Twenty years ago, you could get away with saying you’re “just not a computer person.” I remember leaders, even senior commanders, who took pride in resisting the digital movement in the military and avoided any attempt to learn it or leverage it.
Today, the military’s most prolific weapon system is Microsoft Office. We touch it more than any other system, and yet we have little to no instruction on how to maximize it. Even a few years ago, powerful data tools were exquisite, expensive, and unavailable for leaders at the tactical level. That’s no longer the case. Leaders at every level have access to programs and apps that can unlock unthinkable insight. And I’m not being hyperbolic when I say “unthinkable.” New awareness and insight – potentially lifesaving insight – lies only on the other side of data.
We’re going to talk about that in this episode, and how you can leverage data tools to augment your leadership and decision making.
And here are just a few of the questions that you could be answering if you brought some data tools into your unit:
- How efficient are we at processing evaluations, awards, legal packets, and so on?
- What maintenance actions should we focus on to reach the highest readiness rating?
- What is our budget spend rate and are we on track?
- As our vehicle crews train for gunnery, which training step is the most important and the best predictor for crew qualification?
- How many suicide ideations, DUIs, and drug offenses is normal for our unit?
- How much time do our leaders spend reacting to serious incidents and infractions like these?
- And here’s one that I guarantee your higher headquarters cares about…how many sexual harassment and sexual assault offenders were we supposed to begin separation action on, but haven’t?
All of these questions have been answered by units who pay attention to data and use the tools that are readily available. And the three guests today are pioneers of homegrown data innovation in military units.
Lieutenant Colonel Jon Bate commands 2-23 Infantry Battalion and uses his Stanford PhD experience to improve the unit systems and lethality of his battalion at Fort Carson, Colorado.
Lieutenant Colonel Erik Davis brings sixteen years of special operations experience and is an Army War College Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. He’s also the author of the ‘Downrange Data’ Substack, where he shares his experiences using data to outmaneuver challenges in the field.
Major Brett Reichert is an Infantry officer and current PhD candidate at Cornell, where he is studying how technology and automation are reshaping warfare. As the Brigade Executive Officer, Brett revolutionized our Brigade’s systems and processes, and managed to plan and execute the brigade’s three week field exercise without using a single PowerPoint slide.
Before I get to the conversation, I want to point you to some resources and recommend a few actions steps to bring data into your unit and your leading.
- Harnessing the Power of Data, by Jon Bate and Nate Platz in Army Magazine
- Downrange Data, by Erik Davis on Substack
- Military Review, Attaining Readiness by Developing a Data-Centric Culture, by Frank Czerniakowski and others.
So, after you listen to this episode…you’re curious about data, you’ve read the articles…you’re ready to make a change. What can you do?
- Make sure your leaders are plugged into the systems of record, like Army Vantage, that can show what reality looks like inside your formation.
- Inventory your unit’s most challenging problems and determine what data points would help you understand and solve those problems.
- Optimize Microsoft Office. Learn to use Microsoft Excel and leverage it to understand the problems you care about. Reduce your reliance on PowerPoint for displaying data. And then submit a request for your unit to use Microsoft Power BI.
- Put some effort into learning how to use these tools. There’s isn’t a single data analysis action in Excel that you can’t find a tutorial about. Google, YouTube, and AI can all teach you how. Think about it this way: if you heard of a way to make your rifle rounds fly around corners, you’d research it right away. Data is no different. There are insights and advantages that you can’t even imagine until you open up your eyes to what data can do.
Listen, the days of avoiding computers and relying on gut instinct are over. You have the chance to be more aware of what’s happening in your unit, within your organization, and in your environment. We owe it to our people and our service to do so, especially as our adversaries and competitors fight for every advantage over us.
Ok, let’s get to the episode. Thank so much for listening, and here is my conversation on data literacy, with Jon Bate, Erik Davis, and Brett Reichert.
