If you haven’t already read this paper from Casey Haskins, it’s definitely worth a look. You may not agree with the sweeping premise, that the present-day Army suffers under the administrative and philosophical burden of the Cold War era. But there are plenty of valid points that will cause you to evaluate the quality of your own leadership and your organization’s culture.
The SlideShare document is below and you can scroll through it for a quick look. I’ve also included the paper’s Conclusion, which is a bullet list of bold changes and a summary of the paper’s tone. Keep in mind that it is a few years old, too.
Conclusion
The old organization was built on control, but the world has changed. The world is moving at such a pace that control has become a limitation. It slows you down. You’ve got to balance freedom with some control, but you’ve got to have more freedom than you ever dreamed of.
– Jack Welch
The Army’s culture is no longer a good fit for its environment. Operational units have only partially made the necessary cultural changes, and the Army’s institutions almost not at all. If not reversed, it is virtually certain that the Army will face competitors better adapted to today’s environment, and it is a simple matter to predict that it will have difficulty winning the wars in which it is engaged now and for the foreseeable future. Turning this around will be no easy task. It will require the Army to do many things:
- Change the purpose of leader training to developing disciplined but flexible problem solvers. Shift the emphasis from learning to apply doctrinal solutions to teaching leaders how to frame and solve problems.
- Encourage experimentation. Do not penalize honest attempts that fail. Reward successes. Do not try to centrally control all experiments.
- Standardize training by outcomes rather than by the process used to achieve them, or by how closely units adhered to doctrinal standards. Accept that different leaders may arrive at different solutions—fine, so long as they work and achieve the desired results (outcomes).
- Shift some of the emphasis in training—along with the resources—from large-unit collective tasks to individual and small team training. Move away from standardized, highly efficient training management systems that discourage leader thinking and initiative. (There is no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater, just to find a better balance.)
- Expect individual mastery of selected fundamental tasks (individual weapons, first aid, navigation, etc.)—not just meeting minimum standards. Resource the training well above meeting minimum standards.
- Require leaders and soldiers to be able to explain why tasks are done a certain way, and to explain the principles that guide their actions.
- Require soldiers routinely to figure things out for themselves. Build into all training the need to solve problems and overcome unexpected challenges.
- Build stability operations into most collective training events by routinely including civilian considerations. Make civilian actions realistically complex and ambiguous, and force soldiers to reflect on the long-term implications of their actions. Wherever possible, tie events together so they have to live with those consequences.
- Show leaders ways to make training more fun and challenging. Soldiers who put more into training will get more out of it—and retain it much longer.
- Remove most vetoes over the chain of command by outside agencies. Building a high-performing organization requires allowing leaders to lead and holding them accountable. That means that authority and responsibility must be vested in the same people—not separated as they commonly are today in the name of “control”.
- Replace the majority of rules with leader judgment, guided by principles and commander’s intent. Work nonstop to develop leaders’ judgment, and be willing to dismiss those leaders incapable of developing satisfactory judgment.
- Replace most standards with fewer principles.
- Replace ponderous processes with quicker ones. Accept that the error rate will increase, but that this will still be cheaper and more effective.
- Reward and promote people who develop flexible, high-performing organizations, rather than those who achieve the best statistics or play it safe. Stop selecting leaders to command battalions, brigades, or higher organizations, who have succeeded by doing the same old things better than their peers (in other words, those who are most efficient). Instead, select those who have demonstrated insight, the willingness to try new things, who have experimented and who have underwritten initiative and experimentation in their subordinates, and who have earned a good but not perfect track record of success. One rigid commander can stifle all necessary cultural change in his or her entire organization, but in an encouraging environment most junior leaders quickly begin to thrive in the new culture.
None of this is simple or quick. None of it is easy. All of it will be frustrating and will meet huge resistance. It goes against many people’s fundamental beliefs. Progress will advance by fits and starts. Nevertheless, this is what must happen if the US Army’s culture is to meet the needs of its present environment. The alternative is to face the likely fate of all organizations that do not change to fit their environment: defeat by nimbler competitors more suited to today’s battlefields.
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