One of the problems with blogging is that the audience doesn't always know the credentials of the person writing the blog. That can lead to doubt about the authors ability or credibility when speaking authoritatively about something that they may or may not actually be an authority on. In my case, most of the people who read this are colleagues or other military professionals who know me, so there is an assumed level of knowledge regarding my experiences and professional development. In most cases, I have personally worked with them or their unit, and they have developed a certain level of trust in my abilities and reasoning. Even so, it is nice sometimes to have one of my ideas further developed in another forum because it not only helps to validate my opinion, but often lends specialized credibility to a theme or an idea. This week's post should be seen on that light.
I have been saying over and over that leaders need to start listening more to their subordinates. In many cases, I have been specific about at what level of leadership this needs to take place to effect the greatest amount of necessary change in the institution. I have also contended that learning how to think strategically is not only the purview of senior officers. That given the current operating environment and the proliferation of technology and the technological savy of both the enemy and young Soldiers, everyone has to be able to understand the strategic impact of every action taken as well as a very thorough understanding of how local actions can have a huge effect on a strategic plan.
The November/December issue of Military Review contains an article by two retired Army Colonels, Dr. Stephen Gerras and Charles Allen. The title of the article is "Developing Creative and Critical Thinkers". For those readers who have an Army Knowledge Online (AKO) acount, this can be found on Battle Command Knowledge Systems (BCKS). I highly recommend it.
The argument the authors are making begins with the following quotation:
"Many senior Army and DOD leaders have said we need to develop better strategic thinking skills for the 21st century security environment. The requirement stems from a realization that the complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity of the current environment mandates a move away from Cold War methodologies and assumptions. As recent history suggests, a large gap exists between the Army's desire to develop strategic thinking skills and what actually happens."
The article's focus is that there are 2 critical requirements that must be developed prior to learning or assimilating the ability to be a strategic thinker - the ability to think creatively and the ability to apply critical reasoning.
The authors define Strategic thinking as "the ability to make creative and holistic synthesis of key factors affecting an organization and it's environment in order to obtain a sustainable, competitive advantage and long term success."
The authors define creativity as "the ability to produce novel ideas that others value." They then put forth 3 methods of behavior that support the development of strategic thought.
1) Use a multi-disciplinary approach perspective to provide knowledge about thinking skills.
2) Pratice applying these skills in a context dependant setting under the purview of a knowledgable leader or facilitator.
3) Encourage and motivate the routine application of strategic thinking skills to important issues by creating a healthy environment in schools and units.
The critical part of the discussion looks at the Military Decision Making Process and why it can very easily get off track and lead to plans and outcomes that do not necessarily support the larger strategic plan. Two of these are hueristics (recalling the most vivid events) and egocentricity (thinking that one's beliefes are better than anyone else's).
"....Hueristics and egocentricity can lead the unit down the wrong road if the commander (insert the word leader and you include NCOs and civilian leaders as well) thinks his intuition is infallible and that the last way he dealt with a problem will work in the next case."
The authors go on to state the following: "The Army's biggest obstacle is it's hierarchal nature and cultural norms. Reflective skepticism as a technique to improve judgement and decision making is hard to embrace if the officers or NCOs are not comfortable disagreeing with the boss or even the boss's boss. This is especially difficult if senior leaders have egocentric tendencies toward extreme self-confidence because of numerous accolades and promotions. Unfortunately, leaders who have not taken careful steps to ensure the information they recieve from their subordinates is 'ground truth', even if it disagrees with their view seem to be more the rule than the exception."
The article then says, "An often overlooked requirement for successful creative and critical thinking is the concept of dialogue. The Army's hierarchal nature resists dialogue....if commanders and leaders are more interested in a discussion than real dialogue, they reduce opportunities to challenge personal assumptions."
In order to develop to enhance or encourage dialogue the article states that there is a critical first step that must be taken: participants must regard each other as professional collegues, not subordinates and superiors.
"To foster critical thinking Army teams must at times leave their rank at the door. 'Groupthink' is the antithesis of creative and critical thinking and exists in organizations where subordinates simply mimic the thinking of their superiors."
Over the course of this blog, I have outlined my opinion on a wide range of issues from training design to body armor to the emotional/behavioral problems that are occurring in my unit - and I suspect in many others. I have also tried at times to add my thoughts on leadership and leader training. I think that many of the thoughts outlined above help to reinforce those ideas and also provide a wider perspective for personal consideration.
For example, the definition of creativity, "the ability to produce novel ideas that others value" can be seen in the marksmanship program and the outcomes and behavioral changes that it develops. While there is cartainly an objective, numerical, immediate need portion of the training plan, the idea of taking the current training system, using the same amount of allocated resources but changing from a through-put focus to a Soldier focus could be considered a 'novel' approach. The method of doing this is also true with the Effective Training Design brief. By employing a 'healthy skepticism' and using the current doctrine in a slightly different manner, there is the potential to greatly effect unit and Soldier training and, by extension, their critical thinking skills. Soldiers may not need to be able to think on a strategic political level on par with senior military and civilian leaders, but their ability to analyze their shot-group, or to inteact with the local populace, or identify another Soldier in need is a critical thinking skill that can be - and must be - developed. This also important in that in encorporates another thought that I have outlined before: ....'others must be valued'. Any solution to any problem has to be accepted by those who will be affected by the actions taken to achieve the solution.
I have also discussed in previous postings the idea that the vertical, hierarchal structure of the Army is a roadblock to success at many levels. The article does a much better job of illuminating this issue than I have done. We live in a time when the prolifieration of technology and the ability for instant communication has 'flattened' the world considerably. Anyone with access to the internet is now privy to information that in the past was limited to very few in either academia or the top of business or government. This 'flattening', coupled with the generational norms, expectations, and abilities of Millenials has created an environment where the very bottom and the very top are now working off the much the same data. The problem is that the data is being interpreted differently at each level and since the top creates the plan, there is a loss of faith by the bottom when the plan doesn't appear to meet their understanding of the issue.
Hueristics and egocentricity are central to many of my themes. In my leadership philosophy a few weeks back, I included the phrase "Don't believe your own bullshit." Obviously, the authors were much more articulate than I was. Never the less, it doesn't make me wrong. Believing that the system that created, promoted and awarded you is proof enough of your own sense of 'rightness' is flawed because it forces you to live backwards. Egocentricity will directly lead to hueristic behavior - something I outlined in another post as "what worked as a squad leader will work as a platoon sergeant or 1st Sergeant."
With regard to seeing others as professional peers and collegues rather than simply superiors and subordinates, I would contend that the body armor work and the marksmanship program have both enjoyed levels of success because of my need/desire to work with this theme in mind. I am not a woman, so I cannot absolutely know the struggles and difficulties she faces in trying to apply proper marksmanship techniques in body armor. However, by engaging with her (regardless of rank - I have worked with Private to Sergeant Major and 2nd Lieutenant - Lieutenant Colonel) as an interested peer - not simply a Master Sergeant - I have been able to engage, recruit, and facilitate the discussion of training and equipping changes that we both believe are critical to her survival. And to do that I had to 1) gain her trust, 2) listen to her issue and 3) interact with her equally. I can ask most of the women in my study group rather personal questions about their bodies and the manner their bodies interact with their equipment because I have accepted them - and they have accepted me - as a peer. It takes a large degree of personal trust for a female Soldier to provide information like weight, bust size, body fat percentge etc if they do not believe that I am interested in using the information in any manner other than to improve her ability to survive in combat. The same is true in marksmanship. By understanding how and why many Soldiers and leaders do not know the basic fundamentals of proper shooting and then working with them as a peer facilitator to help them fix their knowledge gap, the program itself generates successes both in sheer numbers and behavior change. This directly relates to my idea of understanding an issue holistically and engaging others outside of my personal Army experience to better grasp the problem.
Groupthink is a problem for any large organization. I found it interesting in the article that the authors mentioned the collapse of the auto industry as an example of what can happen culturally and organizationally without a mechanism for dissenting opinions. I have used the same example in earlier posts. I find it impossible to believe that the economists and future planners for GM and Chrysler, as well as the UAW were unable to see the problems their organizations were facing. The only way this could have happened was that the organization itself had no method of presenting dissenting opinions and people felt threatend if they did not toe the party line. That same groupthink mentality is pervasive in the Army today. It was immediately apparent after the initial invasion in Iraq in 2003 that some of the expected outcomes with regard to post-invasion asumptions were not going to be met. However, the culture of 'agreeing with the boss' and being able to 'blame' the higher headquarters when the results weren't what was expected directly led to the rise of the insurgency. Because there was an expectation that we would be greeted as liberators, because there was a lack of consideration for how Iraqis would govern themselves, because we had not given due consideration to methods employed by General Petraus in Mosul (mostly due to personal and petty jealousies surrounding his media exposure), we were not prepared for the chaos that occurred during the post-invasion period that led to the insurgent problem that arose from 2004 - 2007. I am just as sure that there were plenty of very smart, very patriotic people who saw these potential problems coming, but did not have a mechanism to get their dissenting opinions forwarded to the decision makers. At my level, groupthink is having a direct impact on the behavioral and disciplinary problems my unit faces. Because the beauracracy has no mechanism for presenting dissent to the commander, and is more concerned about providing him what they think he wants to hear rather than what he needs to hear, we are failing to meet the baseline problems head on. Because we think that all he wants to know is how to stop suicide and domestic violence etc, we overlook the idea that these are merely outcomes of some other larger issues such as a lack of faith and trust in leadership across the board. Interestingly, I was looking at some data from a survey last week that 52% of the Soldier in a particular unit did not trust their chain of command. But since that data is packaged together with things like suicidal ideation, or incidents of violence, or alcohol consumption which people believe is the command's focus, they overlook the significance of that number.
I am not writing this today to say "Ha! I told you I was right." While it is always nice to have your beliefes validated by others, when faced with a crisis it doesn't serve any purpose beyond trying to chart the course ahead. The purpose of my witing this today is to point out that 1) If two retired Colonels are saying this, then maybe the pervasiveness of the problem is larger than we think. That the article was published in a military journal, should be evidence enough that there is a recognition that we need to relook how we lead in order to succeed in the contemporary environment. 2) The small to big, or big to small thought process that I outlined in an earlier post does have some merit. While the Army may break things down along the Operational, Tactical, and Strategic lines, the idea that they are independant of each other and that people at the different levels do not posess the ability to understand and appreciate the other levels is ludicrous. For example, if a strategic goal of an insurgency is to break down the social / political will of their adversary to continue to fight, then it just may be possible that the increased suicide and behavioral problems that are showing up in our squads, platoons, and companies represent a victorious battle in the strategic war they are waging.
As always, I encourage your thoughts and ideas.
#30 Servant Leadership
It's amazing what you can learn from the quotations and thoughts of others. Consider the following from Gen Melvin Zais who commanded the 101st in Vietnam:
"Lets talk a little more about caring....It's an interesting phenomenon and paradox here that we go to school after school and 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% of it on tactics, weapons, logistics and planning. Just think about it."
That speech was given to students of the National Defense University to members of all 4 uniformed services who were battalion level commanders and higher.
Further on in the speech, Gen Zais goes on to say:
"Well, there are degrees of caring. And there's an attitude you have to develop in yourself. How do you know if you care? You're sitting out there wondering, do I care? Do I really care? How do I know if I care? Well for one thing, if you care, you listen to your junior officers and Soldiers. I don't mean that stilted baloney that so many officers engage in and stand up to an enlisted man and say "How are you son? Where are you from? How long have you been here? Thank you very much, next man. That's baloney. That's form. That's posed. Well, I'm not talking about that stuff. I'm talking about listening. Because a young Soldier won't come out and tell you that everything is all wrong. If you ask him if he's getting along all right and he just shrugs, he's getting along lousy. If he's not enthusiastic, there's something wrong and you'd better dig a little deeper." Somehow it's concerning to me that he would have to be saying this to people who were commanding organizations of 500 men or more. You would think by that point that they would have absorbed that lesson.....
And finally, from a column that he wrote in the post newspaper when he was the 101st Airborne Division, Commanding General:
"You cannot expect a Soldier to be a proud Soldier if you humiliate him. You cannot expect him to be brave if you abuse and cower him. You cannot expect him to be strong if you break him. You cannot ask him for respect and obedience and willingness to assault into hot landing zones, hump back breaking ridges, destroy dug in emplacements, if your Soldier has not been treated with the respect and dignity which fosters unit esprit and personal pride. The line between firmness and harshness - between strong leadership and bullying, between discipline and chicken is a fine line. It is difficult to define, but for those of us who are professionals and have also accepted a career as leaders of men, we must find that line. It is because judgment and concern for people and human relations are involved in leadership, that only men can lead and not computers."
Apparently 40 or more years ago we were still struggling with the human dimension of leading Soldiers. Interesting that we don't appear to be getting any better at it. I also find it interesting - and wonder why it is - that 3 and 4 star Generals seem to understand the criticality of the human being very well, but the vast middle of the military doesn't. I've got a suspicion that it stems from having reached a comfortable, secure place career-wise where they are not risking much by looking holistically at the organization and identifying where there may be short-comings or areas of improvement. In fact, much like the wise old sage who advises the young prince, that may be the role they play. To take a career's worth of experience and wisdom and keep the organization moving forward. General Caldwell's remarks from last weeks post seem to echo these thoughts regarding care, concern and the role of the leader as a servant of the led. One of the first trips Caldwell took after assuming command of the Center for Army Leadership was a tour of Google to see how the organization was able to identify, manage, and capitalize in a rapidly changing environment. Can you imagine a 50 year old 3 star Army General being briefed by a 20 something year old kid? Can you imagine how much institutionalization (on both sides of the fence) has to be set aside for that conversation to even occur? Wow! A general serving today talks of servant leadership. A general from 40 years or more ago talks of caring about a scared young man before a parachute jump....George Washington said quite clearly "When we assumed the Soldier, we did not set aside the citizen."
