Educating Special Forces Junior Leaders for a Complex Security Environment

JSOU, Jul 09: Educating Special Forces Junior Leaders for a Complex Security Environment

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...the operational environment all SOF officers will face in the coming decades will include much more than irregular warfare, which greatly complicates the training and education requirements for the entire officer corps, but particularly for Special Forces officers.

This study contains six parts:

a. List of assumptions that will impact Special Forces officer education and training.
b. Best guess at what the “future international security environment” will look like.
c. Recommendations—based on the assumptions and the “future operational environment”—of several knowledge-based education competencies—some familiar, some not.
d. Survey of graduate programs teaching these competencies.
e. Statistical analysis and discussion of the “gap” in graduate education between Army Special Forces and non-Special Forces
f. Suggestions for providing Special Forces officers with a viable, tailored, and quality master’s degree that will enhance their operational performance, accelerate their capability for senior-level and joint staff billets, and increase their opportunity for successful command in increasingly difficult command situations.

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In simple old Air Force and civilian language, it will be interesting to see how a Masters degree program is developed to train officers to "think outside the box." But this is the need now and for the forseeable future.

I wonder if National Defense University (NDU) will be the focus for the Masters program, or if we will look more to psyops and consider outsourcing to a major university which his both in attendance and on line computer driven classes or courses.

The few sociologists on SWJ should be of great value in the curicculum development if the DoD "thinks logically and quickly" to get outside brainpower to help develop the curicculum.

Naval Postgraduate School has been doing this for decades via the National Security Affairs program as well as the new programs like that MikeF is in now.

On the Navy side the students in the NSA program were aviators, intelligence, or SEALS. Army was mainly FAOs with some SF and USAF were tracked toward embassy jobs.
Best
Tom

Tom, thanks for focusing a partial answer to my stumbling inquiry.

I was and am aware of the Naval College program (missed a chance to do it when a reservist with HQ USSOCOM) as I was committed to another continuing education task at that time...time conflict, near end of my active, then only reserve career.

Wishing no harm to the Navy school, I am still curious how any exisiting military ed program can "really" get us to think and then operate "outside the box"...in a manner necessary to show results sooner vs. later.

SECDEF Rumsfield seems to me to have tried, and failed, to use the Special Ops approach in Afghanistan, where it worked initially, then things within a year or two started falling down...perhaps, who the heck am I to know it all...perhaps due to in attention to two things:

1. (my penchant) for psyops/Voice of American radio and TV 24/7 in the appropriate dialects, to constantly put down the lies in the media all over the theater of operations region...including in the Pak press and TV/radio media.

2. Our inability to quickly stand up a stable Afghan Army and national police, for whatever reasons you better educated, younger, on the scene guys and gals know best.

Point well taken, Tom, about the Navy School. but I am a stubbord old coot and perhaps a whole sea change of mind set is yet not either allowed or is already, goofily in my personal opinion, "boxed in" by political constraints from on high.

Best muttering I can do short of self-explosion.

Good weekend to all, we are off the Gulf Coast beaches late in the weekend for a week of beer, beef, sun, and grown children still feeding from the proverbial "family" wallet as our "guests."

You want outside the box thinking? and I intend absolutely no sarcasm here: drop them off in the poor side of a big city with nothing but the clothes on their back , no money and a sworn pledge to make no phone calls to outside resources and tell 'em you will pick them up in 10 days at a designated location.

Let 'em rest up then drop them off on one of the Lakota Indian reservations in the upper plains for their last 10 days of thinking and living outside the box training - excellant COIN preperation as well - 2 for 1.

Why is a Masters degree required/strongly recommended? just curious

hardly out of the box but it is appropriate.:cool: It was classic SOE and OSS training in WWII. It is the kind of thing COL Bob Shaw was doing at the Asymmetric Warfare Group for the last several years. It's a good idea and it works.

That said, appropriate civilian masters degrees have been shown to stimulate the kind of adaptive thinking that SF and other advisory type efforts call for. See some of the interviews in Security Force Assistance: the Mosul Case Study published in the SWJ Journal several months ago.

