of this period and type of warfare.
Why am I worried that the changes that have been implemented might not have developed a strong enough root structure yet to withstand the systemic assault that they will soon face? Because the evidence of the attack is everywhere. We are being told now that suddenly money will become scarce, so we will have to act efficiently to make the most of our resources. We are already seeing the return of the Power Point army of endless briefings and charts. We are already programming the expected training levels for units who don't even have a stated mission. I have read document after document that lays out a particular path that must be followed to achieve some arbitrary readiness state. And most disturbing of all, I have seen implementation guidance for personnel strength that extends the periods of service for those at the top of the NCO structure, but shortens the service for those at the bottom. The system is pushing back. It is trying to mount a counter-attack against the gains made by those who favor personal development as the key component in leader development in the years ahead. We have senior leaders stating that we must enhance and expand the educational opportunities of our mid-grade officers and (to a much lessor degree) NCO's, but when the bean-counters say, "Well, you can send X-thousand officers to grad school and hope they come back with expanded knowledge and judgment, or you can buy a new piece of equipment, but you can't do both.", which side do you think will win? And why are we extending the service life of those at the very top of the pile, when at the same time we are closing, compacting, and reducing the sheer number of units and formations, and organizations we have? How many senior NCO's and officers work at Joint Forces Command? If it gets closed, where will they go? If you add only 100 senior NCO's back into the Force, it has a trickle down effect on the entire structure for years to come. Advancements slow down, people become disenchanted because they cannot contribute in a meaningful manner and have their contributions pay off. A move like this almost begs for a return to a CYA, bureaucratic, keep-your-head-down-and-weather-the-storm response. We are headed in the wrong direction. What we should be doing is clearing the top out and elevating the middle while at the same time implementing these nascent leader development strategies we now have and then turning this back to the Force.
The most critical skill or attribute that anyone who would lead Soldiers in battle must possess is judgment. The ability to perceive, and then examine, and then create a course of action that will lead to the desired outcome. As long as war will be fought by men, this requirement is paramount. Without it, the amount of firepower a nation or group possesses won't matter. The key to prevailing in a struggle is knowing when, where, how much, and why you want to use it. And sometimes having the courage to decide not to.
We have taken a fragile first step toward enhancing the personal development of our younger leaders. We must be extremely careful not to have it washed away because we will not be able to accurately measure it's success or failure until the next war comes along.
A final thought: Earlier this week, I came across the following quote from Steven Covey:
"I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a transformer in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that leavens the entire loaf. Ir requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage and faith to be a transforming leader.
To understand the power the system can have as it fights back to against change, consider this. Last week I had a conversation with someone who has been a supporter of my writing from almost the beginning. When I asked if there was a place for me and my ideas on leader development in the Army, he replied, "Not really. What you need to do is go be a First Sergeant. That way you become (my words not his) eligible to stay in the game." 105 straight weeks, hundreds or written pages, and tons of emails telling me to keep thinking, and pushing and writing, and the system has no place for me? That is how the system exerts it's pressure. That is the pressure we all must resist. Messy leadership, defined by mutual respect, a desire to learn, dialogue and the development of increased judgment is the road ahead. Those who think it is only relevant to counterinsurgency operations are simply wrong. If we truly prize adaptability, then we have to develop leaders who possess the ability to discern both sides of an issue, can see emerging trends, and take advantage of opportunities when presented. All in keeping with the trust they have been given by their superiors. This period of leader development is like a new-born baby. There will be a lot of messy nights along the way, but someday we can all look back with pride at a future leader and say, "I helped create that." We owe it to those at the bottom. We most often pay the price for failure at their level.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
# 104 We Already Have the Answers - We Just Don't Listen
As I was looking for source material this week I came across two monologues worth consideration. The first is entitled "C2 for Complex Endeavors - Transitioning From Command and Control to Command and Trust" and the second is "A Behavioral Model of Team Sense-making". Both are from the International Command and Control Research And Technology Symposium. I had downloaded the first awhile back and cannot find the link, but you can find the link to the Command and Control Research Project homepage here:
http://dodccrp.org/
(If you are interested in a copy of the first, just send me an email and I'll send it to you.)