I say this because as the Division struggles to find ways to assist our Soldiers, I have pressed my case for the Generals and Colonels to start listening. They have to visibly and repeatedly demonstrate that the human beings they serve, who also happen to be Soldiers, are the most important part of the entire organization. By focusing that way, we might create a small cultural awareness that it really is the Soldier - down in a squad, pulling guard in a tower, smoking a cigarette after a firefight or exhausting patrol, who is the reason the rest of us come to work each day. Culture change happens most effectively when the top sets the direction, and the middle feels some pressure to change current practice, and finally, the institution accepts a new norm. Without the Generals telling the Colonels and the Colonels telling the Lieutenant Colonels that we need to refocus our efforts on the human beings that fill their ranks, then we will continue to press forward with a business management model that ultimately causes Soldiers to lose faith and that loss demonstrates itself in a variety of ways, most of which are not good for the Army and do not contribute to mission success. Without pressure to create an environment of servant leadership we will undoubtedly fail.
I was reading the November/December issue of Soldier magazine the other day, and it is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the United States Special Operations Command. In the article on Army Special Forces, is a small box that identifies the '5 Truths of Special Forces'. Interestingly, the first 2 are, "Humans are more important than their hardwear", and "Their quality is more important than their quantities."
In post #29 I started to look at those parts of my leadership 'philosophy' that matter the most to me ad asked readers to do the same. Ever since I have been in the Army, I have wondered why officers are required to have - and post for all to read - their command philosophy, but senior enlisted are not. I believe that while it is important for people to understand the things that matter most to the commissioned officer who is legally in charge of the organization, I also believe that it is even more critical that that process occur on the non-commissioned officer side. Where the Soldier and the leader meet in the day-to-day conduct of unit business. In the thousands of little decisions and interactions and displays of behavior and response that make up the fine line between "firmness and harshness, leadership and bullying" that Gen Zais spoke of above.
But, how do you do this? How do you inculcate these ideas in the next generation of Soldiers? A significant part of this problem is that we all believe that we are good leaders already. And why shouldn't we? Our promotions and positions have provided us every reason to believe that what we have done in the past and the positions we are in now are completely due to demonstrated ability and past leadership performance. That belief - reinforced by institutional promotion and evaluation systems that have a completely different set of pressures placed on them - creates 2 separate but related problems. The first is the belief at the leader level that one can simply replicate the same processes and ideas that were used at a lower level at the higher one. What worked as a squad leader will continue to work at platoon or even company level. Over the course of a career, that would mean that the same thing that worked 20 years ago should still work today. That implies a very static world. That is not the world we live in. The second is the creation of the us/them, leader group/led group mentality, as if being an officer, or non-commissioned officer is some kind of club that some people are let in and others are excluded from. If you change those breakdowns into an Us group with no Them part, and see the officer, non-commissioned officer, Soldier as all parts of one thing (the Army), instead of separate parts, then it changes the discussion. Issues like suicide, rising crime rates, domestic violence, apathy etc cannot be seen as abstracts when they are happening in our own home. They can however, be seen that way if you don't feel as if they are your problems, but rather the problems of some other group.
To lead people you must inherently value them. Otherwise it is simply management. Valuing them implies caring for them. It means acknowledging their importance in the organization and working at all times to serve them to the best of your ability. In order to do that, you have to be grounded in who you are, what you value, and why you do the things you do. You then have to share that with those you serve. They have to know who they are following. They have to trust that their leader has their best interest in mind. Not necessarily their safety, or their comfort, or their physical pain, but their ultimate importance to the organization. A Soldier who believes that their leadership has decided that attacking the enemy or defending a piece of ground is the best way to ultimately care for them, their families and what they value will fight - and in some cases - die believing in that leader. Those who do not feel that way will simply try to survive.
General Zais said it quite nicely, "You have to give a damn."
"Lets talk a little more about caring....It's an interesting phenomenon and paradox here that we go to school after school and 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% of it on tactics, weapons, logistics and planning. Just think about it."
That speech was given to students of the National Defense University to members of all 4 uniformed services who were battalion level commanders and higher.
Further on in the speech, Gen Zais goes on to say:
"Well, there are degrees of caring. And there's an attitude you have to develop in yourself. How do you know if you care? You're sitting out there wondering, do I care? Do I really care? How do I know if I care? Well for one thing, if you care, you listen to your junior officers and Soldiers. I don't mean that stilted baloney that so many officers engage in and stand up to an enlisted man and say "How are you son? Where are you from? How long have you been here? Thank you very much, next man. That's baloney. That's form. That's posed. Well, I'm not talking about that stuff. I'm talking about listening. Because a young Soldier won't come out and tell you that everything is all wrong. If you ask him if he's getting along all right and he just shrugs, he's getting along lousy. If he's not enthusiastic, there's something wrong and you'd better dig a little deeper." Somehow it's concerning to me that he would have to be saying this to people who were commanding organizations of 500 men or more. You would think by that point that they would have absorbed that lesson.....
And finally, from a column that he wrote in the post newspaper when he was the 101st Airborne Division, Commanding General:
"You cannot expect a Soldier to be a proud Soldier if you humiliate him. You cannot expect him to be brave if you abuse and cower him. You cannot expect him to be strong if you break him. You cannot ask him for respect and obedience and willingness to assault into hot landing zones, hump back breaking ridges, destroy dug in emplacements, if your Soldier has not been treated with the respect and dignity which fosters unit esprit and personal pride. The line between firmness and harshness - between strong leadership and bullying, between discipline and chicken is a fine line. It is difficult to define, but for those of us who are professionals and have also accepted a career as leaders of men, we must find that line. It is because judgment and concern for people and human relations are involved in leadership, that only men can lead and not computers."
Apparently 40 or more years ago we were still struggling with the human dimension of leading Soldiers. Interesting that we don't appear to be getting any better at it. I also find it interesting - and wonder why it is - that 3 and 4 star Generals seem to understand the criticality of the human being very well, but the vast middle of the military doesn't. I've got a suspicion that it stems from having reached a comfortable, secure place career-wise where they are not risking much by looking holistically at the organization and identifying where there may be short-comings or areas of improvement. In fact, much like the wise old sage who advises the young prince, that may be the role they play. To take a career's worth of experience and wisdom and keep the organization moving forward. General Caldwell's remarks from last weeks post seem to echo these thoughts regarding care, concern and the role of the leader as a servant of the led. One of the first trips Caldwell took after assuming command of the Center for Army Leadership was a tour of Google to see how the organization was able to identify, manage, and capitalize in a rapidly changing environment. Can you imagine a 50 year old 3 star Army General being briefed by a 20 something year old kid? Can you imagine how much institutionalization (on both sides of the fence) has to be set aside for that conversation to even occur? Wow! A general serving today talks of servant leadership. A general from 40 years or more ago talks of caring about a scared young man before a parachute jump....George Washington said quite clearly "When we assumed the Soldier, we did not set aside the citizen."
I say this because as the Division struggles to find ways to assist our Soldiers, I have pressed my case for the Generals and Colonels to start listening. They have to visibly and repeatedly demonstrate that the human beings they serve, who also happen to be Soldiers, are the most important part of the entire organization. By focusing that way, we might create a small cultural awareness that it really is the Soldier - down in a squad, pulling guard in a tower, smoking a cigarette after a firefight or exhausting patrol, who is the reason the rest of us come to work each day. Culture change happens most effectively when the top sets the direction, and the middle feels some pressure to change current practice, and finally, the institution accepts a new norm. Without the Generals telling the Colonels and the Colonels telling the Lieutenant Colonels that we need to refocus our efforts on the human beings that fill their ranks, then we will continue to press forward with a business management model that ultimately causes Soldiers to lose faith and that loss demonstrates itself in a variety of ways, most of which are not good for the Army and do not contribute to mission success. Without pressure to create an environment of servant leadership we will undoubtedly fail.
I was reading the November/December issue of Soldier magazine the other day, and it is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the United States Special Operations Command. In the article on Army Special Forces, is a small box that identifies the '5 Truths of Special Forces'. Interestingly, the first 2 are, "Humans are more important than their hardwear", and "Their quality is more important than their quantities."
In post #29 I started to look at those parts of my leadership 'philosophy' that matter the most to me ad asked readers to do the same. Ever since I have been in the Army, I have wondered why officers are required to have - and post for all to read - their command philosophy, but senior enlisted are not. I believe that while it is important for people to understand the things that matter most to the commissioned officer who is legally in charge of the organization, I also believe that it is even more critical that that process occur on the non-commissioned officer side. Where the Soldier and the leader meet in the day-to-day conduct of unit business. In the thousands of little decisions and interactions and displays of behavior and response that make up the fine line between "firmness and harshness, leadership and bullying" that Gen Zais spoke of above.
But, how do you do this? How do you inculcate these ideas in the next generation of Soldiers? A significant part of this problem is that we all believe that we are good leaders already. And why shouldn't we? Our promotions and positions have provided us every reason to believe that what we have done in the past and the positions we are in now are completely due to demonstrated ability and past leadership performance. That belief - reinforced by institutional promotion and evaluation systems that have a completely different set of pressures placed on them - creates 2 separate but related problems. The first is the belief at the leader level that one can simply replicate the same processes and ideas that were used at a lower level at the higher one. What worked as a squad leader will continue to work at platoon or even company level. Over the course of a career, that would mean that the same thing that worked 20 years ago should still work today. That implies a very static world. That is not the world we live in. The second is the creation of the us/them, leader group/led group mentality, as if being an officer, or non-commissioned officer is some kind of club that some people are let in and others are excluded from. If you change those breakdowns into an Us group with no Them part, and see the officer, non-commissioned officer, Soldier as all parts of one thing (the Army), instead of separate parts, then it changes the discussion. Issues like suicide, rising crime rates, domestic violence, apathy etc cannot be seen as abstracts when they are happening in our own home. They can however, be seen that way if you don't feel as if they are your problems, but rather the problems of some other group.
To lead people you must inherently value them. Otherwise it is simply management. Valuing them implies caring for them. It means acknowledging their importance in the organization and working at all times to serve them to the best of your ability. In order to do that, you have to be grounded in who you are, what you value, and why you do the things you do. You then have to share that with those you serve. They have to know who they are following. They have to trust that their leader has their best interest in mind. Not necessarily their safety, or their comfort, or their physical pain, but their ultimate importance to the organization. A Soldier who believes that their leadership has decided that attacking the enemy or defending a piece of ground is the best way to ultimately care for them, their families and what they value will fight - and in some cases - die believing in that leader. Those who do not feel that way will simply try to survive.
General Zais said it quite nicely, "You have to give a damn."
#29 My Thoughts
So far, most of these blog posts have been centered on what I believe is wrong with the leadership training system that is currently in place in the Army. I have focused my thoughts on the failure of the institutional approach to leader development and tried to find examples from different sources to 'prove' that there is a better way to do business, and that the very survival of the leadership corps demands that we re-look our current assumptions and methods and see if there is a better way to produce value-based Soldiers who posses the skills and analytical qualities required for the current operating environment.
Along the way I have often repeated the phrase that "the top needs to start listening to the bottom." I still believe this is generically true due to the vast number of 'disgruntled employees' out there, but after doing to some searching this week, I found that maybe the top is listening. Maybe they actually do understand the types of leaders we need to produce. Maybe the very very top of the Army has a very clear understanding of what skills and abilities our Soldiers need to posses in order to be successful in the current age. As proof, I offer the following thoughts.
LTG William Caldwell is, or was, the Commander of the Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth, KS. I have found a lot of interesting information there, including the blog post that he started regarding strategic communication that helped focus my thoughts and started a dialogue with CR that has been immensely helpful. Yesterday, I printed the text of some speeches that LTG Caldwell gave throughout his tenure and I think they are appropriate here.
First, a quote from a speech given at West Point to the class of 2011.
"Your service in our Army will likely be defined as a period of persistent conflict against decentralized 'flat' enemy organizations like Al Qada, Hamas, and Hezbollah. To fight and win in this environment demands agile, adaptable leaders who are creative, critical thinkers."
"Somewhere at this very moment there is a Soldier in training in places like Ft. Benning, who is preparing for war and expects a leader of character, who possesses the will to win, the personal courage and mental toughness to inspire, and lead them in the most trying of times."
"Many people you encounter while deployed will not understand English, but they will watch your actions and judge America by your integrity, your sincerity and the respect you show their women and children."
"Our military is beginning to accept the merits of this approach to warfighting. We are slowly changing a culture. Rest assured however that we are merely catching up to our adaptive enemy. For years, Hamas has built medical clinics and schools in Palestinian refugee camps and has the popular support of many."
I think these 4 quotes are important because they set the stage by properly seeing the environment as it is...not how we might wish it to be, allude to the human qualities that must be developed to lead Soldiers, understand that violence of action must be intimately coupled with empathy, compassion and respect, and accept that we, as an organization, are playing catch-up to an enemy who, by design and structure, is out-OODAing us at basic levels.
Even more impactful for me however, was a speech that LTG Caldwell gave to private sector industry leaders on November 13, 2008. He was the keynote speaker at the Giant Impact Servant Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. During that speech, he made some comments that I think are critically important to all leader development, not just the very bottom. They are a call to each of us to consider who we are, what we stand for, and how we go about impacting out world. Below are some excerpts:
"The most effective leaders do not seek power, wealth or fame - they seek to make a difference in the lives of others" As quoted from the book "The Case for Servant Leadership" by Kent Keith.
"Be humble - never take yourself too seriously"
"Be teachable - Have a willingness to learn from others. I've found that I often times learn the most from talking with our new Soldiers and officers. When I was the Multi-National Task Force - Iraq spokesman, a young 23 year old contractor came up to me and asked me if we'd ever thought about using You Tube to tell the story of the American Soldier? I said "You what?" I had never heard of You Tube, but after a quick tutorial we approved this young man to build and hang videos on the site. I was not the expert at new media, but I was willing to learn......Seek knowledge from all sources: Reading, writing, listening (Reflect, Rebalance, Refocus."
"Be Yourself - Leaders must seek out the unique skills of all those who work for them. Find their strengths and bring them out. Maximize your own strengths. Each of us in a unique individual - diversity builds the team strength."