Cheers

JohnT

The author raises some good issues that underscore the need for a solid education as a foundation for all officers, not just SF O-3s. I wonder why many of the goals mentioned cannot be achieved with a solid undergraduate program during ROTC. Maybe we should encourage more cadets to major in anthropology, sociology, or a foreign language. Most people that I know just majored in whatever seemed easiest because the degree was just another block to check in order to get commissioned. This is obviously not a solution for existing officers, but something that I wish would get more consideration among the powers-that-be.

In specific regard to the SF O-3, this seems to be the guy for whom grad school is the least appropriate. Grad school, imo, is most valuable to those individuals who have some real-life experience to put the graduate education in context. An SF O-3 just doesn't tend to have the same level of experience as his CF counterparts. For example, over halfway through my third tour in Iraq, I met up with a few SF Captains who were just arriving in country and were preparing to take charge of ODAs within a month or so thereafter. They came on active duty at the same time that I did and were finally deploying for the first time. Welcome to the party. They redeployed about three months later. Three months experience versus three years among many of their CF peers. A friend of mine deployed to OIF I as an Infantry PL, at the same time that I did, and redeployed in early 2004. Then he went the SF route. He finally deployed with an ODA in 2008. If either of those examples are typical of most SF O-3s, then maybe we should let them get a little more operational time under their belts. It seems that they already spend most of their lives in training.

Just to be clear, I'm not knocking any of those guys. They're all smart folks and seemed to know their jobs. I'm just saying that their actual time performing their duties on a deployment seems pretty short. Classroom time, regardless of how enlightening or interesting, is theory. You can only ingest so much theory and hold so much of it down without some real-life experience to settle it. If we expected guys to be in charge of an ODA for two or three deployments and then go to grad school, then that would seem reasonable. But my understanding - and please someone correct me if I'm wrong - is that most are off to some staff job, followed by promotion to O-4 soon after one successful deployment on an ODA.

with your analysis, Schmedlap. SF guys should go for their Masters as senior O3s or junior O4s - ILE time. Frankly, that is a pretty good time for all officers to get theirs. They tend to know enough to separate the BS from the good stuff and have enough experience to teach their profs and peers something as well.
Agreed also on undergrad education. Any officer to be who is likely to be in an advisory role (SF or not) should be encouraged to major in the social sciences, history, foreign language, or classics (if you doubt the value of the last, consider Nate Fick). And regardless of major, a working knowledge of a modern foreign language is a must. (Again see the Mosul Case Study.) I would also suggest this kind of education for our NCOs who will go to similar kinds of jobs. For SF NCOs I think civilian education time should be part of their career progression after some time in the groups. Exactly when that should be, I leave to the professionals in the field.
Although I have become a fan of online education, especially after having taught some courses at AMU, I think the kind of education we are discussing here is best done in the traditional setting where face to face communication takes place and the schoolhouse is the only job at hand. Reflection time is a critical factor and that means reducing the distractions of a real job.

Cheers

JohnT

May I ask my esteemed SWC colleagues here: What do you think are the "core competencies" that should be addressed in a graduate-level education program aimed at Junior-Mid SOF officers?

As a starting point for discussion, for those who did not have a chance to read GEN Howard's paper, here is the abbreviated version (with my apologies to him in advance for any inaccuracies caused by my efforts to condense):

Howard focuses on the O3-ish Army SF Officer. He explains they are often “out there” on their own having to function above the tactical level (unlike any other officer at that grade). He believes educational (not short-course training) competencies are needed because in the near future: (1) they will be very busy in non-English-speaking countries; (2) they will operate in (and need to adapt to) increasingly diverse, remote, and antagonistic cultures and environments, where they will need to be "culturally competent, not just "culturally aware"; (3) antropology will continue to be increasingly important; (4) language proficiency will continue to be a vital enabling factor for multi-nation operations; (5) they will need to understand interagency process—at the consumer level; (6) they will need to understand the challenges and opportunities of working with NGOs.