Consider the following quotes from the "C2 for Complex Endeavors" paper:
"Use your people by allowing everyone to do his job. When a subordinate is free to do his job, he perceives the trust and confidence from his superiors and takes pride in his job, himself and the organizations goals and objectives. Delegation of sufficient authority and proper use of subordinates helps develop future leaders. This is a moral responsibility of every commander."
In army-speak, this equals decentralization and trust.
and from George Patton
"No one is thinking if everyone is thinking alike. In too many organizations, toadyism is buried like a cancer. It must be removed with the sharpest bayonet available. All sorts of suggestions, ideas, concepts, and opinions must be allowed to promote an environment of learning and imagination. A fault of many potentially fine commanders is a lack of the ability to admit that other people have good ideas. If younger Soldiers are not allowed to use and cultivate their imaginations and their abilities for abstract thought, where will we get the next generations of qualified, motivated, and confident commanders? Commanders who never ask for an opinion, never listen to suggestions, and think they have the only correct idea find that their Soldiers will stop communicating altogether. They'll begin to sit on their asses and wait for orders before doing anything. No matter how high in the ranks a man goes, he can't know everything. We can always learn from each other. Juniors must learn not only to be allowed to use their imaginations, but they must be encouraged to do so.”
In Army-speak, this is the recognition of the perils of hierarchical thinking and risk-aversion.
Whenever I spend time looking for quotes or bits of wisdom for the blog, it seems to me that time and again, we already have the answers we are looking for, we just need to heed the advice of those who came before us. Does anyone but me think it strange that from the earliest commanders in the field there has been a recognition that trust up and down any chain of command is essential for unit success? It doesn't matter what your professional field is, successful organizations are built around common goals and a trust that the members of the organization from the lowest to the highest understand and are dedicated to them. I could be managing a grocery store, running a high-tech company, organizing a charitable fund-raiser, or leading troops in the field. It simply does not matter what the function of the organization is, it only matters that its' members share a common understanding of the purpose of the endeavor and trust that those above and below them share that same understanding.
Does your organization work that way? Think about it for a moment. How many of the issues you face as a leader are the result of divergent understandings of the tasks that must be completed, the reason they must be done, and the ultimate end-state desired by the organization itself? Do your people trust your understanding of their present reality? Do they even know how you view it? Do they have a mechanism to bring concerns or ideas to you? Is their input valued as equally as your own? Do they believe that you are working in their best interest? In short, do they trust you? And of equal importance, what mechanisms have you put in place to engender or ensure that trust development is critical to organizational success and effectiveness?
Once I started thinking about that, I came across the second document regarding sense-making. The word alone gave me pause and got me to considering how we make sense of our world and then how we ensure that that sense is commonly shared with others. How does it happen? How can two people look at the same problem and then come to a common understanding of its' requirements and outcomes? Can it be done in a manner that satisfies both parties? And, of course, the more people you introduce to the problem, the greater the possibility for discordant views becomes. My wife and I often have enough trouble coming to a common understanding of our priorities. Once we add in my daughter, the reality of simple problem solving and common understanding goes completely out the window! Now consider your office staff, any large corporation, or an army. No wonder it sometimes seems that change happens too slowly. There are so many divergent viewpoints that have to be brought into a common understanding first. And with 1.5 million people in the military, that's going to take awhile!
So any culture of trust and mutual understanding must first be seen through the idea of collective sense-making. Leaders have to have a vision of the final product, without necessarily knowing the challenges of getting there and then ensure that the folks in their organization share that same understanding. I can visualize the outcome of a project or mission, but then I have to also ensure that everyone else shares the same vision. And since those people have to be met individually to ensure that their piece of the puzzle meshes with the desired outcome, it becomes very time consuming.