"Along with Be, Say, Do, a Servant Leader must have a vision. A vision is a defining characteristic necessary for a strategic leader to change a culture. Without a vision the people will perish and the organization will flounder. It's important to note you need to know how to define success because it will drive many important decisions. It will impact every decision you make as a leader. How does a servant leader define success? A servant leader defines it as serving others."
If you look throughout this blog, you can find references by me or by others who post here that reflect most if not all of these themes. The themes and ideas seem to have an almost universal feel to them. That the 'best' of industry, academia, government etc share a sort of over-arching ethos. A sense of themselves, a desire to serve, a high value on their people, and a vision for a better world.
And so, I started to ask myself what I believe in. What are my rules for successful leadership?
1. I truly think that successful leaders must be themselves. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was "Go with what got you here. If you were a nice guy before, stay that way. If you were an asshole, don't try to change now." It's important to understand that "being yourself" will change over time and circumstance. Accept that and hold on to those things that become the marrow of your character. Let the rest slide by when it no longer serves you. It's called growing and it is the very essence of successful leadership. As I continue to grow I am slowly becoming more comfortable in my own skin. The highs and lows, victories and defeats, miracles and tragedies that have made up the 41 years of my life have created the person I am today - warts and all. While I will never stop trying to improve myself, I am slowly becoming more comfortable with who I am and how I operate. That is important when leading others because regardless of the type of person you are - good or bad, angel or asshole, there is a purity to that which makes your followers more comfortable and confident with you and the decisions you make. They feel secure in your personality. Without vanity, study yourself and learn about who you are and why you are the way you are. Other people's impressions of you are fleeting - they see you at one particular place in time - they will not define the whole of your life.
2. Be ever watchful for your own hypocrisy. Most good leaders have character traits that one might find distasteful. They may be arrogant, or boastful, or demanding. These can all be accepted however if they are not hypocritical. Be careful not to believe your own bullshit.
3. Treat them as people first and Soldiers second....you'll get a better Soldier. It's funny, but if you look at the previous post that talked about AR 600-20, you'll see the same thing. We work to provide the physical / material / mental and spiritual needs of the individual in order to build a more complete and more capable Soldier. Meet those individual needs and the Soldier you help to create will become the citizen who posses those qualities that are uniquely American
4. Another quote from a mentor: "Whenever your assumptions prove false, check your pretenses. In that, reflection is always a positive thing."
5. I do not profess to be very religious. Although raised Catholic, I have not come back to the place of organized religion yet. However, when I was a young man my father gave me a copy of a document called "The Desiderata". In place of anything else, it has provided me a valuable guide throughout the years. You can find it at: http://www.fleurdelis.com/desiderata.htm
These are the leadership guides that are important to me. They are generally hopeful, and very universal. I believe that having some sense of your value system and a recognition of who you are is the critical component to becoming a successful leader. I'd be interested to hear what yours are. They will demand objective self evaluation and a re-evaluation of whether you are a servant leader, or a leader who sees others as serving them in search of a larger goal. Mind you, I'm not judging either way, only recognizing that there is a difference and knowing which side of the fence you are on right now will play a large part in determining how you will lead in the future.
Along the way I have often repeated the phrase that "the top needs to start listening to the bottom." I still believe this is generically true due to the vast number of 'disgruntled employees' out there, but after doing to some searching this week, I found that maybe the top is listening. Maybe they actually do understand the types of leaders we need to produce. Maybe the very very top of the Army has a very clear understanding of what skills and abilities our Soldiers need to posses in order to be successful in the current age. As proof, I offer the following thoughts.
LTG William Caldwell is, or was, the Commander of the Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth, KS. I have found a lot of interesting information there, including the blog post that he started regarding strategic communication that helped focus my thoughts and started a dialogue with CR that has been immensely helpful. Yesterday, I printed the text of some speeches that LTG Caldwell gave throughout his tenure and I think they are appropriate here.
First, a quote from a speech given at West Point to the class of 2011.
"Your service in our Army will likely be defined as a period of persistent conflict against decentralized 'flat' enemy organizations like Al Qada, Hamas, and Hezbollah. To fight and win in this environment demands agile, adaptable leaders who are creative, critical thinkers."
"Somewhere at this very moment there is a Soldier in training in places like Ft. Benning, who is preparing for war and expects a leader of character, who possesses the will to win, the personal courage and mental toughness to inspire, and lead them in the most trying of times."
"Many people you encounter while deployed will not understand English, but they will watch your actions and judge America by your integrity, your sincerity and the respect you show their women and children."
"Our military is beginning to accept the merits of this approach to warfighting. We are slowly changing a culture. Rest assured however that we are merely catching up to our adaptive enemy. For years, Hamas has built medical clinics and schools in Palestinian refugee camps and has the popular support of many."
I think these 4 quotes are important because they set the stage by properly seeing the environment as it is...not how we might wish it to be, allude to the human qualities that must be developed to lead Soldiers, understand that violence of action must be intimately coupled with empathy, compassion and respect, and accept that we, as an organization, are playing catch-up to an enemy who, by design and structure, is out-OODAing us at basic levels.
Even more impactful for me however, was a speech that LTG Caldwell gave to private sector industry leaders on November 13, 2008. He was the keynote speaker at the Giant Impact Servant Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. During that speech, he made some comments that I think are critically important to all leader development, not just the very bottom. They are a call to each of us to consider who we are, what we stand for, and how we go about impacting out world. Below are some excerpts:
"The most effective leaders do not seek power, wealth or fame - they seek to make a difference in the lives of others" As quoted from the book "The Case for Servant Leadership" by Kent Keith.
"Be humble - never take yourself too seriously"
"Be teachable - Have a willingness to learn from others. I've found that I often times learn the most from talking with our new Soldiers and officers. When I was the Multi-National Task Force - Iraq spokesman, a young 23 year old contractor came up to me and asked me if we'd ever thought about using You Tube to tell the story of the American Soldier? I said "You what?" I had never heard of You Tube, but after a quick tutorial we approved this young man to build and hang videos on the site. I was not the expert at new media, but I was willing to learn......Seek knowledge from all sources: Reading, writing, listening (Reflect, Rebalance, Refocus."
"Be Yourself - Leaders must seek out the unique skills of all those who work for them. Find their strengths and bring them out. Maximize your own strengths. Each of us in a unique individual - diversity builds the team strength."
"Along with Be, Say, Do, a Servant Leader must have a vision. A vision is a defining characteristic necessary for a strategic leader to change a culture. Without a vision the people will perish and the organization will flounder. It's important to note you need to know how to define success because it will drive many important decisions. It will impact every decision you make as a leader. How does a servant leader define success? A servant leader defines it as serving others."
If you look throughout this blog, you can find references by me or by others who post here that reflect most if not all of these themes. The themes and ideas seem to have an almost universal feel to them. That the 'best' of industry, academia, government etc share a sort of over-arching ethos. A sense of themselves, a desire to serve, a high value on their people, and a vision for a better world.
And so, I started to ask myself what I believe in. What are my rules for successful leadership?
1. I truly think that successful leaders must be themselves. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was "Go with what got you here. If you were a nice guy before, stay that way. If you were an asshole, don't try to change now." It's important to understand that "being yourself" will change over time and circumstance. Accept that and hold on to those things that become the marrow of your character. Let the rest slide by when it no longer serves you. It's called growing and it is the very essence of successful leadership. As I continue to grow I am slowly becoming more comfortable in my own skin. The highs and lows, victories and defeats, miracles and tragedies that have made up the 41 years of my life have created the person I am today - warts and all. While I will never stop trying to improve myself, I am slowly becoming more comfortable with who I am and how I operate. That is important when leading others because regardless of the type of person you are - good or bad, angel or asshole, there is a purity to that which makes your followers more comfortable and confident with you and the decisions you make. They feel secure in your personality. Without vanity, study yourself and learn about who you are and why you are the way you are. Other people's impressions of you are fleeting - they see you at one particular place in time - they will not define the whole of your life.
2. Be ever watchful for your own hypocrisy. Most good leaders have character traits that one might find distasteful. They may be arrogant, or boastful, or demanding. These can all be accepted however if they are not hypocritical. Be careful not to believe your own bullshit.
3. Treat them as people first and Soldiers second....you'll get a better Soldier. It's funny, but if you look at the previous post that talked about AR 600-20, you'll see the same thing. We work to provide the physical / material / mental and spiritual needs of the individual in order to build a more complete and more capable Soldier. Meet those individual needs and the Soldier you help to create will become the citizen who posses those qualities that are uniquely American
4. Another quote from a mentor: "Whenever your assumptions prove false, check your pretenses. In that, reflection is always a positive thing."
5. I do not profess to be very religious. Although raised Catholic, I have not come back to the place of organized religion yet. However, when I was a young man my father gave me a copy of a document called "The Desiderata". In place of anything else, it has provided me a valuable guide throughout the years. You can find it at: http://www.fleurdelis.com/desiderata.htm
These are the leadership guides that are important to me. They are generally hopeful, and very universal. I believe that having some sense of your value system and a recognition of who you are is the critical component to becoming a successful leader. I'd be interested to hear what yours are. They will demand objective self evaluation and a re-evaluation of whether you are a servant leader, or a leader who sees others as serving them in search of a larger goal. Mind you, I'm not judging either way, only recognizing that there is a difference and knowing which side of the fence you are on right now will play a large part in determining how you will lead in the future.
# 28 Follow-Up
The last 2 posts, #26 and #27, have generated more feedback than any of the others I have posted to date. In light of that, and with a suggestion from one of the readers, I printed and read Chapter 3 of Army Regulation 600-20, Army Command Policy. I'm going to attempt to tie some of the various thoughts from these earlier posts together and see if they generate a coherent picture of not only the issue (as I see it) but possible solutions.
A note on the blog itself. One of the things that I have recognized since beginning this, is that it is very easy to sit back and play Monday morning quarterback. Judgment of other people, and their solutions to a particular problem are too easy. And mostly not fair. Most leaders do not intend to fail, waste Soldier's time, or recklessly abandon the requirements of their position. They actually mean well and want to serve the Army to the best of their abilities. While there will always be those who use other people intentionally for self-aggrandizement, I believe that in most cases what happens is the leaders begin to believe a little too much in their personal sense of rightness because they have been repeatedly told or promoted into positions which lead them to believe that their answer is the best answer. It is also true that simply developing another good idea on paper or in a blog like this won't solve the problem either. The best and only possible solution is a combination of accurately recognizing the problem(s), expanding the possible solution set(s) as widely as possible and then being willing to get your hands dirty at the user level to attempt to solve the issue at hand.
I started this blog talking a lot about COL Boyd and the OODA Loop. As Boyd repeatedly pointed out, the hardest part of the OODA cycle is the Orientation phase. This critical second phase - understanding the issue or challenge in light of your understanding of yourself, your adversary and the environment is very difficult. It is an extremely multilayered task and the ability to be able to do it rapidly will not be developed quickly. A good example of the Orientation challenge was a slide show I saw yesterday from 1/5 Marines. In it was a picture of an old Afghan man pushing a wheelbarrow. The caption read "This man's wheelbarrow is the greatest possession he owns. Treat it that way." From a Soldiers perspective, it is simply a wheelbarrow. From the other side of the Orientation it is a livelihood, an ability to provide for his family, a place in a community and a measure of self respect. In another picture, there was a cart filled with poppy plants. The caption read "Without the resin, it's simply cooking fuel." A very powerful message. From one side it is the financing of terror through opium production, from the other a means to boil water and cook meat. All depends upon how you look at it. And the outcome of this war could actually hang in that precarious balance. Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies rely upon the support of the local population to be successful. Each day and with each interaction the efforts of both sides will either shorten or prolong this conflict.
I have also mentioned numerous times the need to work from the bottom up, not the top down. By looking at the frustrations, challenges, issues and opportunities from the perspective of those at the bottom, I have contended that we can engage them, challenge them and develop them - and along the way pass along the Army value system and Warrior Ethos in a language and form that they will respond to. This will contribute positively to their Army experience and enhance their well-being and continue their desire to serve.
Chapter 3 of AR 600-20, Army Command Policy, is dedicated to Army Well-being. It incorporates the spiritual / moral / physical needs of all members of the Army community and makes commanders responsible to initiate or sustain programs dedicated to the holistic needs of the entire Army family. In light of the difficulties I have referenced in earlier posts on my installation, and coupled with the tragedy at Ft. Hood this past Thursday, it seems that many of these thoughts are very timely.
In Section 3-3, the Well-being is separated into 2 sub-categories, institutional and individual.
"An Institutional Perspective - Well-being is actually a condition resulting from the effects of a system of individual programs, policies and initiatives."
"An Individual Perspective - Well-being is a personal state experienced by the individual. While there is no formula for describing the personal state, individuals must be self-reliant in order for this experience to be positive. Individuals are ultimately responsible for their own well-being but commanders are responsible for creating and sustaining a climate that contributes positively to the lives of the Army family."
The paragraph dedicated to the individual perspective goes on to outline 4 pillars that contribute to individual wellness: Physical, Material, Mental and Spiritual.
"Physical - The physical state centers on one's health and sense of wellness, satisfying physical needs through a healthy lifestyle."
"Material - The material state centers on essential needs such as shelter, food and financial resources."
"Mental - The mental state centers on basic needs to grow, learn, achieve recognition, and be accepted."
"Spiritual - The spiritual state centers on a person's religious/philosophical needs, providing powerful support for values, morals, strength of character, and endurance in difficult and dangerous circumstances."
It seems to me that the best way to respond to the challenges we face is from the Individual Perspective outlined above. The beauty for commanders and leaders is that the Army has already outlined the requirements for them, they simply have to find ways to implement them that will result in the Soldier believing that their needs are being met across all 4 pillars.
Currently, as the installation tries to come to grip with the various challenges it faces, it is using a rather predictable Institutional Response, which, given it's Orientation, it believes will produce the the desired Individual Response. However, since it does not seem to be working, maybe it's time to relook the Institutional Orientation and concentrate on the Individual one instead. Much like I can look at the poppy plant as a source of terrorist financing or the ability to boil water, I believe I can look at the incident rates of suicide, homicide, spouse abuse, sexual assault, drug and alcohol abuse in the same manner. They are either crimes to be prosecuted, or a outcomes of the Institution failing to meet the Individual needs.