Cross-cultural communications - Howard says- will be vital for operational success in many hot spots because it will facilitate understanding of and work with international allies; indiginous peoples; and other agencies with different organizational cultures.

He identifiess key communications-related knowledge competencies to include: Negotiations, mediation, networking, and diplomacy; active listening, persuasion, building rapport, understanding nonverbal communication, how to communicate through interpreters, interviewing and being interviewed, crisis communication, and writing reports.

What do you think?

First, I would question some of the assumptions...

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Originally Posted by rborum

Howard focuses on the O3-ish Army SF Officer. He explains they are often “out there” on their own having to function above the tactical level (unlike any other officer at that grade).

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I can only speak for Iraq, but I think that the opposite holds true. The AO covered by an ODA overlaps with multiple CF companies or battalions. The AO covered by an AOB roughly overlaps with a BDE or two. The AO of a JSOTF overlaps with a few BDEs/DIVs. While an ODA may be functioning at the operational level (debatable) they are hardly "out there" on their own. Not only is the AOB there (often no farther than a company is from a BDE), but the JSOTF is there (a little more distant, but in theater and providing support). And the CF provides QRF for their missions and team houses. And they share AWT/CAS assets with CF. I could go on.

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Originally Posted by rborum

(1) they will be very busy in non-English-speaking countries;
(2) they will operate in (and need to adapt to) increasingly diverse, remote, and antagonistic cultures and environments, where they will need to be "culturally competent, not just "culturally aware";
(3) antropology will continue to be increasingly important;
(4) language proficiency will continue to be a vital enabling factor for multi-nation operations;
(5) they will need to understand interagency process—at the consumer level;
(6) they will need to understand the challenges and opportunities of working with NGOs.

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These are unique to SF? Items 1, 2, and 3 apply equally to all combat arms branches. Speaking strictly to the officers, I would say 1, 2, and 3 are even more important for the CF officers because they do not have the luxury of a lengthy selection process to give them a steady stream of personnel of the same caliber that SF is able to obtain/produce. Leaders at Ft. Stewart, for example, are generally very happy to receive the personnel who are RFS'd from 1/75. I realize that SOF and SF are different - my point is simply that CF is pleased to receive SOCOM's table scraps.

Item 4 is arguable because SF has a much higher priority for higher quality interpreters. A buddy of mine lamented that his SF unit was only at 75% strength on interpreters with security clearances. Cry me a fricken river. Ours often couldn't speak English, Arabic, or walk. See the terp thread.

I'll leave item 5 alone. (Interagency processes?:confused: You got me).

Item 6 seems more the purview of a BDE or DIV staff. I would think the ideal interaction between an ODA and NGO, if any, would be similar to an Infantry Company and CA Team interacting with them. There might also be a few other considerations for the ODA/NGO relationship that I will omit for OPSEC reasons, but those seem to be skills/capabilities already covered down on.

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Originally Posted by rborum

May I ask my esteemed SWC colleagues here: What do you think are the "core competencies" that should be addressed in a graduate-level education program aimed at Junior-Mid SOF officers?
... He identifiess key communications-related knowledge competencies to include: Negotiations, mediation, networking, and diplomacy; active listening, persuasion, building rapport, understanding nonverbal communication, how to communicate through interpreters, interviewing and being interviewed, crisis communication, and writing reports.

What do you think?

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The competencies that he lists seem fine, though I think they've pretty much got those skills covered already. Someone please correct me if I'm off base. This seems like a solution in search of a problem.

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Originally Posted by rborum

He believes educational (not short-course training) competencies are needed because in the near future:
(1) they will be very busy in non-English-speaking countries;
(2) they will operate in (and need to adapt to) increasingly diverse, remote, and antagonistic cultures and environments, where they will need to be "culturally competent, not just "culturally aware";
(3) antropology will continue to be increasingly important;
(4) language proficiency will continue to be a vital enabling factor for multi-nation operations;
(5) they will need to understand interagency process—at the consumer level;
(6) they will need to understand the challenges and opportunities of working with NGOs.