As defined in the article, sense-making is:
“The result of a never-ending effort to challenge expectations and to consider alternate possibilities” (Weick and Sutcliffe 2001). Sensemaking is said to exhibit
the following properties (Weick 1995): grounded in identity construction; retrospective; enactive of sensible environments; social; ongoing; focused on and by extracted cues; driven by plausibility rather than accuracy."
I think the key to that definition is "never-ending effort to challenge expectations and consider alternate possibilities". From the top to the bottom of any hierarchical unit, there must be a mechanism to continuously check and re-check assumptions and then be able to adapt responses when they do not bear scrutiny. This brings to mind the idea of mental agility and even more importantly, a willingness to let go of previously held assumptions. For any organization to be successful, there must exist - at every level - a mindset that disabuses any thought of entrenched behavior. A truly successful leader must be willing to discard previously held beliefs when they are no longer effective. And organizationally, there must be a challenge mechanism in place throughout. In the Army this would mean that a large portion of any leaders responsibilities would be to require constant feedback from subordinates and then value that feedback enough to challenge their own belief systems for overall unit success. Too many places in the Army right now do not prize this 'friction' of ideas. Their leaders tend to do one of two things: First, they hold on to models of behavior and action that are outdated because they are comfortable with them, or two, they sit on the fence and wait to see which way the prevailing winds will blow before jumping into the ship at the last minute. Both of these trends are not conducive to competent decision making, mental agility, or the long term health of any organization. When a dynamic human being environment is more affected by its' bureaucratic structure' than by its' people, it will ultimately fail.
If you look at a lot of the things the Army is publishing these days you come across the word 'attributes' a lot more than you did in my early career. Suddenly, we are all interested in the required 'attributes' of a Soldier. Not skills, not a technical ability, but behavioral attributes. Things like 'judgment' and 'character'. I wonder why that is? Seems to me that there is a recognition now that our earlier emphasis on the technical skills and abilities did not account very well for the development of judgment. In effect, because we were going to fight an all-out battle to be decided in one crushing blow, it was more important that we develop a Soldier's ability to pull the trigger accurately than it was to imbue in him the ability to decide if he should pull the trigger at all. After a decade at war, we have come to the realization that we must develop both skills in concert. It is not a matter of A or B, it must be AB equally, and the argument can be made that judgment and character are ultimately more important than technical skill and ability.
Consider the following models of positive sense-making and negative sense-making as outlined in the article"
Enable Sensemaking (E) - Positive
॰ E1: Challenges assumptions or takes opposite view
॰ E2: Suggests alternatives
॰ E3: Displays self-questioning or doubt
॰ E4: Displays reliance on other team members
॰ E5: Reveals thought process aloud
॰ E6: Pays attention to others’ views
॰ E7: Openly shares info and opinions
॰ E8: Tells stories of past events or future possibilities
Inhibit Sensemaking (I) - Negative
॰ I1: Shows preference for formal process
॰ I2: Pushes for formal discussion
॰ I3: Rejects complex explanations
॰ I4: Affinity for like-minded thinkers
॰ I5: Attacks others’ contributions
॰ I6: Pushes for conclusions
॰ I7: Shows frustration overtly
॰ I8: Shows occasional disinterest
Which one resonates more with you as being prevalent in your organization? Why? If you look closely at the lists above, you will see that just behind the positive attributes mentioned their is a priority on people. An emphasis on collaboration. A willingness to share knowledge and experience and question norms. If you look at the more negative list, you can plainly see the institution. The organization itself acting as a force independent of the people.
For the positive behaviors of successful organizations to take root, some very basic things must occur. First, there must be an explicit value placed on people. They must be treated as the crown jewels of the organization. Second, trust has got to be imbued from the very first day they enter the it. They must believe and be allowed to demonstrate why their particular talents are of value. They cannot be hired under the pretense that they have value and then have that value stripped from them when they report for work. They must be trusted implicitly as being able to contribute immediately. This is critical. I cannot emphasize it enough. They also must be expected to contribute immediately. Third, their must be an understanding of roles and how those roles affect how individuals view their unfolding reality.