If we see the 'criminal' activities above as the failure of the institution to address one or more of the pillars of individual well-being then instead of focusing on how to stop domestic violence, we can concentrate on fixing that broken need. By recognizing that all of these behaviors are actually a systemic failure to meet the needs of the Soldier at some level, then we can implement policies and programs designed to meet that shortfall.
Now, the critical part of the Individual Response is the statement that "..Individuals must be self reliant.....individuals are ultimately responsible for their own well-being." Accepting that, what if they are not? What if they do not posses a self-reliant skillset? Way back in post #6 I included the following section from the TRADOC Human Dimension Study regarding people born after 1980:
"Their structured lives included parents shuffling them from one activity to another all under the watchful eyes of teachers, coaches, tutors and music instructors. Wide-ranging child protection laws and safety products that came out of the 1980's have made Millennials one of the most sheltered generations."
Ooops. The Soldiers of today may not possess the ability to be self-reliant because the society that raised them spent too much time protecting them. Now, faced with the strain of 8 years of combat, the emotional strain of loss, failed relationships and an inability to process these changes, is it all that hard to see why we are having such a hard time? The TRADOC study also made the following point:
"Findings of three different research organizations indicate that current Army leaders hold different values from those held by the Nation's youth, the next generation of Soldiers. More troubling, the studies show the two sets of values are continuing to diverge."
The top doesn't hold the same values as the bottom, the 2 groups are growing further apart and the Institutional Responses" generated don't seem to be working.
Uniquely, it appears that the Army does seem to recognize this in it's written guidance by differentiating in 600-20 between the "Institution" and the "Individual". While placing the ultimate responsibility for wellness on the Soldier, it requires the the "Institution" to create and mange programs that allow that Soldier to meet their physical, material, mental and spiritual needs. What we appear to be doing is almost the opposite. We are creating programs that the top deems the appropriate response, and forcing the bottom into it. We need to do it the other way around. Create well-being programs that the bottom finds acceptable and meets their needs. It is less critical that the top even understand how or why it works, just that it produces the intended outcome across 1 of the 4 pillars outlined.
As always, I look forward to your input. We have suffered a large scale tragedy this week that touches all who serve, and the nation. Let us all pray for those who were lost and their families. But let us also pray for the wisdom to look very very hard at our Orientation and take a moment to look at things from the opposite side.
A note on the blog itself. One of the things that I have recognized since beginning this, is that it is very easy to sit back and play Monday morning quarterback. Judgment of other people, and their solutions to a particular problem are too easy. And mostly not fair. Most leaders do not intend to fail, waste Soldier's time, or recklessly abandon the requirements of their position. They actually mean well and want to serve the Army to the best of their abilities. While there will always be those who use other people intentionally for self-aggrandizement, I believe that in most cases what happens is the leaders begin to believe a little too much in their personal sense of rightness because they have been repeatedly told or promoted into positions which lead them to believe that their answer is the best answer. It is also true that simply developing another good idea on paper or in a blog like this won't solve the problem either. The best and only possible solution is a combination of accurately recognizing the problem(s), expanding the possible solution set(s) as widely as possible and then being willing to get your hands dirty at the user level to attempt to solve the issue at hand.
I started this blog talking a lot about COL Boyd and the OODA Loop. As Boyd repeatedly pointed out, the hardest part of the OODA cycle is the Orientation phase. This critical second phase - understanding the issue or challenge in light of your understanding of yourself, your adversary and the environment is very difficult. It is an extremely multilayered task and the ability to be able to do it rapidly will not be developed quickly. A good example of the Orientation challenge was a slide show I saw yesterday from 1/5 Marines. In it was a picture of an old Afghan man pushing a wheelbarrow. The caption read "This man's wheelbarrow is the greatest possession he owns. Treat it that way." From a Soldiers perspective, it is simply a wheelbarrow. From the other side of the Orientation it is a livelihood, an ability to provide for his family, a place in a community and a measure of self respect. In another picture, there was a cart filled with poppy plants. The caption read "Without the resin, it's simply cooking fuel." A very powerful message. From one side it is the financing of terror through opium production, from the other a means to boil water and cook meat. All depends upon how you look at it. And the outcome of this war could actually hang in that precarious balance. Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies rely upon the support of the local population to be successful. Each day and with each interaction the efforts of both sides will either shorten or prolong this conflict.
I have also mentioned numerous times the need to work from the bottom up, not the top down. By looking at the frustrations, challenges, issues and opportunities from the perspective of those at the bottom, I have contended that we can engage them, challenge them and develop them - and along the way pass along the Army value system and Warrior Ethos in a language and form that they will respond to. This will contribute positively to their Army experience and enhance their well-being and continue their desire to serve.
Chapter 3 of AR 600-20, Army Command Policy, is dedicated to Army Well-being. It incorporates the spiritual / moral / physical needs of all members of the Army community and makes commanders responsible to initiate or sustain programs dedicated to the holistic needs of the entire Army family. In light of the difficulties I have referenced in earlier posts on my installation, and coupled with the tragedy at Ft. Hood this past Thursday, it seems that many of these thoughts are very timely.
In Section 3-3, the Well-being is separated into 2 sub-categories, institutional and individual.
"An Institutional Perspective - Well-being is actually a condition resulting from the effects of a system of individual programs, policies and initiatives."
"An Individual Perspective - Well-being is a personal state experienced by the individual. While there is no formula for describing the personal state, individuals must be self-reliant in order for this experience to be positive. Individuals are ultimately responsible for their own well-being but commanders are responsible for creating and sustaining a climate that contributes positively to the lives of the Army family."
The paragraph dedicated to the individual perspective goes on to outline 4 pillars that contribute to individual wellness: Physical, Material, Mental and Spiritual.
"Physical - The physical state centers on one's health and sense of wellness, satisfying physical needs through a healthy lifestyle."
"Material - The material state centers on essential needs such as shelter, food and financial resources."
"Mental - The mental state centers on basic needs to grow, learn, achieve recognition, and be accepted."
"Spiritual - The spiritual state centers on a person's religious/philosophical needs, providing powerful support for values, morals, strength of character, and endurance in difficult and dangerous circumstances."
It seems to me that the best way to respond to the challenges we face is from the Individual Perspective outlined above. The beauty for commanders and leaders is that the Army has already outlined the requirements for them, they simply have to find ways to implement them that will result in the Soldier believing that their needs are being met across all 4 pillars.
Currently, as the installation tries to come to grip with the various challenges it faces, it is using a rather predictable Institutional Response, which, given it's Orientation, it believes will produce the the desired Individual Response. However, since it does not seem to be working, maybe it's time to relook the Institutional Orientation and concentrate on the Individual one instead. Much like I can look at the poppy plant as a source of terrorist financing or the ability to boil water, I believe I can look at the incident rates of suicide, homicide, spouse abuse, sexual assault, drug and alcohol abuse in the same manner. They are either crimes to be prosecuted, or a outcomes of the Institution failing to meet the Individual needs.
If we see the 'criminal' activities above as the failure of the institution to address one or more of the pillars of individual well-being then instead of focusing on how to stop domestic violence, we can concentrate on fixing that broken need. By recognizing that all of these behaviors are actually a systemic failure to meet the needs of the Soldier at some level, then we can implement policies and programs designed to meet that shortfall.
Now, the critical part of the Individual Response is the statement that "..Individuals must be self reliant.....individuals are ultimately responsible for their own well-being." Accepting that, what if they are not? What if they do not posses a self-reliant skillset? Way back in post #6 I included the following section from the TRADOC Human Dimension Study regarding people born after 1980:
"Their structured lives included parents shuffling them from one activity to another all under the watchful eyes of teachers, coaches, tutors and music instructors. Wide-ranging child protection laws and safety products that came out of the 1980's have made Millennials one of the most sheltered generations."
Ooops. The Soldiers of today may not possess the ability to be self-reliant because the society that raised them spent too much time protecting them. Now, faced with the strain of 8 years of combat, the emotional strain of loss, failed relationships and an inability to process these changes, is it all that hard to see why we are having such a hard time? The TRADOC study also made the following point:
"Findings of three different research organizations indicate that current Army leaders hold different values from those held by the Nation's youth, the next generation of Soldiers. More troubling, the studies show the two sets of values are continuing to diverge."
The top doesn't hold the same values as the bottom, the 2 groups are growing further apart and the Institutional Responses" generated don't seem to be working.
Uniquely, it appears that the Army does seem to recognize this in it's written guidance by differentiating in 600-20 between the "Institution" and the "Individual". While placing the ultimate responsibility for wellness on the Soldier, it requires the the "Institution" to create and mange programs that allow that Soldier to meet their physical, material, mental and spiritual needs. What we appear to be doing is almost the opposite. We are creating programs that the top deems the appropriate response, and forcing the bottom into it. We need to do it the other way around. Create well-being programs that the bottom finds acceptable and meets their needs. It is less critical that the top even understand how or why it works, just that it produces the intended outcome across 1 of the 4 pillars outlined.
As always, I look forward to your input. We have suffered a large scale tragedy this week that touches all who serve, and the nation. Let us all pray for those who were lost and their families. But let us also pray for the wisdom to look very very hard at our Orientation and take a moment to look at things from the opposite side.
# 27 Trust
Throughout these writings I have taken much of my source material from documents written for the Strategic Studies Institute (It's URL is at the top of the page). Normally, if I'm not exactly sure what I want to write about, or my thoughts aren't fully formed yet, I'll dig around there and see if something catches my eye or provokes a thought pattern that helps more clearly define the disparate thoughts of that week. This week was no different, but it requires me to go backward in order to go forward.
On Monday evening, a Soldier who once worked for me and I keep up with on Facebook posted that "Suicide is the only option". It had been posted 8 minutes earlier when I read it and was consistent with less dramatic earlier posts that indicated that she was struggling with some issues that were seemingly out of her control. I immediately contacted the installation Police Department and a mutual friend to begin to try and locate her. After approximately 20 minutes, I was able to get in touch with her by phone, determine her location and go to her to ensure her safety. After another friend took her to the ER to be treated, I returned home, and called the Staff Duty in order to inform her leadership of what had transpired, and the actions I had taken, and why. Her 1SG was present at Staff Duty, but was talking with someone else when I called and could not take my call. I gave the Staff Duty NCO my phone number and requested the 1SG call me back. He did not.
The following morning I sent an email to the battalion commander outlining the events of the evening prior, my actions and my reasoning. I informed him that I had made an attempt to to talk with the 1SG, but that I had not heard back from him. A few hours later, the Company Commander called me to let me know what they were doing to assist the Soldier, and to thank me for helping her the evening prior. Toward the end of the conversation he told me that he would have the 1SG call me so that "Senior NCO to senior NCO we could close the loop." That phone call has not come.
Tuesday I taught a marksmanship class and Wednesday the students went to a training site to practice what they had learned. In the early afternoon one of them mentioned how low the morale was in their unit and outlined some of the reasons why. This lead to a lot of head nodding and agreement by the other students. They all agree that the morale in their separate units is low and that they - in many cases - have stopped caring about the larger purpose of their service and now view much of what they do merely as a job or contractual obligation.
Thursday evening on the drive home, I called my friend from the Monday incident to check in and see how she was doing. I explained my actions to her and expressed my confidence in her and the unit now that they were aware of her difficulties and issues. They have found her a counselor she is comfortable with and she has regularly scheduled appointments to work through her issues and get her life back on track.
Yesterday I met with D.C. and spent the afternoon having a great conversation. D.C. is part of the large installation team trying to find ways to reduce the number of crisis incidents on post. I first met her 3 weeks ago at the Battalion Resiliency Counsel meeting I spoke of in post 26 Our purpose yesterday was to see if there might be a helpful role for me in the larger installation effort. We spent the afternoon discussing a wide range of issues and reasons and possible solutions to some of the issues we are facing. A lot of coffee, even more cigarettes and a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.
Throughout the week, the word 'trust' kept popping into my head. I'm beginning the think that the genesis of a lot of the issues we face throughout the Army are based on a loss of trust by the Soldiers in their leadership and their purpose. Now, that is an extremely generalized statement. Not every unit, nor every leader fits that mold. Everywhere you look, you can find young leaders - and seniors - who are truly caring for their Soldiers and doing everything they can to prepare for the deployment ahead. However, the rising tide of 'trouble indicators' i.e. suicides (attempted and completed), domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, arrests etc indicates that there is some larger ill-defined, underlying problem that we have failed to address. Not that extraordinary efforts and resources aren't being made available, but that for all that expenditure of energy, effort and care, we aren't really getting to the root of the issue.
And then yesterday I found a document at the SSI entitled "The Army's Professional Military Ethic in an Era of Persistent Conflict" published last month. ( http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/ )I highly encourage reading it, for it raises some interesting questions regarding the state of the 'ethic' of the Army today. On page 1 you will find the following quotation:
"Leadership is the potent combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy."
General Norman Schwarzkopf
Further on in the document the authors point out the following with regard to character development discussed in FM 6-22, Leadership:
"Character, a person's moral and ethical qualities, helps determine what is right and gives a leader motivation to do what is appropriate, regardless of the circumstances or the consequences. An informed ethical conscience consistent with the Army Values strengthens leaders to make the right choices when faced with tough issues. Since Army leaders seek to do what's right and inspire others to do the same, they must embody these values." (italics added by authors) FM 6-22
The authors then state, "In fact, current Army doctrine leaves character development to the individual, specifying no role at all for the institution save for its leaders." This is followed by another quotation from FM 6-22.