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Cross-cultural communications - Howard says- will be vital for operational success in many hot spots because it will facilitate understanding of and work with international allies; indiginous peoples; and other agencies with different organizational cultures.

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Sorry, but this is massively gilding the Lilly and gold plating the Cadillac (what ever a Cadillac is?).

Anthropology is the study of Human Beings? Correct? War is a about breaking Human will, so yes, study relevant to that is good. All this has got to held to account against the "relevant" SF mission. What does the CIA have to say on all this?

It seems to me that the payoff they want from Anthropology is "making friends and influencing people."

• If it means they can better get (force) folks to tell them stuff, that is timely and relevant, then great.
• If it also means that can get (force) folks to help them, then great.

If it's all a poorly coded way of saying, we all want to play at being T.E. Lawrence, then you are stuck on the road to disaster.

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Originally Posted by rborum

He identifiess key communications-related knowledge competencies to include: Negotiations, mediation, networking, and diplomacy; active listening, persuasion, building rapport, understanding nonverbal communication, how to communicate through interpreters, interviewing and being interviewed, crisis communication, and writing reports.

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A 6 month attachment to USAID or the like in a foreign culture would develop all those.

While I agree that there is a requirement for formal education I am not convinced by the requirement for a Masters if it is at the expense of relevant training and experience. It appears from this thread that SF OF-3s are arriving highly trained, but with limited experience compared to their peers and (more importantly) are not spending sufficient time in role to capitalise on their training and allow them to gain in experience.

the SF operating norm. SF has been with us for 57 years. During mostof those years it has been operating a long way from any other US troops. In 1967 an SF team led by Major Pappy Shelton trained the Bolivian Ranger battalion that hunted and chased down Che Guevara. The only other US force in the country was a two man SF training team consisting of CPT John Waghelstein and an NCO training the Bolivian Airborne. They made a decision independently to try to hunt down and capture the remnants of Che's band. 20 years later, I visited with then CPT Charlie Cleveland in the Chapare in Bolivia where his ODA was alone and supporting the Bolivian Rural Police in their operations against coca trafficking. (Last I heard of him BG Clevland was commanding SOCSOUTH). BTW, they had to coordinate with DEA, USAID, US immigration and customs, all of which were working in the area. While Charlie and his team were directly subordinate to the US MILGP, COL George Alport, the commander, had little contact with them (which was a reason for the visit). The COL wanted to see what they were doing and if he could provide any support. To get out there we flew from La Paz to Cochabamba and picked up a vehicle and drove 8 hours down a mountain road that was a cross between a roller coaster and a deathtrap.:eek: Point is, this is the norm for SF operations. Even El Salvador (where Waghelstein commanded the MILGP) was something of an anomaly with SF operating in two man operations and training teams with other advisors to make up the famous 55. The SF guys were out at the ESAF brigades; the others in San Salvador except for the Marine team with the ESAF Marines and one SF CPT assigned to work with USAID.

Cheers

JohnT

- that as John Q Taxpayer, said men get the Masters then don't jump ship in 4 years? What's the commitment time post-training? We assume said men become career men but they are not fully indentured to Uncle Sam. We got base pay going out and high-end tuition/books etc. that's alot of cash and personally I am just playing the devil's advocate here.

I like the idea of USAID exposure Red Rat, but isn't that just more exposure to another structure of an organization while said participants have no power to do anything while there? The ideal would be 6 months in the Peace Corps but a tough nut to crack and implement. I would opt for a year of Grad work in Culture/Sociology/language with a directive they be accepted into the PC with a provision that after 6 months they resign then shift over to either 3rd world missionary work or inner city homeless shelter work for 6 months - you want frustration, communication problems, break down of protocols, laison difficulty, ongoing crisis', cultural alienation, lack of funding, lack of resources, its all to be had in the latter environment, great preperation for 3rd world hot spots that have to be managed somehow. Just my .02 worth.
When I was in the PC in Africa, the only ones accomplishing anything were the small, holistic missions at the village level and a paltry few PC Volunteers. I failed with my agricultural mission because I followed PC protocol of minimal hands on, though I did teach some English and did a hell of a lot of 1st Aid - bend to the breaking point protocol and you win.