To use my organization as an example, when I came in I told my subordinates that I would earn their trust but by virtue of their knowledge of their jobs and their experience in the organization they already had mine. I trusted them 100% sight unseen. They were explicitly allowed to distrust me. I believe that over time, I have now gained their trust to a greater or lesser degree based upon the individual. I then went about dismantling as much of the structure as I could and replaced it with the understanding of roles and collaboration. I intentionally went about team-building by removing as much of the hierarchy as I could. I have consciously emphasized their value as people rather than mere employees. Whenever possible, I have tried to place their needs ahead of the organizations. Giving a guy or gal some time off on their anniversary may create a small problem on the training schedule, but it pays itself back 1000 fold when a more critical need surfaces. And finally, I truly do not see myself as 'better' than them and they are not only allowed, but almost required, to question my judgment when it doesn't make sense. While some are more comfortable with that than others, overall, it has worked well. They do not hesitate to tell me when they think I'm full of shit. I routinely want their feedback and ideas and have created a learning friction that allows us to solve our challenges much more quickly. Reaching a common consensus has become much easier because we are all stakeholders in the outcome. I have also given them their own projects and supported their personal desires as much as possible. They have pride in ownership and that pride drives them to continually push themselves harder to surpass their own expectations. They have not failed our customers yet. We are peers in the sense that we share a common understanding of what we need to accomplish and the obstacles we face. Now each of us plays our part, does our duty, lives up to our expectations and is beholden to the team over their individual priorities.
We know the answers to leader development. They have not changed much over the millennium. Value people over things, trust that given an opportunity to succeed most of people will, and create organizations driven by mutual respect and collaboration and open and candid communication. If the CEO of Microsoft, Apple, General Motors etc can do it. Then certainly the Army can, and your organization can as well.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
http://dodccrp.org/
(If you are interested in a copy of the first, just send me an email and I'll send it to you.)
Consider the following quotes from the "C2 for Complex Endeavors" paper:
"Use your people by allowing everyone to do his job. When a subordinate is free to do his job, he perceives the trust and confidence from his superiors and takes pride in his job, himself and the organizations goals and objectives. Delegation of sufficient authority and proper use of subordinates helps develop future leaders. This is a moral responsibility of every commander."
In army-speak, this equals decentralization and trust.
and from George Patton
"No one is thinking if everyone is thinking alike. In too many organizations, toadyism is buried like a cancer. It must be removed with the sharpest bayonet available. All sorts of suggestions, ideas, concepts, and opinions must be allowed to promote an environment of learning and imagination. A fault of many potentially fine commanders is a lack of the ability to admit that other people have good ideas. If younger Soldiers are not allowed to use and cultivate their imaginations and their abilities for abstract thought, where will we get the next generations of qualified, motivated, and confident commanders? Commanders who never ask for an opinion, never listen to suggestions, and think they have the only correct idea find that their Soldiers will stop communicating altogether. They'll begin to sit on their asses and wait for orders before doing anything. No matter how high in the ranks a man goes, he can't know everything. We can always learn from each other. Juniors must learn not only to be allowed to use their imaginations, but they must be encouraged to do so.”
In Army-speak, this is the recognition of the perils of hierarchical thinking and risk-aversion.
Whenever I spend time looking for quotes or bits of wisdom for the blog, it seems to me that time and again, we already have the answers we are looking for, we just need to heed the advice of those who came before us. Does anyone but me think it strange that from the earliest commanders in the field there has been a recognition that trust up and down any chain of command is essential for unit success? It doesn't matter what your professional field is, successful organizations are built around common goals and a trust that the members of the organization from the lowest to the highest understand and are dedicated to them. I could be managing a grocery store, running a high-tech company, organizing a charitable fund-raiser, or leading troops in the field. It simply does not matter what the function of the organization is, it only matters that its' members share a common understanding of the purpose of the endeavor and trust that those above and below them share that same understanding.