"Becoming a person of character and a leader of character is a career-process involving day-to-day experience, education, self-development, developmental counseling, coaching and mentoring. While individuals are responsible for their own character development, leaders are responsible for encouraging, supporting and assessing the efforts of their people. (bold added by authors) FM 6-22
I spent a lot of the conversation with D.C. yesterday talking about this issue of trust. I can't prove it empirically, but I believe that there has to be a recognition by unit leaders (Company level and higher), that in many ways, we have lost the trust of our Soldiers and we must work very very hard to either gain or regain it if we want to sustain a professional Army. If you see the 'trouble indicators' as greater than average behavioral indicators of a larger problem, then it is not all that difficult to work from small to large. I don't trust my local leader or have faith in their ability to care, protect, and train me. That lack of trust leads to my demoralization because I feel as if I am going into combat or deploying with people who don't care about me. That leads me not to care about the organization that I serve in or its' ideals. That produces behavior that is outside the expected norm because I no longer have faith in the institution anyway. In fact, to demonstrate my lack of caring, I participate in behaviors or actions that are known to be inconsistent with the stated values of the Army. In plain language, I just don't give shit anymore. And, because we are not consistently reinforcing the professional Army ethic - and it's critical moral and ethical and value necessity in leader development training, the local leader does not posses the understanding of the professional Army ethic nor can they put it into practice at the local level - the exact spot where the Soldier in crisis is standing.
The monologue from SSI also spends some time looking at the Army ethic as an institution, and asks whether or not those ethical values have been subsumed in some ways by bureaucratic responses. In essence, the bureaucracy has created it's own ethic - or expected norm of behavior. Is the Army reinforcing the incredibly important moral and ethical value system that it talks about in FM 6-22, or is it merely paying lip-service to them on posters and handouts while creating yet another bureaucratic response to a crisis or problem. "Sir, in response to XYZ issue, we've created a new Task Force to study and recommend to you courses of action. However, we will need a budget, an office, 6 salaried employees and a health care plan before we can begin work. Additionally, Sir, we will continually fight turf wars with other agencies and as soon as we become the flavor of the week then we will fight to change our status from temporary worker to government employee thereby ensuring that we can push another PowerPoint briefing in front of you and your staff once a month so that you shortly you won't remember what the hell the purpose was for creating us in the first place and we will be firmly entrenched in the protective bureaucracy of the Army institution."
And we wonder why Soldiers have lost faith....(Sarcasm included by me)
Throughout the discussions on the installation regarding how we can reduce the number of incidents and better care for our Soldiers I routinely hear the question, "How can we get this to the lowest level?" And then looking at a slideshow produced by Big Army a few days ago, I saw a slide that depicted the different tiers and levels of care providers and resources available. As expected, the Tier 1 folks were Chaplains, Dr.'s, Behavioral Health Specialists etc. At the bottom of Tier 2 were 3 words...First Line Supervisor. And there is no one below them. They were the last in line. This implies that even in the way the institution makes it's own damn slide shows there is a fundamental lack of understanding of who the target audience is and why we need to work from the First Line Supervisor up, not the Commanding General down. The General has to set a visible moral and ethical tone - which I'm sure he does - has to ensure that it doesn't get diluted or changed by the various bureaucrats and sycophants who have a vested interest in continuing their current methods, and reach those who are actually charged with helping and caring and leading Soldiers. The First Line Supervisor.
Now for that trust to be gained or regained, the solutions offered to the Soldier in crisis have to make sense and be accepted by that Soldier. When I called my friend on Thursday I informed her why I took my actions on Monday night in order to help her understand them. From her perspective, she was a little embarrassed and angry that her personal inability to handle her issues was now a public matter. A totally understandable reaction. But, she also knows, understands and acknowledged that she needs assistance and as embarrassing as it is in the short run she has not lost her trust in me. In light of that, I was looking at another document the other day that is in a coaches guide for a concept called "Team of Leaders". There is a quote in there that says:
Leader Team Effectiveness depends upon 3 criteria:
1. Producing a team outcome (product or service) acceptable to whomever the leader-team is serving. (my thought: The larger organization serves downward to the individual)
2. A growth in leader-team capacity which in turn improves capacity of the organization.
3. A group experience which is satisfying and meaningful to members which improves confidence. (my thought: Soldier confidence is mainly based upon trust in their leaders and acceptance of unit norms of behavior)
While this particular document is aimed at Joint and Inter-Agency Strategic levels, the same rules apply to squads, platoons, companies and battalions. Soldiers must accept the expected behaviors and requirements for inclusion in the unit. Those expected norms - the Values and Ethics - must be demonstrated in action by the leadership (at all levels and consistently) which builds individual confidence and trust. The actions derived from the expected norms and behaviors must produce a greater operational capacity for the individual and the unit (mutual growth). Participation is organizations who demonstrate the Ethics and Values must produce an experience meaningful to the member which will increase their confidence in the unit.
If we look at the "trouble indicators" as evidence of a loss of trust and confidence and as rebuttal of the expected ethical norms and values, then it seems clear that what needs to be done is 1) Start educating the First Line Supervisors and junior leaders about the professional Army Ethic, what it is, why it is and how it strengthens and serves as the moral spinal column of the unit. 2) Consistently reinforce what the organization stands for in light of persistent conflict and the physical, emotional and spiritual drain it is taking on Soldiers. 3) Work from the bottom up, not the top down. and 4) Make sure that the bureaucratic ethic has not, cannot, and will not subsume the Army Value ethic of caring, supportive, and disciplined leadership.
As always, your thoughts are critical. The Army is certainly not the only organization to face these challenges and every industry has it's own work ethic that has an effect on how it progresses in light of unexpected challenges.
On Monday evening, a Soldier who once worked for me and I keep up with on Facebook posted that "Suicide is the only option". It had been posted 8 minutes earlier when I read it and was consistent with less dramatic earlier posts that indicated that she was struggling with some issues that were seemingly out of her control. I immediately contacted the installation Police Department and a mutual friend to begin to try and locate her. After approximately 20 minutes, I was able to get in touch with her by phone, determine her location and go to her to ensure her safety. After another friend took her to the ER to be treated, I returned home, and called the Staff Duty in order to inform her leadership of what had transpired, and the actions I had taken, and why. Her 1SG was present at Staff Duty, but was talking with someone else when I called and could not take my call. I gave the Staff Duty NCO my phone number and requested the 1SG call me back. He did not.
The following morning I sent an email to the battalion commander outlining the events of the evening prior, my actions and my reasoning. I informed him that I had made an attempt to to talk with the 1SG, but that I had not heard back from him. A few hours later, the Company Commander called me to let me know what they were doing to assist the Soldier, and to thank me for helping her the evening prior. Toward the end of the conversation he told me that he would have the 1SG call me so that "Senior NCO to senior NCO we could close the loop." That phone call has not come.
Tuesday I taught a marksmanship class and Wednesday the students went to a training site to practice what they had learned. In the early afternoon one of them mentioned how low the morale was in their unit and outlined some of the reasons why. This lead to a lot of head nodding and agreement by the other students. They all agree that the morale in their separate units is low and that they - in many cases - have stopped caring about the larger purpose of their service and now view much of what they do merely as a job or contractual obligation.
Thursday evening on the drive home, I called my friend from the Monday incident to check in and see how she was doing. I explained my actions to her and expressed my confidence in her and the unit now that they were aware of her difficulties and issues. They have found her a counselor she is comfortable with and she has regularly scheduled appointments to work through her issues and get her life back on track.
Yesterday I met with D.C. and spent the afternoon having a great conversation. D.C. is part of the large installation team trying to find ways to reduce the number of crisis incidents on post. I first met her 3 weeks ago at the Battalion Resiliency Counsel meeting I spoke of in post 26 Our purpose yesterday was to see if there might be a helpful role for me in the larger installation effort. We spent the afternoon discussing a wide range of issues and reasons and possible solutions to some of the issues we are facing. A lot of coffee, even more cigarettes and a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.
Throughout the week, the word 'trust' kept popping into my head. I'm beginning the think that the genesis of a lot of the issues we face throughout the Army are based on a loss of trust by the Soldiers in their leadership and their purpose. Now, that is an extremely generalized statement. Not every unit, nor every leader fits that mold. Everywhere you look, you can find young leaders - and seniors - who are truly caring for their Soldiers and doing everything they can to prepare for the deployment ahead. However, the rising tide of 'trouble indicators' i.e. suicides (attempted and completed), domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, arrests etc indicates that there is some larger ill-defined, underlying problem that we have failed to address. Not that extraordinary efforts and resources aren't being made available, but that for all that expenditure of energy, effort and care, we aren't really getting to the root of the issue.
And then yesterday I found a document at the SSI entitled "The Army's Professional Military Ethic in an Era of Persistent Conflict" published last month. ( http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/ )I highly encourage reading it, for it raises some interesting questions regarding the state of the 'ethic' of the Army today. On page 1 you will find the following quotation:
"Leadership is the potent combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy."
General Norman Schwarzkopf
Further on in the document the authors point out the following with regard to character development discussed in FM 6-22, Leadership:
"Character, a person's moral and ethical qualities, helps determine what is right and gives a leader motivation to do what is appropriate, regardless of the circumstances or the consequences. An informed ethical conscience consistent with the Army Values strengthens leaders to make the right choices when faced with tough issues. Since Army leaders seek to do what's right and inspire others to do the same, they must embody these values." (italics added by authors) FM 6-22
The authors then state, "In fact, current Army doctrine leaves character development to the individual, specifying no role at all for the institution save for its leaders." This is followed by another quotation from FM 6-22.
"Becoming a person of character and a leader of character is a career-process involving day-to-day experience, education, self-development, developmental counseling, coaching and mentoring. While individuals are responsible for their own character development, leaders are responsible for encouraging, supporting and assessing the efforts of their people. (bold added by authors) FM 6-22
I spent a lot of the conversation with D.C. yesterday talking about this issue of trust. I can't prove it empirically, but I believe that there has to be a recognition by unit leaders (Company level and higher), that in many ways, we have lost the trust of our Soldiers and we must work very very hard to either gain or regain it if we want to sustain a professional Army. If you see the 'trouble indicators' as greater than average behavioral indicators of a larger problem, then it is not all that difficult to work from small to large. I don't trust my local leader or have faith in their ability to care, protect, and train me. That lack of trust leads to my demoralization because I feel as if I am going into combat or deploying with people who don't care about me. That leads me not to care about the organization that I serve in or its' ideals. That produces behavior that is outside the expected norm because I no longer have faith in the institution anyway. In fact, to demonstrate my lack of caring, I participate in behaviors or actions that are known to be inconsistent with the stated values of the Army. In plain language, I just don't give shit anymore. And, because we are not consistently reinforcing the professional Army ethic - and it's critical moral and ethical and value necessity in leader development training, the local leader does not posses the understanding of the professional Army ethic nor can they put it into practice at the local level - the exact spot where the Soldier in crisis is standing.
The monologue from SSI also spends some time looking at the Army ethic as an institution, and asks whether or not those ethical values have been subsumed in some ways by bureaucratic responses. In essence, the bureaucracy has created it's own ethic - or expected norm of behavior. Is the Army reinforcing the incredibly important moral and ethical value system that it talks about in FM 6-22, or is it merely paying lip-service to them on posters and handouts while creating yet another bureaucratic response to a crisis or problem. "Sir, in response to XYZ issue, we've created a new Task Force to study and recommend to you courses of action. However, we will need a budget, an office, 6 salaried employees and a health care plan before we can begin work. Additionally, Sir, we will continually fight turf wars with other agencies and as soon as we become the flavor of the week then we will fight to change our status from temporary worker to government employee thereby ensuring that we can push another PowerPoint briefing in front of you and your staff once a month so that you shortly you won't remember what the hell the purpose was for creating us in the first place and we will be firmly entrenched in the protective bureaucracy of the Army institution."
And we wonder why Soldiers have lost faith....(Sarcasm included by me)
Throughout the discussions on the installation regarding how we can reduce the number of incidents and better care for our Soldiers I routinely hear the question, "How can we get this to the lowest level?" And then looking at a slideshow produced by Big Army a few days ago, I saw a slide that depicted the different tiers and levels of care providers and resources available. As expected, the Tier 1 folks were Chaplains, Dr.'s, Behavioral Health Specialists etc. At the bottom of Tier 2 were 3 words...First Line Supervisor. And there is no one below them. They were the last in line. This implies that even in the way the institution makes it's own damn slide shows there is a fundamental lack of understanding of who the target audience is and why we need to work from the First Line Supervisor up, not the Commanding General down. The General has to set a visible moral and ethical tone - which I'm sure he does - has to ensure that it doesn't get diluted or changed by the various bureaucrats and sycophants who have a vested interest in continuing their current methods, and reach those who are actually charged with helping and caring and leading Soldiers. The First Line Supervisor.
Now for that trust to be gained or regained, the solutions offered to the Soldier in crisis have to make sense and be accepted by that Soldier. When I called my friend on Thursday I informed her why I took my actions on Monday night in order to help her understand them. From her perspective, she was a little embarrassed and angry that her personal inability to handle her issues was now a public matter. A totally understandable reaction. But, she also knows, understands and acknowledged that she needs assistance and as embarrassing as it is in the short run she has not lost her trust in me. In light of that, I was looking at another document the other day that is in a coaches guide for a concept called "Team of Leaders". There is a quote in there that says:
Leader Team Effectiveness depends upon 3 criteria:
1. Producing a team outcome (product or service) acceptable to whomever the leader-team is serving. (my thought: The larger organization serves downward to the individual)
2. A growth in leader-team capacity which in turn improves capacity of the organization.
3. A group experience which is satisfying and meaningful to members which improves confidence. (my thought: Soldier confidence is mainly based upon trust in their leaders and acceptance of unit norms of behavior)
While this particular document is aimed at Joint and Inter-Agency Strategic levels, the same rules apply to squads, platoons, companies and battalions. Soldiers must accept the expected behaviors and requirements for inclusion in the unit. Those expected norms - the Values and Ethics - must be demonstrated in action by the leadership (at all levels and consistently) which builds individual confidence and trust. The actions derived from the expected norms and behaviors must produce a greater operational capacity for the individual and the unit (mutual growth). Participation is organizations who demonstrate the Ethics and Values must produce an experience meaningful to the member which will increase their confidence in the unit.