Interesting, I guess a few comments:

1. You can't train people to think outside the box, but we do try to select from the uniformed masses men who do, and then train them to conduct special operations.

2. Education is rarely a bad thing, and in this case designed as a supplement to years of operations conducted out and among the populaces and security forces of our partners around the world; not to somehow supplant that experience base that is so important to making SF the effective force that it is.

3. SF had (last time I saw the stats) the highest retention rate of any specialty in the Army to stay in until 20 and earn a retirement.

4. SF and US Aid work together quite well, the only constraint on that being that we have to be respectful of the different nature of each other's missions, and too much collaboration hinders the effectiveness of both operations.

So in general, most of the concerns that I've read here are not really as serious as they may seem to an outsider. These guys have volunteered to take on the greatest challenges the military offers, and have stood the test of selection, training, the leadership challenge that is unique to commanding the vast talent and experience in an ODA, and global operations in peace and war. Their families pay a tremendous price in stress and separation as well.

If they also get a chance for an occasional good deal like an advanced degree program, that also allows them to rebond with their families, share their experiences with peers from other theaters, and add some thoughtful perspective to their experience; don't you think they've earned it?

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

1. You can't train people to think outside the box, but we do try to select from the uniformed masses men who do, and then train them to conduct special operations.

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If I understood what it meant to think "outside the box", I might be able to form a halfway-intelligent response, but since I don't...:o

I do believe SF does a solid job in selection (one of the best, I think, in relation to the specific abilities they are targeting), but I also believe it is possible to train/educate people to think differently and to improve their adaptive skills. Not everyone who enters the ring will become a champion, but most people can improve their ability to generate, evaluate and implement better decisions in general and in operational environments ... but not through sitting in on a PowerPoint briefing. Graduate education - as opposed to training - is supposed to be as much (or more) about learning how to think than learning what to think.

I also like the USAID connection for cross-cultural adaptive skills (in general, maybe or maybe not for SF officer corps specifically).

Seems to me anthropology is misunderstood and probably overvalued by Pop-Centric COINers. Definitely relevant to navigating a complicated and increasingly flat world, but it is no holy grail. Hope that doesn't make me a disciplinary bigot - some of my best friends are anthropologists ;)

The Peace Corps, US AID, and SF were all cut from the same bolt of cloth. The missions are all very different, but they also overlap. The focus on Counterterrorism in recent years and the fact that SF is very effective at that mission does not change the basic purpose and focus of the organization and its role in our overall national security construct.

I'm humbled everyday I come to work and am awed by this tremendous community. Such a mix of physical and mental talents, coupled with rare discipline, training, experience, and commitment to a higher purpose is nothing I've found anywhere else; not as a wildland fire fighter in the mountains of SW Oregon; not as deputy district attorney; but in every teamroom of every SF unit one finds it in spades. A national treasure.

This education program is just a little icing on the cake.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

I'm humbled everyday I come to work and am awed by this tremendous community. Such a mix of physical and mental talents, coupled with rare discipline, training, experience, and commitment to a higher purpose .. A national treasure.

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I concur, sir and thank you for your service.

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Originally Posted by goesh

You want outside the box thinking? and I intend absolutely no sarcasm here: drop them off in the poor side of a big city with nothing but the clothes on their back , no money and a sworn pledge to make no phone calls to outside resources and tell 'em you will pick them up in 10 days at a designated location.

Let 'em rest up then drop them off on one of the Lakota Indian reservations in the upper plains for their last 10 days of thinking and living outside the box training - excellant COIN preperation as well - 2 for 1.

Why is a Masters degree required/strongly recommended? just curious

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That's an interesting idea. But how bad of a bad neighborhood would you drop them off in? In today's world, I would imagine the reaction from Congress and the media would be pretty intense the first time one of these individuals is seriously injured (or killed) or injures someone in self defense if he gets mugged or assaulted during one of these exercises.