Does your organization work that way? Think about it for a moment. How many of the issues you face as a leader are the result of divergent understandings of the tasks that must be completed, the reason they must be done, and the ultimate end-state desired by the organization itself? Do your people trust your understanding of their present reality? Do they even know how you view it? Do they have a mechanism to bring concerns or ideas to you? Is their input valued as equally as your own? Do they believe that you are working in their best interest? In short, do they trust you? And of equal importance, what mechanisms have you put in place to engender or ensure that trust development is critical to organizational success and effectiveness?
Once I started thinking about that, I came across the second document regarding sense-making. The word alone gave me pause and got me to considering how we make sense of our world and then how we ensure that that sense is commonly shared with others. How does it happen? How can two people look at the same problem and then come to a common understanding of its' requirements and outcomes? Can it be done in a manner that satisfies both parties? And, of course, the more people you introduce to the problem, the greater the possibility for discordant views becomes. My wife and I often have enough trouble coming to a common understanding of our priorities. Once we add in my daughter, the reality of simple problem solving and common understanding goes completely out the window! Now consider your office staff, any large corporation, or an army. No wonder it sometimes seems that change happens too slowly. There are so many divergent viewpoints that have to be brought into a common understanding first. And with 1.5 million people in the military, that's going to take awhile!
So any culture of trust and mutual understanding must first be seen through the idea of collective sense-making. Leaders have to have a vision of the final product, without necessarily knowing the challenges of getting there and then ensure that the folks in their organization share that same understanding. I can visualize the outcome of a project or mission, but then I have to also ensure that everyone else shares the same vision. And since those people have to be met individually to ensure that their piece of the puzzle meshes with the desired outcome, it becomes very time consuming.
As defined in the article, sense-making is:
“The result of a never-ending effort to challenge expectations and to consider alternate possibilities” (Weick and Sutcliffe 2001). Sensemaking is said to exhibit
the following properties (Weick 1995): grounded in identity construction; retrospective; enactive of sensible environments; social; ongoing; focused on and by extracted cues; driven by plausibility rather than accuracy."
I think the key to that definition is "never-ending effort to challenge expectations and consider alternate possibilities". From the top to the bottom of any hierarchical unit, there must be a mechanism to continuously check and re-check assumptions and then be able to adapt responses when they do not bear scrutiny. This brings to mind the idea of mental agility and even more importantly, a willingness to let go of previously held assumptions. For any organization to be successful, there must exist - at every level - a mindset that disabuses any thought of entrenched behavior. A truly successful leader must be willing to discard previously held beliefs when they are no longer effective. And organizationally, there must be a challenge mechanism in place throughout. In the Army this would mean that a large portion of any leaders responsibilities would be to require constant feedback from subordinates and then value that feedback enough to challenge their own belief systems for overall unit success. Too many places in the Army right now do not prize this 'friction' of ideas. Their leaders tend to do one of two things: First, they hold on to models of behavior and action that are outdated because they are comfortable with them, or two, they sit on the fence and wait to see which way the prevailing winds will blow before jumping into the ship at the last minute. Both of these trends are not conducive to competent decision making, mental agility, or the long term health of any organization. When a dynamic human being environment is more affected by its' bureaucratic structure' than by its' people, it will ultimately fail.
If you look at a lot of the things the Army is publishing these days you come across the word 'attributes' a lot more than you did in my early career. Suddenly, we are all interested in the required 'attributes' of a Soldier. Not skills, not a technical ability, but behavioral attributes. Things like 'judgment' and 'character'. I wonder why that is? Seems to me that there is a recognition now that our earlier emphasis on the technical skills and abilities did not account very well for the development of judgment. In effect, because we were going to fight an all-out battle to be decided in one crushing blow, it was more important that we develop a Soldier's ability to pull the trigger accurately than it was to imbue in him the ability to decide if he should pull the trigger at all. After a decade at war, we have come to the realization that we must develop both skills in concert. It is not a matter of A or B, it must be AB equally, and the argument can be made that judgment and character are ultimately more important than technical skill and ability.