If we look at the "trouble indicators" as evidence of a loss of trust and confidence and as rebuttal of the expected ethical norms and values, then it seems clear that what needs to be done is 1) Start educating the First Line Supervisors and junior leaders about the professional Army Ethic, what it is, why it is and how it strengthens and serves as the moral spinal column of the unit. 2) Consistently reinforce what the organization stands for in light of persistent conflict and the physical, emotional and spiritual drain it is taking on Soldiers. 3) Work from the bottom up, not the top down. and 4) Make sure that the bureaucratic ethic has not, cannot, and will not subsume the Army Value ethic of caring, supportive, and disciplined leadership.
As always, your thoughts are critical. The Army is certainly not the only organization to face these challenges and every industry has it's own work ethic that has an effect on how it progresses in light of unexpected challenges.
# 26 Different but Related
"Morale is the single greatest factor in successful war....In any long and bitter campaign morale will suffer unless all ranks thoroughly believe that their commanders are concerned first and always with the welfare of the troops who do the fighting."
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Crusade in Europe 1948
"The unfailing formula for production of morale is patriotism, self-respect, discipline and self-confidence within a military unit, joined with fair treatment and merited appreciation from without. It cannot be produced by pampering or coddling an Army, and it is not necessarily destroyed by hardship, danger or even calamity. Though it can survive and develop in the adversity that comes as an inescapable incident of service, it will quickly wither and die if Soldiers come to believe themselves the victims of indifference or injustice on the part of their government, or of ignorance, personal ambition, or ineptitude on the part of their military leaders"
General Douglas MacArthur
Annual Report of the Chief of Staff, US Army, for the fiscal year ending 30 June 1933
"In war, everything depends on morale; and morale and public opinion comprise the better part of reality"
Napoleon Bonaparte
There are a lot of thoughts running around in my head this morning because it has been an interesting week. I gave the Effective Training Design brief one day, did the fitting and data gathering for the plate carrier prototypes the next and became a member of the Battalion Resiliency Council on Friday.
Effective Training Design is a briefing I developed that turns the standard training design paradigm upside down and instead of concentrating of inputs and numerical metrics, focuses the training effort on achieving the commander's intent from the Soldier's perspective. Using the OODA cycle and using the Task, Purpose, Intent design that's currently in place, I show people that if you concentrate on a very clearly understood intent - what needs to be the end result of the training - and then look at where you are actually starting from, but decentralize as much of the execution as possible, then you can achieve a much better result at the Soldier level. The briefing is long and OODA takes a while to explain, and quite honestly not very many people really get it the first time. I've had one battalion commander hear it 3 different times and he related to me the other day, that each time he listens he comes away with different or new things to consider for training his unit. Since the brief is attached very closely to the marksmanship program however, most folks can only see it in that light. Light bulbs may come on during the brief, but for many folks they remain very dim until they see the program in action.
The plate carrier prototype review is a whole different beast. About 2 years ago it became apparent to me that the introduction of body armor had a very large impact on marksmanship in general, and for women and small statured Soldiers, in particular. This past summer I was able to conduct a fit, form and function study on Ft. Campbell with research scientists from Natick Labs and the office of Soldier Survivability. That relationship led to the program manger allowing me to look at some prototype designs for plate carriers and provide feedback to their office focusing on fit, form and function. This week we looked at 7 different models from 3 different manufacturers on approximately 25 different women. We will do the function portion in November when they will all get a chance to shoot with these vests on and see how much or how little their ability to apply the fundamentals of marksmanship is affected by the different varieties of carrier.
And finally, the Battalion Resiliency Council. Last week I commented on the different disciplinary, health and safety issues that we are struggling with right now. As part of the response to that the unit developed a Resiliency Council to look at what we are doing, whether or not it is working and how we can improve to better care for our Soldiers. The members of the council are all the Commanders, the 1SG's and the Command Sergeant Major, as well as member of the health community, law enforcement and legal, the Family Readiness representative and representative from other outside assistance agencies on post. I volunteered to be on the committee last week after the hearing the Division Command Sergeant Major at the 'Town Hall' meeting described in last weeks post. I am glad I did. The battalion leadership does seem deeply concerned and honestly interested in caring for their Soldiers. I left the room feeling that the leadership is open to suggestion, willing to try new approaches and understands that we will all have to come together collectively to set the conditions for positive change.
Last night I also had a great conversation with my neighbors around a fire bowl that kind of helped to bring a lot of these thoughts together. At one point I said that for me right now, a lot of these things that may appear on the surface to be very different are actually all related, but sometimes I just can't exactly see how. That ETD, body armor and the Resiliency Council share some common characteristics but I'm struggling a little to define exactly what those commonalities are.
I also have to make a correction. Two weeks ago in #24 I looked at how the definition of leadership has evolved over time. I quoted a 1948 manual that defined leadership as "Influencing human behavior" and then contrasted it with the definition that I had been raised with - "Leadership is providing purpose, direction and motivation in order to accomplish the mission while improving the organization." Well, I went back and checked, and I was only half right. The latest definition states that "Leadership is the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization" I think it's important to recognize that the human component of influencing people has been returned to the forefront. It's a key distinction between the 2 earlier definitions that places people in front of the unit, and recognizes that human factors and behavior are the key components of mission accomplishment and organizational health. Next time, I'll do my homework up front.
And then this morning I found the quotations above. I think there is a generalized frustration throughout the Army right now and that it manifests itself in a variety of ways. Units - and Soldiers - seem a little at a loss. After 8 years of prolonged conflict, multiple deployments and the attendant human issues that go with time away and reintegration, it's as if everything is so overwhelming that we have lost our ability to see the forest through the trees. For example, with the training element, there is so much that is directed at the units from outside that they have little time to consider it's value or effectiveness. And so they start trying to wade through it and simply accomplish the sheer numbers of events and tasks and then lose sight of what they really need to do to prepare for combat. Generically, the same applies to the body armor review. Women become so frustrated that they cannot accomplish as critical task (shooting) due to ill-fitting equipment that they lose faith in themselves and the ability of their unit, it's leadership, and the Army to properly care for them as they train. This feeling of frustration and being overwhelmed leads to breakdowns in unit cohesion and Soldier morale which lead to the discipline and behavior issues that the Resiliency Council is trying to address.
Consider the Eisenhower quote above. In a protracted campaign, all Soldiers must feel as if their leadership is first and foremost concerned with their welfare. That welfare could be the determination of the tasks that need to be trained to ensure survival and success (and which ones can be skipped), or it could be the recognition of what type of equipment they need to best accomplish their mission, or it could be an appreciation of the difficulties that multiple deployments and the readiness/preparation cycle is placing on them and their loved ones.
Interestingly, MacArthur said essentially the same thing 15 years earlier - well before America became involved in WW II. Morale is the single most important attribute to waging successful war. If Soldiers and units do not feel that their leadership - be it local or national - is working all the time towards ensuring their success and survival then the morale is ruined and the cause will be lost. The key to MacArthur's quote for me though, is that to develop morale, the other requirements - discipline, self confidence and respect, and patriotism are the key component parts. And those are not skill sets with quantifiable numbers. They are attributes that must be inculcated, displayed and modeled until they become the binding fabric of the human beings who make up the organization.
And finally, from Bonaparte, the idea that morale is very closely tied to public opinion and that the 2 parts work to form their own perception, and if believed by enough people, that perception becomes reality. This last one is the main reason I wanted to be part of the Resiliency Council. As the only member who does not have any positional stake in the outcome, it is freeing to be able to provide the Chain of Command another perspective to consider. For example, I told the battalion commander that no matter how well-intentioned he is, if the Soldiers believe that he is only taking these actions to cover his ass, then the actions will be of little worth. I told him him that it is less important what he does, as it is that his Soldiers feel a genuine and thoughtful and empathetic caring about their well-being. If we as the council can work from that place, and treat each Soldier and their concerns as genuine issues that are human being based and consciously work to not apply system responses, then we will achieve a measure of success. If we fail to do that and the perception is of system responses to individual problems then we are wasting our time.
I'm not sure if this post made sense today. It still seems a bit disconnected to me. Feel free to comment and share your thoughts.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Crusade in Europe 1948
"The unfailing formula for production of morale is patriotism, self-respect, discipline and self-confidence within a military unit, joined with fair treatment and merited appreciation from without. It cannot be produced by pampering or coddling an Army, and it is not necessarily destroyed by hardship, danger or even calamity. Though it can survive and develop in the adversity that comes as an inescapable incident of service, it will quickly wither and die if Soldiers come to believe themselves the victims of indifference or injustice on the part of their government, or of ignorance, personal ambition, or ineptitude on the part of their military leaders"
General Douglas MacArthur
Annual Report of the Chief of Staff, US Army, for the fiscal year ending 30 June 1933
"In war, everything depends on morale; and morale and public opinion comprise the better part of reality"
Napoleon Bonaparte
There are a lot of thoughts running around in my head this morning because it has been an interesting week. I gave the Effective Training Design brief one day, did the fitting and data gathering for the plate carrier prototypes the next and became a member of the Battalion Resiliency Council on Friday.
Effective Training Design is a briefing I developed that turns the standard training design paradigm upside down and instead of concentrating of inputs and numerical metrics, focuses the training effort on achieving the commander's intent from the Soldier's perspective. Using the OODA cycle and using the Task, Purpose, Intent design that's currently in place, I show people that if you concentrate on a very clearly understood intent - what needs to be the end result of the training - and then look at where you are actually starting from, but decentralize as much of the execution as possible, then you can achieve a much better result at the Soldier level. The briefing is long and OODA takes a while to explain, and quite honestly not very many people really get it the first time. I've had one battalion commander hear it 3 different times and he related to me the other day, that each time he listens he comes away with different or new things to consider for training his unit. Since the brief is attached very closely to the marksmanship program however, most folks can only see it in that light. Light bulbs may come on during the brief, but for many folks they remain very dim until they see the program in action.
The plate carrier prototype review is a whole different beast. About 2 years ago it became apparent to me that the introduction of body armor had a very large impact on marksmanship in general, and for women and small statured Soldiers, in particular. This past summer I was able to conduct a fit, form and function study on Ft. Campbell with research scientists from Natick Labs and the office of Soldier Survivability. That relationship led to the program manger allowing me to look at some prototype designs for plate carriers and provide feedback to their office focusing on fit, form and function. This week we looked at 7 different models from 3 different manufacturers on approximately 25 different women. We will do the function portion in November when they will all get a chance to shoot with these vests on and see how much or how little their ability to apply the fundamentals of marksmanship is affected by the different varieties of carrier.
And finally, the Battalion Resiliency Council. Last week I commented on the different disciplinary, health and safety issues that we are struggling with right now. As part of the response to that the unit developed a Resiliency Council to look at what we are doing, whether or not it is working and how we can improve to better care for our Soldiers. The members of the council are all the Commanders, the 1SG's and the Command Sergeant Major, as well as member of the health community, law enforcement and legal, the Family Readiness representative and representative from other outside assistance agencies on post. I volunteered to be on the committee last week after the hearing the Division Command Sergeant Major at the 'Town Hall' meeting described in last weeks post. I am glad I did. The battalion leadership does seem deeply concerned and honestly interested in caring for their Soldiers. I left the room feeling that the leadership is open to suggestion, willing to try new approaches and understands that we will all have to come together collectively to set the conditions for positive change.
Last night I also had a great conversation with my neighbors around a fire bowl that kind of helped to bring a lot of these thoughts together. At one point I said that for me right now, a lot of these things that may appear on the surface to be very different are actually all related, but sometimes I just can't exactly see how. That ETD, body armor and the Resiliency Council share some common characteristics but I'm struggling a little to define exactly what those commonalities are.
I also have to make a correction. Two weeks ago in #24 I looked at how the definition of leadership has evolved over time. I quoted a 1948 manual that defined leadership as "Influencing human behavior" and then contrasted it with the definition that I had been raised with - "Leadership is providing purpose, direction and motivation in order to accomplish the mission while improving the organization." Well, I went back and checked, and I was only half right. The latest definition states that "Leadership is the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization" I think it's important to recognize that the human component of influencing people has been returned to the forefront. It's a key distinction between the 2 earlier definitions that places people in front of the unit, and recognizes that human factors and behavior are the key components of mission accomplishment and organizational health. Next time, I'll do my homework up front.
And then this morning I found the quotations above. I think there is a generalized frustration throughout the Army right now and that it manifests itself in a variety of ways. Units - and Soldiers - seem a little at a loss. After 8 years of prolonged conflict, multiple deployments and the attendant human issues that go with time away and reintegration, it's as if everything is so overwhelming that we have lost our ability to see the forest through the trees. For example, with the training element, there is so much that is directed at the units from outside that they have little time to consider it's value or effectiveness. And so they start trying to wade through it and simply accomplish the sheer numbers of events and tasks and then lose sight of what they really need to do to prepare for combat. Generically, the same applies to the body armor review. Women become so frustrated that they cannot accomplish as critical task (shooting) due to ill-fitting equipment that they lose faith in themselves and the ability of their unit, it's leadership, and the Army to properly care for them as they train. This feeling of frustration and being overwhelmed leads to breakdowns in unit cohesion and Soldier morale which lead to the discipline and behavior issues that the Resiliency Council is trying to address.
Consider the Eisenhower quote above. In a protracted campaign, all Soldiers must feel as if their leadership is first and foremost concerned with their welfare. That welfare could be the determination of the tasks that need to be trained to ensure survival and success (and which ones can be skipped), or it could be the recognition of what type of equipment they need to best accomplish their mission, or it could be an appreciation of the difficulties that multiple deployments and the readiness/preparation cycle is placing on them and their loved ones.
Interestingly, MacArthur said essentially the same thing 15 years earlier - well before America became involved in WW II. Morale is the single most important attribute to waging successful war. If Soldiers and units do not feel that their leadership - be it local or national - is working all the time towards ensuring their success and survival then the morale is ruined and the cause will be lost. The key to MacArthur's quote for me though, is that to develop morale, the other requirements - discipline, self confidence and respect, and patriotism are the key component parts. And those are not skill sets with quantifiable numbers. They are attributes that must be inculcated, displayed and modeled until they become the binding fabric of the human beings who make up the organization.