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Originally Posted by oblong

...I would imagine the reaction from Congress and the media would be pretty intense the first time one of these individuals is seriously injured (or killed) or injures someone in self defense if he gets mugged or assaulted during one of these exercises.

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Where far worse is guaranteed -- to far more people.

Oh, you're probably correct but you should not be -- that says something about priorities of a lot of folks. Not anything good...

Your words are encouraging to this civilian tax payer, Bob's world.

Oblong, I think of all the 18 yr olds that went down stepping off Higgins boats at Normandy. Odds are most trainees would take the easy road out in at least one of the environments, i.e. get to a shelter in the urban environment and stay put, or, hook up with the VFW/Vets on the reservation and stay put. I wouldnt want a man on my team who took both easy roads out.

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Originally Posted by oblong

That's an interesting idea. But how bad of a bad neighborhood would you drop them off in? In today's world, I would imagine the reaction from Congress and the media would be pretty intense the first time one of these individuals is seriously injured (or killed) or injures someone in self defense if he gets mugged or assaulted during one of these exercises.

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Originally Posted by Ken White

Where far worse is guaranteed -- to far more people.

Oh, you're probably correct but you should not be -- that says something about priorities of a lot of folks. Not anything good...

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The cynic in me agrees with Ken :wry:. Personally, I think it is an excellent idea, although they should be given $1 in coin so that they can call for an extraction if necessary (and get an F on the exercise ;)).

If we step back from this for a moment, what is "out of the box" thinking? What is "the box"? And, assuming that people do start thinking outside of it, how will they be able to communicate to those still held in the boxes thrall?

It strikes me that the idea of an MA is not so much about out of the box thinking as it is about thinking in another (disciplinary) box. Granted, you can cover more ground with two boxes than with one, but that is still limited.

If we (partially) drop the metaphor, what we are really talking about is several different issues: disciplinarity (1 box), interdisciplinarity (2+boxes), transdisciplinarity ("Boxes? Don't need no stinkin' boxes!"), organizational culture and organizational communications. This is the stuff I teach every Fall term, so it's near and dear to my heart.

From what I have seen, there is a fairly standard progression in people's thinking going from disciplinarity, through interdisciplinarity towards transdisciplinarity. It is as much a mental and psychological shift as one of perceptions. For example, most people operating solely in a single discipline tend towards seeing all problems with that discipline's lens: one of those "when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail" situations. On occassion, this can lead to extremely rigid thinking where, when the boundaries of that discipline have been reached, people can (and do) suffer mental and emotional breakdowns ("Facts? Don't bother me with facts!").

People who think in interdisciplinary terms tend to be better at dealing with problems at the boundary zone of one discipline, mainly because they can shift to another as necessary. This can often bring them into conflict with people who only think in a single discipline for a whole slew of reasons. This potential for conflict is enhanced if the additional disciplines are radically different from the organizational primary discipline - say, for a silly example, performance art and accounting. This is where we start getting into organizational culture and communications.

Many larger organizations formally recognize different disciplinary thinking and place it in a "box of boxes" (i.e. the formal organizational culture, aka Weberian bureaucratic organizational hierarchies). Part and parcel with this formal organization is a formalization of both the lines and genres of communications between the boxes (e.g. "this is a job for the CA folks"). Generally, this sort of kludge can work fairly well, but it does lead to disciplinary stereotyping which may be problematic if the operational environment changes.

Transdisciplinarity is a threat to the "box of boxes" since its basis is that one can transcend disciplines into a single, broader stance (thereby attacking identities constructed around both those single disciplines as well as the necessity for a bureaucratic organization). Again, many formal organizational cultures do recognize this type of thinking, but they either place it at the apex of the hierarchy or one step down and to the side (as an example, the discipline of "management" is an attempt to formalize, in a disciplinary format, some form of transdisciplinarity).