Consider the following models of positive sense-making and negative sense-making as outlined in the article"
Enable Sensemaking (E) - Positive
॰ E1: Challenges assumptions or takes opposite view
॰ E2: Suggests alternatives
॰ E3: Displays self-questioning or doubt
॰ E4: Displays reliance on other team members
॰ E5: Reveals thought process aloud
॰ E6: Pays attention to others’ views
॰ E7: Openly shares info and opinions
॰ E8: Tells stories of past events or future possibilities
Inhibit Sensemaking (I) - Negative
॰ I1: Shows preference for formal process
॰ I2: Pushes for formal discussion
॰ I3: Rejects complex explanations
॰ I4: Affinity for like-minded thinkers
॰ I5: Attacks others’ contributions
॰ I6: Pushes for conclusions
॰ I7: Shows frustration overtly
॰ I8: Shows occasional disinterest
Which one resonates more with you as being prevalent in your organization? Why? If you look closely at the lists above, you will see that just behind the positive attributes mentioned their is a priority on people. An emphasis on collaboration. A willingness to share knowledge and experience and question norms. If you look at the more negative list, you can plainly see the institution. The organization itself acting as a force independent of the people.
For the positive behaviors of successful organizations to take root, some very basic things must occur. First, there must be an explicit value placed on people. They must be treated as the crown jewels of the organization. Second, trust has got to be imbued from the very first day they enter the it. They must believe and be allowed to demonstrate why their particular talents are of value. They cannot be hired under the pretense that they have value and then have that value stripped from them when they report for work. They must be trusted implicitly as being able to contribute immediately. This is critical. I cannot emphasize it enough. They also must be expected to contribute immediately. Third, their must be an understanding of roles and how those roles affect how individuals view their unfolding reality.
To use my organization as an example, when I came in I told my subordinates that I would earn their trust but by virtue of their knowledge of their jobs and their experience in the organization they already had mine. I trusted them 100% sight unseen. They were explicitly allowed to distrust me. I believe that over time, I have now gained their trust to a greater or lesser degree based upon the individual. I then went about dismantling as much of the structure as I could and replaced it with the understanding of roles and collaboration. I intentionally went about team-building by removing as much of the hierarchy as I could. I have consciously emphasized their value as people rather than mere employees. Whenever possible, I have tried to place their needs ahead of the organizations. Giving a guy or gal some time off on their anniversary may create a small problem on the training schedule, but it pays itself back 1000 fold when a more critical need surfaces. And finally, I truly do not see myself as 'better' than them and they are not only allowed, but almost required, to question my judgment when it doesn't make sense. While some are more comfortable with that than others, overall, it has worked well. They do not hesitate to tell me when they think I'm full of shit. I routinely want their feedback and ideas and have created a learning friction that allows us to solve our challenges much more quickly. Reaching a common consensus has become much easier because we are all stakeholders in the outcome. I have also given them their own projects and supported their personal desires as much as possible. They have pride in ownership and that pride drives them to continually push themselves harder to surpass their own expectations. They have not failed our customers yet. We are peers in the sense that we share a common understanding of what we need to accomplish and the obstacles we face. Now each of us plays our part, does our duty, lives up to our expectations and is beholden to the team over their individual priorities.
We know the answers to leader development. They have not changed much over the millennium. Value people over things, trust that given an opportunity to succeed most of people will, and create organizations driven by mutual respect and collaboration and open and candid communication. If the CEO of Microsoft, Apple, General Motors etc can do it. Then certainly the Army can, and your organization can as well.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
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