And finally, from Bonaparte, the idea that morale is very closely tied to public opinion and that the 2 parts work to form their own perception, and if believed by enough people, that perception becomes reality. This last one is the main reason I wanted to be part of the Resiliency Council. As the only member who does not have any positional stake in the outcome, it is freeing to be able to provide the Chain of Command another perspective to consider. For example, I told the battalion commander that no matter how well-intentioned he is, if the Soldiers believe that he is only taking these actions to cover his ass, then the actions will be of little worth. I told him him that it is less important what he does, as it is that his Soldiers feel a genuine and thoughtful and empathetic caring about their well-being. If we as the council can work from that place, and treat each Soldier and their concerns as genuine issues that are human being based and consciously work to not apply system responses, then we will achieve a measure of success. If we fail to do that and the perception is of system responses to individual problems then we are wasting our time.
I'm not sure if this post made sense today. It still seems a bit disconnected to me. Feel free to comment and share your thoughts.
#25 An Interesting Week
For a short week, this one sure had it's share of interesting events....
Due to the Columbus Day holiday last weekend, we only had a 3 day work week. Monday and Tuesday were holidays. For me, the big event was preparing to say goodbye to my friend, Chris. He separated from the Army this week and is heading home this morning to CT. I will miss him and wish him the best of luck. Chris has been a constant source of conversation, thoughts, and ideas about people, leadership, how it's being implemented today, and the general state of the Army. He is one of the most thoughtful and educated people I know. He has been a commenter and guest poster on these pages, and I hope that once he gets settled in he'll continue to share his thoughts and insights here. The blog is better off because of him. If we have any renaissance men left in the world, Chris is one of them. Enjoy the journeys ahead my friend.
But, the week was also filled with the usual amount of chaos. The long weekend provided a bunch of drama for the Division with DUI's, suicide attempts, domestic violence incidents, drug overdoses, arrests etc. And so, once again, the Chain of Command "took action". As usual, it started with an order from on high to develop plans to identify and assist 'at-risk' Soldiers. Those who the leadership believed needed extra attention or assistance to help with their issues. Where maybe an ounce of prevention could really equal a pound of cure.
As part of this there was a meeting Thursday afternoon for all the senior NCO's in the Division to have what was termed a 'town hall' meeting. The Division Command Sergeant Major wanted to solicit our input on what might be done to help curb the disturbing - and rising - tide of incidents with our Soldiers. Now, for the sake of the argument, I will take him at his word. He wants to help. I chose to believe that this was not being done only because it's a huge black eye for the organization and we need to show 'big Army' that we're doing something. I'll suspend my cynical doubts about intent and choose to believe that the man really wants to help Soldiers. He was soliciting input on what we were doing, what was working (and what wasn't) and what we needed to do differently, or better, to help.
The first person to speak immediately said that the problem was that we weren't chaptering Soldiers out of the Army quickly enough. The legal system was taking too long and all the problem children were making all the rest of us look bad. Which led to an explanation by the JAG NCO on the whys and wherefores of the perceived backlog. Then a female NCO stood up and wanted to address pregnancy rates and how some women were using pregnancies to avoid deployments. That brought on a bunch of whispering and shuffling and laughing from the mostly male audience. So, instead of being allowed to speak her mind and have her concerns addressed, she was disrespected by the audience and that was not corrected by the Command Sergeant Major. And on and on. After a short while, I stopped listening. At the end, the Command Sergeant Major came back to his never-ending theme of standards and discipline. Got to have standards and discipline. If we only had standards and discipline then these problems will go away. I left more frustrated and angry than I came in. A waste of time.
Then yesterday I received the email below. It's worth including here:
"I went home last night thinking about the ways commanders are trying to mitigate what they term "high risk Soldiers". No matter how I rolled the terms and "action plans" around in my head I couldn't grasp how a company commander could equitably single out Soldiers that he/she deems high risk and then apply an action plan for that Soldier to get back on the "right"path. This morning while I was at Starbucks drinking coffee, the idea of identifying high risk soldiers still troubled me. As I often do, I started talking to an E4 who had just finished PT and was getting a set of drinks and pastries, most likely for him and a buddy. As soon as I talked frankly to him and asked how he was, he told me his unit (with pride), that he was deploying a third time and that it was OK he was deploying because the tour and time away is what you make of it. What was really noticeable, his demeanor changed from neutral to motivated while I was chatting with him.Then it hit me. By singling out Soldiers and crafting action plans, we as leaders are taking the blame and responsibility off our backs and putting it directly on a Soldier. We will increase their personal set of burdens. The solution is one that's existed and been around for decades but due to combat operations, fast promotions, and a decrease in or lack of leader development we(leaders) have lost touch. Here's a complimentary action plan for leaders to mitigate Soldier misconduct: 1. Set the Example; lead from the front (if you're an asshole, most likely your soldiers will be too). 2. Build Teams (empower NCOs and then step back and let them develop solutions for their TMs, squads, platoons. Hold them accountable) 3. Treat Soldiers with respect (know your Soldiers, talk to them, praise them, encourage them, LISTEN to them) 4. Establish programs that make Soldiers winners (very few of your soldiers were high school standouts, they were average kids trying to get by) 5. Train Hard. Your Soldiers joined the Army for its challenges, esprit de corps and traditions. Don't be afraid to meet their expectations."
Finally, yesterday afternoon I had a great conversation with another friend of mine. She had been on the receiving end of a lot of pressure this week and was little beat down. I have not known her long, but she has a critical role as an advisor to the command and I really believe that she is in a unique place to effect change. As we were talking and sharing ideas, we both agreed that the Command Sergeant Major had missed the boat. That the problem isn't the system, it's not the lack of caring, or lack of resources to address the myriad of issues, it's the lack of understanding of the root causes. We keep treating the symptoms and not the disease. We keep seeing crime and suicide and misbehavior as the end result of some failed leadership, instead of seeing them as indicators of a larger problem.
We have never been in this place before as an Army and we are not prepared to deal with it. That was explained to me by my Dr.yesterday. He said that previously, during the draft-era Army, we conscripted people, used them for the duration of the conflict and them turned them loose. We - as the institution of the Army - never had to deal with the aftermath of war that we participated in. We never had to see the problems the war had created. By the time many of those problems manifested themselves, we had already discharged the conscripted Soldier and he/she became society's problem. With the all-volunteer force, that dynamic has changed. However, because we went for almost 30 years from the inception of the all-volunteer force to fighting and maintaining it in the present conflict, we have no systems in place to deal with the troubling human factors of sustained conflict. It's not that the Command Sergeant Major and other senior NCO's don't want to help, it's that they don't know how to help because they were never really taught or educated about dealing with people and behavior. Not is any real sense. They were given catch phrases and lists of traits to memorize, but not how a 20 something year old is supposed to offer advice and counsel to another 20 something who is struggling to put his/her life back together after the adrenaline rush of combat. After watching a relationship fail, or not being able to come to grips with things that he/she saw or did, or friends lost etc.
My friend spoke of compassion. That struck me because for every leader trait we espouse and value and hold as a requirement for success, you won't find compassion on the list. She made the point, that every other leader quality is wrapped up inside of the word compassion and she is right. Compassion and understanding are the bedrock of trust and trust is the glue that allows people to do things or believe in things that they never would have previously. That can be a goal, objective, cause or Chain of Command. With compassion comes the willingness to see the problem or issue from a perspective other than your own. A willingness to look at the best solution to the problem for the individual, not necessarily for the leader - or even the organization. A willingness to suspend judgement long enough to develop a workable, sustainable course of action for the Soldier.
As an example, my friend pointed out a case where there was a significant rise in marijuana use within an organization. The telling part is that it was among senior NCO's. Under normal circumstances, it's very difficult to believe that these people would endanger their careers to take the chance of getting caught. But, sadly, it happened. Now, the issue here is not whether or not they should receive punishment. If convicted, they should. I have no debate with that. I do have an issue however if we don't pause for a second and ask what conditions have created this situation and then try to address those root causes and not just the symptomatic behavior. Treating the symptom without addressing the causes will not end the spate of issues we face. Is it possible that these folks are having difficulty readjusting to life outside of a combat zone? It is a known fact that after the sustained adrenaline rush of combat, it can be extremely difficult to adjust to life without it. Could it be that they have suffered losses and cannot sleep at night without suspending reality for awhile? Could it be that no matter how hard they try, there aren't enough hours in the day to meet the unreal expectations and demands placed upon them as they prepare for another return to combat? Are these mitigating circumstances that may be contributing factors to their seemingly uncharacteristic behavior? Could we not ask those same questions of the young woman who is considering an intentional pregnancy to avoid an upcoming deployment? Or the destructive behavior of domestic violence?
Compassion does not mean that we don't have to uphold the standards of the organization. In fact, when exercised correctly, it actually makes upholding them easier to accomplish. But punishing people without taking into account the larger issue will not solve the problem. Using involving and caring for those who are struggling proves that the organization cares and wants to assist them with solving their larger issues and is the key to developing trust and faith. It proves that the leadership truly understands the strains they face.
If you look again at the quote above, one of the interesting parts is the contention that the 'plan of action' actually absolves the leadership of real responsibility and places an even greater burden on the Soldier to now have to act in a particular manner in order to convince the leadership that they are no longer 'at risk'. I hadn't thought about it that way. We, as leaders, somehow believe that our solutions are better than those of the person suffering. The problem is that we are not suffering. Our solutions make perfect sense because they have no personal emotional content. Compassion would make the entire command dedicated to - and take ownership - for the recovery of the Soldier, not develop some sort of well intentioned checklist which fails to meet the Soldier where they really are.
Again I come back to knowing yourself and looking for new and people-centered solutions to the tough human problems we face. All of the behavior issues and problems we are facing are ultimately of our own making. By neglecting human factors training in every leadership school we have we have created an Army that in many ways is incapable of dealing with the very people who we pretend to lead. No wonder they lose faith so quickly. As soon as they see that we are incapable of truly caring for them, their families and concerns, they will refuse to follow us and we will be rendered impotent and incapable of earning their trust again.
Thanks D. Compassion may just be the answer. It could be what ultimately saves the Force.
By the way, check out this link: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/10/draft-army-capstone-concept-hi/
Due to the Columbus Day holiday last weekend, we only had a 3 day work week. Monday and Tuesday were holidays. For me, the big event was preparing to say goodbye to my friend, Chris. He separated from the Army this week and is heading home this morning to CT. I will miss him and wish him the best of luck. Chris has been a constant source of conversation, thoughts, and ideas about people, leadership, how it's being implemented today, and the general state of the Army. He is one of the most thoughtful and educated people I know. He has been a commenter and guest poster on these pages, and I hope that once he gets settled in he'll continue to share his thoughts and insights here. The blog is better off because of him. If we have any renaissance men left in the world, Chris is one of them. Enjoy the journeys ahead my friend.
But, the week was also filled with the usual amount of chaos. The long weekend provided a bunch of drama for the Division with DUI's, suicide attempts, domestic violence incidents, drug overdoses, arrests etc. And so, once again, the Chain of Command "took action". As usual, it started with an order from on high to develop plans to identify and assist 'at-risk' Soldiers. Those who the leadership believed needed extra attention or assistance to help with their issues. Where maybe an ounce of prevention could really equal a pound of cure.
As part of this there was a meeting Thursday afternoon for all the senior NCO's in the Division to have what was termed a 'town hall' meeting. The Division Command Sergeant Major wanted to solicit our input on what might be done to help curb the disturbing - and rising - tide of incidents with our Soldiers. Now, for the sake of the argument, I will take him at his word. He wants to help. I chose to believe that this was not being done only because it's a huge black eye for the organization and we need to show 'big Army' that we're doing something. I'll suspend my cynical doubts about intent and choose to believe that the man really wants to help Soldiers. He was soliciting input on what we were doing, what was working (and what wasn't) and what we needed to do differently, or better, to help.
The first person to speak immediately said that the problem was that we weren't chaptering Soldiers out of the Army quickly enough. The legal system was taking too long and all the problem children were making all the rest of us look bad. Which led to an explanation by the JAG NCO on the whys and wherefores of the perceived backlog. Then a female NCO stood up and wanted to address pregnancy rates and how some women were using pregnancies to avoid deployments. That brought on a bunch of whispering and shuffling and laughing from the mostly male audience. So, instead of being allowed to speak her mind and have her concerns addressed, she was disrespected by the audience and that was not corrected by the Command Sergeant Major. And on and on. After a short while, I stopped listening. At the end, the Command Sergeant Major came back to his never-ending theme of standards and discipline. Got to have standards and discipline. If we only had standards and discipline then these problems will go away. I left more frustrated and angry than I came in. A waste of time.
Then yesterday I received the email below. It's worth including here:
"I went home last night thinking about the ways commanders are trying to mitigate what they term "high risk Soldiers". No matter how I rolled the terms and "action plans" around in my head I couldn't grasp how a company commander could equitably single out Soldiers that he/she deems high risk and then apply an action plan for that Soldier to get back on the "right"path. This morning while I was at Starbucks drinking coffee, the idea of identifying high risk soldiers still troubled me. As I often do, I started talking to an E4 who had just finished PT and was getting a set of drinks and pastries, most likely for him and a buddy. As soon as I talked frankly to him and asked how he was, he told me his unit (with pride), that he was deploying a third time and that it was OK he was deploying because the tour and time away is what you make of it. What was really noticeable, his demeanor changed from neutral to motivated while I was chatting with him.Then it hit me. By singling out Soldiers and crafting action plans, we as leaders are taking the blame and responsibility off our backs and putting it directly on a Soldier. We will increase their personal set of burdens. The solution is one that's existed and been around for decades but due to combat operations, fast promotions, and a decrease in or lack of leader development we(leaders) have lost touch. Here's a complimentary action plan for leaders to mitigate Soldier misconduct: 1. Set the Example; lead from the front (if you're an asshole, most likely your soldiers will be too). 2. Build Teams (empower NCOs and then step back and let them develop solutions for their TMs, squads, platoons. Hold them accountable) 3. Treat Soldiers with respect (know your Soldiers, talk to them, praise them, encourage them, LISTEN to them) 4. Establish programs that make Soldiers winners (very few of your soldiers were high school standouts, they were average kids trying to get by) 5. Train Hard. Your Soldiers joined the Army for its challenges, esprit de corps and traditions. Don't be afraid to meet their expectations."