If we bring all of this back to the specific focuse, SF education at the O3 level, there are several interesting points. First, SF is in and of itself a stereotyped, bureucratic "box" for a particular series of interdisciplinary actions - "out of the [mainstream] box" thinking is an organizational culture requirement. Second, and as a modification of the first point, while SF "thinking" is required to be "out of the box", there is a question of what other boxes are acceptable: how about poetry? Stand-up comedy? Improvizational acting? Cordon Bleu cooking? Baroque singing (yeah, you knew I had to get that in :D!)?

I think I'm going to leave it here and see what people think.

Cheers,

Marc

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Originally Posted by oblong

That's an interesting idea. But how bad of a bad neighborhood would you drop them off in? In today's world, I would imagine the reaction from Congress and the media would be pretty intense the first time one of these individuals is seriously injured (or killed) or injures someone in self defense if he gets mugged or assaulted during one of these exercises.

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Eyh... My Battalion beat the cr*p out of a UK-SF guy who was pretending to be a bird watcher on the Thetford training area...... the only down side being that he actually was bird watcher. :rolleyes:

alone - my sample is too small. But I know soldiers who are sculptors, painters, actors, singers, and fiction writers. Now for baroque singers... and bronc riders...

Cheers

JohnT

Hi John,

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Originally Posted by John T. Fishel

alone - my sample is too small. But I know soldiers who are sculptors, painters, actors, singers, and fiction writers. Now for baroque singers... and bronc riders...

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You know, I think it would be fascinating to see if there is a statistically significant difference between the mainstream forces and SF in these areas. It might also be interesting to see if something like it works in reverse - I keep thinking about Julia Child coming out of the OSS and getting into cooking (I just finished reading Julie & Julia; great book if you are into feisty hilarity and French cooking :D).

Cheers,

Marc

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Originally Posted by John T. Fishel

alone - my sample is too small. But I know soldiers who are sculptors, painters, actors, singers, and fiction writers. Now for baroque singers... and bronc riders...

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I do have to admit to knowing only one Baroque Singer -- and that only virtually... ;)

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I think I'm going to leave it here and see what people think.

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Much there to think about. Seriously. Especially the "Transdisciplinarity is a threat to the 'box of boxes' " issue...

On a less serious note (slightly), stand-up comedy and improvisational acting have merit as cross disciplines; leadership they say is half showmanship -- and the benefits of both alternatives to the military briefer go without saying... :D

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Originally Posted by Ken White

I do have to admit to knowing only one Baroque Singer -- and that only virtually... ;)

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Someday, we'll fix that "virtually" part over bourbon and beers :D.

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Originally Posted by Ken White

Much there to think about. Seriously. Especially the "Transdisciplinarity is a threat to the 'box of boxes' " issue...

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There has been some decent work done in the area, but it's spread across a whole slew of disciplines. I think my favorite piece dealing with it is Andrew Abbott's The System of the Professions - a brilliant work, IMO, that should be mandatory reading in high school!

I've been doing a lot of thinking about and working with the issue of transdisciplinarity in my academic life. I suspect that we are right on the cusp of getting decent methodologies to actually get some decent empirical data on the issue but, so far, I haven't seen anything yet (at the empirical level) that I really like. What I want is brain scans, darn it!

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Originally Posted by Ken White

On a less serious note (slightly), stand-up comedy and improvisational acting have merit as cross disciplines; leadership they say is half showmanship -- and the benefits of both alternatives to the military briefer go without saying... :D

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In many ways, the best training I ever had for teaching was the training I got in improv acting and stand-up comedy. I've also run some informal polls, and it seems that most of my students learn better when they can laugh at the process of learning (endorphin induced stress-reduction is my guess). As for the leader motivation aspect you bring up Ken, I totally agree, although i might put it a touch higher ;).

Cheers,

Marc

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Originally Posted by marct

Someday, we'll fix that "virtually" part over bourbon and beers :D.

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Good plan!

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As for the leader motivation aspect you bring up Ken, I totally agree, although i might put it a touch higher ;).

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I try to be charitable on alternate Thursdays... ;)