Ill Informed Blog Post at AM on Advisors

[jkm_101_fso]

Gotta disagree with the "so easy a caveman could do it" position. There are a host of reasons why perfectly good officers and NCOs fail miserably when trying to advise others.

The most prevalent defect I saw in those officers and NCOs who were poor advisors was their complete lack of maturity.

I define maturity as the willingness to understand your role, mission and constraints as an advisor.

When I heard NCOs or Officers say: "These Iraqis are all F***** up", it was usually indicative of their performance as an advisor.

Granted, some of those that failed as advisors maybe (or have been) great Platoon sergeants, company commanders and staff guys.

Some of it has to do with the degree of sophistication required to shift from being a doer and a trainer to being an advisor, and some of it has to do with inter-cultural stuff.

I personally didn't believe the transistion from "doer to advisor" was that difficult...and I'm an average performer. There were guys on my team and others that were (are) much better officers than me. It was difficult for them because they made it hard for themselves; specifically, their crappy attitude from start to finish. Not sure if it was because they didn't want to be on a MiTT or because they didn't like Iraqis. It doesn't matter; they did a disservice to the mission, other team members and the IA.

To be a successful advisor, a guy has to WANT to do well; put his personal feelings or grudges aside and execute.

By execute, I mean sincerely and wholeheartedly put their best effort into making their foreign counterpart the best performer he can be. This can only be done with patience, time and consistency. Particularly with Iraqis, they know when someone doesn't sincerely want to help them, and it will effect the relationship and his performance.

EDIT:
One Caveat: It is crucial that the MiTT team chief is the most mature (see definition). His attitude will have a lot to do with the team's (and thus foreign unit) performance.