Finally, yesterday afternoon I had a great conversation with another friend of mine. She had been on the receiving end of a lot of pressure this week and was little beat down. I have not known her long, but she has a critical role as an advisor to the command and I really believe that she is in a unique place to effect change. As we were talking and sharing ideas, we both agreed that the Command Sergeant Major had missed the boat. That the problem isn't the system, it's not the lack of caring, or lack of resources to address the myriad of issues, it's the lack of understanding of the root causes. We keep treating the symptoms and not the disease. We keep seeing crime and suicide and misbehavior as the end result of some failed leadership, instead of seeing them as indicators of a larger problem.
We have never been in this place before as an Army and we are not prepared to deal with it. That was explained to me by my Dr.yesterday. He said that previously, during the draft-era Army, we conscripted people, used them for the duration of the conflict and them turned them loose. We - as the institution of the Army - never had to deal with the aftermath of war that we participated in. We never had to see the problems the war had created. By the time many of those problems manifested themselves, we had already discharged the conscripted Soldier and he/she became society's problem. With the all-volunteer force, that dynamic has changed. However, because we went for almost 30 years from the inception of the all-volunteer force to fighting and maintaining it in the present conflict, we have no systems in place to deal with the troubling human factors of sustained conflict. It's not that the Command Sergeant Major and other senior NCO's don't want to help, it's that they don't know how to help because they were never really taught or educated about dealing with people and behavior. Not is any real sense. They were given catch phrases and lists of traits to memorize, but not how a 20 something year old is supposed to offer advice and counsel to another 20 something who is struggling to put his/her life back together after the adrenaline rush of combat. After watching a relationship fail, or not being able to come to grips with things that he/she saw or did, or friends lost etc.
My friend spoke of compassion. That struck me because for every leader trait we espouse and value and hold as a requirement for success, you won't find compassion on the list. She made the point, that every other leader quality is wrapped up inside of the word compassion and she is right. Compassion and understanding are the bedrock of trust and trust is the glue that allows people to do things or believe in things that they never would have previously. That can be a goal, objective, cause or Chain of Command. With compassion comes the willingness to see the problem or issue from a perspective other than your own. A willingness to look at the best solution to the problem for the individual, not necessarily for the leader - or even the organization. A willingness to suspend judgement long enough to develop a workable, sustainable course of action for the Soldier.
As an example, my friend pointed out a case where there was a significant rise in marijuana use within an organization. The telling part is that it was among senior NCO's. Under normal circumstances, it's very difficult to believe that these people would endanger their careers to take the chance of getting caught. But, sadly, it happened. Now, the issue here is not whether or not they should receive punishment. If convicted, they should. I have no debate with that. I do have an issue however if we don't pause for a second and ask what conditions have created this situation and then try to address those root causes and not just the symptomatic behavior. Treating the symptom without addressing the causes will not end the spate of issues we face. Is it possible that these folks are having difficulty readjusting to life outside of a combat zone? It is a known fact that after the sustained adrenaline rush of combat, it can be extremely difficult to adjust to life without it. Could it be that they have suffered losses and cannot sleep at night without suspending reality for awhile? Could it be that no matter how hard they try, there aren't enough hours in the day to meet the unreal expectations and demands placed upon them as they prepare for another return to combat? Are these mitigating circumstances that may be contributing factors to their seemingly uncharacteristic behavior? Could we not ask those same questions of the young woman who is considering an intentional pregnancy to avoid an upcoming deployment? Or the destructive behavior of domestic violence?
Compassion does not mean that we don't have to uphold the standards of the organization. In fact, when exercised correctly, it actually makes upholding them easier to accomplish. But punishing people without taking into account the larger issue will not solve the problem. Using involving and caring for those who are struggling proves that the organization cares and wants to assist them with solving their larger issues and is the key to developing trust and faith. It proves that the leadership truly understands the strains they face.
If you look again at the quote above, one of the interesting parts is the contention that the 'plan of action' actually absolves the leadership of real responsibility and places an even greater burden on the Soldier to now have to act in a particular manner in order to convince the leadership that they are no longer 'at risk'. I hadn't thought about it that way. We, as leaders, somehow believe that our solutions are better than those of the person suffering. The problem is that we are not suffering. Our solutions make perfect sense because they have no personal emotional content. Compassion would make the entire command dedicated to - and take ownership - for the recovery of the Soldier, not develop some sort of well intentioned checklist which fails to meet the Soldier where they really are.
Again I come back to knowing yourself and looking for new and people-centered solutions to the tough human problems we face. All of the behavior issues and problems we are facing are ultimately of our own making. By neglecting human factors training in every leadership school we have we have created an Army that in many ways is incapable of dealing with the very people who we pretend to lead. No wonder they lose faith so quickly. As soon as they see that we are incapable of truly caring for them, their families and concerns, they will refuse to follow us and we will be rendered impotent and incapable of earning their trust again.
Thanks D. Compassion may just be the answer. It could be what ultimately saves the Force.
By the way, check out this link: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/10/draft-army-capstone-concept-hi/
#24 People
As I look back on the first 25 posts it occurs to me that maybe I need to check and see if I'm still meeting the original intent. When I started this blog it's purpose was to stimulate a discussion around the general theme of leadership, its application, and my personal observations regarding it's current state in the Army. Now I've come to post number #25 and somehow this seems a good time to review where the discussion has taken us.
"Leadership in a democratic Army means firmness not harshness; understanding, not weakness; justice, not licence; humanness, not intolerance; generosity, not selfishness; pride, not egotism."
General Omar Bradley
And that may be the essence of both our current successes and our current failures. Those attributes cannot be dictated, they must be imbued. We often speak of 'men and women of character'. We speak of a 'values system' and a 'Warrior Ethos'. But words alone cannot assist us to achieve these things, they must be demonstrated on a daily basis. We must look for, develop and meld them from the values, character and judgements of the citizen-Soldiers who fill our ranks. When we can live with the finer parts General Bradley described - firmness, understanding, justice, humanness, generosity and pride - then we achieve the pinnacle of leading citizen-Soldiers. When we do not, and find ourselves living with harshness, weakness, licence, intolerance, selfishness and egotism, we undoubtedly fail both as leaders in the titular sense and as men and women of character. You will also find both these sets of attributes, good and bad, in the citizenry of every portion of this country, in every ethnic, social or gender group throughout the world. The hard part though is that each of us already sees ourselves as possessing all or most of the former, and very little of the latter. Which implies that we each think that we already posses all the necessary tools to consider ourselves successful leaders. Nothing could be further from the truth. Successful leadership depends upon a constant search for those people and ideas and innovations which allow us to reorient ourselves and to inspire and produce the next generation of men and women of character.
Interestingly, the quotation above was taken from a book entitled "Leadership: Quotations from the Military Tradition" The book is an anthology of quotations from military and other leaders broken into different sections such as Ability, Attributes, Caring, Discipline, Duty, Leadership etc. The section on Military Leadership begins with a series of quotes from Army leadership manuals over time. The part that struck me was that most of the early quotes (the earliest one here is 1948) deal with the human aspect of leading, that is the definition or quotation is centered around adjusting the behavior of people in order to accomplish some other objective. As a matter of fact, the 1948 version of DA Pam 22-1 "Leadership" states quite simply, "Leadership is the art of influencing human behavior". A very direct statement that places people - Soldiers - at the very heart of the leadership issue.
Consider today's definition of leadership. "Leadership is providing, purpose, direction and motivation to accomplish the mission while improving the organization." Interesting that mission accomplishment and organizational improvement have - over time - replaced the understanding of people and human behavior as the primary requirements of successful leadership. What about creating improved people? If we only focus on the mission, then we will eventually succeed, but that success will ultimately fail if the human price paid to achieve it becomes too much for the citizen-Soldier to bear. If we only focus on organizational improvement, then we will never truly inspire Soldiers to overcome fear and deprivation for the good of that organization. They will only respond in as much as they feel the organization is supporting them.
And now we are at war and young men and women are leading other young men and women into a very confusing and rapidly changing battle, and most of the struggles we are facing are not rooted in mission accomplishment, nor organizational success, but are most firmly rooted in the difficulties of sustaining people over a long period of time, under rigorous physical and emotional conditions. And we wonder why everyone complains about a lack of good 'Leaders' anymore. It's simple really. We stopped teaching about human behavior and the development of character and a sense of ethos and replaced it with a 'mission over men', 'institution over Soldier' model.
And that was part of my intent behind this. To talk about leading people. And I think in a generic, sort of round about way, we have done that. Using OODA, and marksmanship and a Soldier centered training model, a discussion has begun that looks at the culture of the Army, the motivations of it's Soldiers and a method of inspiring and developing the ethos and character that we all aspire to. At least I hope so. I think it's there somewhere, right behind the mechanical aspects involved in a particular post. Right behind understanding OODA is a way of enhancing a person. A way for us to stay centered and focused on what the purpose of leading people is all about. The 'Women in the Army' posts are certainly people centric and are perhaps the best illustration of the people vs the organization issue. Michelle's comments highlight what can happen when we fail to live up to the high qualities that General Bradley spoke of. A sense of understanding, humanness and generosity. I think at the tactical and strategic level, those same qualities are nicely demonstrated in last weeks post by MG Stone and his treatment of detainees.
I think this week will finish with another quote that is absolutely key to this discussion. "American troops in particular, resent any suggestion that they are ciphers and not people. They want to be known for themselves and will resist any attempt to mold them into an anonymous pattern." General Maxwell D. Taylor
Ahhh, I just knew my Millennials weren't really original after all. Seems that individuality and self-definition has been a part of the American Soldier's character and ethos for a long long time. And those people are who we lead.
As always, feel free to comment.
"Leadership in a democratic Army means firmness not harshness; understanding, not weakness; justice, not licence; humanness, not intolerance; generosity, not selfishness; pride, not egotism."
General Omar Bradley
And that may be the essence of both our current successes and our current failures. Those attributes cannot be dictated, they must be imbued. We often speak of 'men and women of character'. We speak of a 'values system' and a 'Warrior Ethos'. But words alone cannot assist us to achieve these things, they must be demonstrated on a daily basis. We must look for, develop and meld them from the values, character and judgements of the citizen-Soldiers who fill our ranks. When we can live with the finer parts General Bradley described - firmness, understanding, justice, humanness, generosity and pride - then we achieve the pinnacle of leading citizen-Soldiers. When we do not, and find ourselves living with harshness, weakness, licence, intolerance, selfishness and egotism, we undoubtedly fail both as leaders in the titular sense and as men and women of character. You will also find both these sets of attributes, good and bad, in the citizenry of every portion of this country, in every ethnic, social or gender group throughout the world. The hard part though is that each of us already sees ourselves as possessing all or most of the former, and very little of the latter. Which implies that we each think that we already posses all the necessary tools to consider ourselves successful leaders. Nothing could be further from the truth. Successful leadership depends upon a constant search for those people and ideas and innovations which allow us to reorient ourselves and to inspire and produce the next generation of men and women of character.
Interestingly, the quotation above was taken from a book entitled "Leadership: Quotations from the Military Tradition" The book is an anthology of quotations from military and other leaders broken into different sections such as Ability, Attributes, Caring, Discipline, Duty, Leadership etc. The section on Military Leadership begins with a series of quotes from Army leadership manuals over time. The part that struck me was that most of the early quotes (the earliest one here is 1948) deal with the human aspect of leading, that is the definition or quotation is centered around adjusting the behavior of people in order to accomplish some other objective. As a matter of fact, the 1948 version of DA Pam 22-1 "Leadership" states quite simply, "Leadership is the art of influencing human behavior". A very direct statement that places people - Soldiers - at the very heart of the leadership issue.
Consider today's definition of leadership. "Leadership is providing, purpose, direction and motivation to accomplish the mission while improving the organization." Interesting that mission accomplishment and organizational improvement have - over time - replaced the understanding of people and human behavior as the primary requirements of successful leadership. What about creating improved people? If we only focus on the mission, then we will eventually succeed, but that success will ultimately fail if the human price paid to achieve it becomes too much for the citizen-Soldier to bear. If we only focus on organizational improvement, then we will never truly inspire Soldiers to overcome fear and deprivation for the good of that organization. They will only respond in as much as they feel the organization is supporting them.
And now we are at war and young men and women are leading other young men and women into a very confusing and rapidly changing battle, and most of the struggles we are facing are not rooted in mission accomplishment, nor organizational success, but are most firmly rooted in the difficulties of sustaining people over a long period of time, under rigorous physical and emotional conditions. And we wonder why everyone complains about a lack of good 'Leaders' anymore. It's simple really. We stopped teaching about human behavior and the development of character and a sense of ethos and replaced it with a 'mission over men', 'institution over Soldier' model.
And that was part of my intent behind this. To talk about leading people. And I think in a generic, sort of round about way, we have done that. Using OODA, and marksmanship and a Soldier centered training model, a discussion has begun that looks at the culture of the Army, the motivations of it's Soldiers and a method of inspiring and developing the ethos and character that we all aspire to. At least I hope so. I think it's there somewhere, right behind the mechanical aspects involved in a particular post. Right behind understanding OODA is a way of enhancing a person. A way for us to stay centered and focused on what the purpose of leading people is all about. The 'Women in the Army' posts are certainly people centric and are perhaps the best illustration of the people vs the organization issue. Michelle's comments highlight what can happen when we fail to live up to the high qualities that General Bradley spoke of. A sense of understanding, humanness and generosity. I think at the tactical and strategic level, those same qualities are nicely demonstrated in last weeks post by MG Stone and his treatment of detainees.
I think this week will finish with another quote that is absolutely key to this discussion. "American troops in particular, resent any suggestion that they are ciphers and not people. They want to be known for themselves and will resist any attempt to mold them into an anonymous pattern." General Maxwell D. Taylor
Ahhh, I just knew my Millennials weren't really original after all. Seems that individuality and self-definition has been a part of the American Soldier's character and ethos for a long long time. And those people are who we lead.
As always, feel free to comment.
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