The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[Null Hypothesis]

From page 16: "Consistent Messages and Actions. Because future operation will occur in and among the people, under the unblinking eye of the media, and against threats savvy enough to present competing narratives, Army actions and messages must be congruent with and consistent with policy and objectives."

Redundant because the Army should be acting within policy and objectives in the first place (commander's intent?).

Confusing because it addresses the obvious with an air of presenting a unique solution.

When was the last time the Army presented a congruent and consistent message in a timeframe useful to the maneuver commander that didn't take thousands of staff hours to produce, let alone in an environment where there is an enemy actively trying to kill them?

Recommend fixing the title to something less wordy. Perhaps, "War."

nh

[SJPONeill]

I just finished working my way through the draft. I hope that it is as has been said previously an early draft that has been polished up since. It definitely reads like a document that has a number of drafters who have worked in isolation and then complied the document. While I believe that the intent for this capstone publication is admirable, from it's current form it still has a long way to go.

If there is one single recommendation, I would make, it is that it needs to be placed in the hands of someone who really knows how to write. Its written structure is horrible with massive sentences and paragraphs that mix ideas and concepts in a most unuser-friendly manner. There is some great content in it but extracting it is just too hard - as it is I doubt you could get too many troops reading a publication that should be as well-thumbed by junior leaders as by senior ones.

My notes file is too big to upload here so will forward it back via our TRADOC LNO.

[Bill Jakola]

In furthering the Army's emphasis on developing leaders to succeed in the complexities of the operational environment, now and in the future, TRADOC produced a strategy that DA officially released, on 25 November. I wanted to ensure you all received this Leader Development Strategy. Additionally, we will publish an annex to this strategy for each cohort—NCO, warrant officer, and officer—in a portfolio of initiatives that will provide specific implementation detail. What do you all think about this strategy?

[RTK]

In furthering the Army's emphasis on developing leaders to succeed in the complexities of the operational environment, now and in the future, TRADOC produced a strategy that DA officially released, on 25 November. I wanted to ensure you all received this Leader Development Strategy. Additionally, we will publish an annex to this strategy for each cohort—NCO, warrant officer, and officer—in a portfolio of initiatives that will provide specific implementation detail. What do you all think about this strategy?

Where is this officially posted? Thanks.

[Bill Jakola]

The Army website should have it up, but I did not see it there yet. I will track it down and get back to you. Also, the TRADOC website should have a News Story and link up as well.

[Rob Thornton]

Such an environment demands that we develop leaders who understand the context of the factors influencing the military situation, act within that understanding, continually assess and adapt those actions based on the interactions and circumstances of the enemy and environment, consolidate tactical and operational opportunities into strategic aims, and be able to effectively transition from one form of operations to another. We seek to develop leaders who will thrive in this environment.

It has been my observation that when the next echelon of leaders understand the mission in terms of the task and purpose, and by understand I mean they really understand all the supporting collective, leader and individual tasks that go into it, it is then that they feel free to allow greater subordinate decision making and initiative. That is how they weigh and assume risk, and develop their own risk mitigation measures (bigger reserve, alternative COAs, etc.)

To support this shift in the next higher leader echelon during training and operations which supports our leader development goals, the defining of the tasks (and their supporting tasks) in conditions where the standard tactical tasks are inadequate is needed. At the experiments, AARs (of all types), and theater collection efforts I’ve participated in, reviewed or seen, I’ve not seen more than a skin deep attempt to document or create the list of tasks individuals and units have done (or would be required to do in the case of experimentation).

Part of this may be where we catch people in theater or upon their return, part of it also may be the way we collect – I’m not completely sure. Those interviewed may not have deemed it critical for one reason or another, they may have assumed it was something that someone else should have done but could not, or it could just be that because we caught them at the end of their tour, the tasks that stood out were those that were strongly rooted in emotion.

With respect to experimentation it may just be due to resources, and the way seminar war games, and other forms of experimentation are structured. It would take a great deal more time, and detailed information about the environment that really replicates the frictions that impose the types of unanticipated tasks on us that actual operations do. It would also require an increase in analytic capacity I think to be present in the experiment so more than just the big rocks are captured.

I think until we can identify the range of tasks that we expect individuals and units may have to do (either because it is part of the identified mission, or because the other folks we’d prefer to be doing those tasks are not present or able) in the COE, then we won’t be able to really look at what individual or unit capabilities are required, and we will not be able to look at how training, education, assignments and other leader development opportunities, etc. need to be tweaked to support it. We will not be able to tell ourselves what we want leaders at each level to be capable of doing, and we won’t be able to allow them to stretch their authorities and initiatives to develop them. After all, just because the right, or identified person, unit or agency is unavailable to do a task does not mean the requirement goes away. However, I do think not understanding the tasks, and not knowing which capabilities are required to do those tasks conflicts with our leader development goals as stated in the paper.

While some work has been done in task analysis, from what I have seen it has largely been limited to work groups which convene for a 2-3 day period somewhere, and because of self imposed constraints have been somewhat limited to looking at how existing identified tasks might fit somewhere else vs. looking at the a problem or objective and describing the over arching task(s), and then doing the difficult and time consuming work of task decomposition that produces the type of supporting collective, leader and individual tasks that we have in our list of “tactical tasks” and which we have spent years developing training strategies and resources around.


Ken's recent comments (ref. Niel's article) raised another related question: what artificial constraints do we impose into the environment that either facilitate this, or hinder it?


Best Rob

[marct]

Ken's recent comments (ref. Niel's article) raised another related question: what artificial constraints do we impose into the environment that either facilitate this, or hinder it?

Some great comments, Rob. Since I'm tied up with other stuff, I just want to address your last question which, IMHO, is really a crucial one.

As far as "artificial constraints" are concerned, for the purposes of this answer, I want to define "artificial" as "systems constructed by humans", just to avoid the possible understanding of it as that+ an emotional connotation of wasted resources .

Okay, probably the most important and easily observable system is the HR / personelle system. This is intimately tied in with leader development and pretty much every aspect of training and operations. This system controls both the day-to-day lived reality of most people in terms of extra paperwork, boxes that have to checked for promotion, etc., etc., ad nauseum. It is also crucial in defining the status system the Army is operating under or, to be more accurate, the formal status system. It does absolutely no good, and quite a bit of long term harm, to develop, say, an excel;lent junior leader program and then not have that impact their career paths positively both formally (e.g maybe a merit pay raise for excellent performance) or phenomenologically (i.e. they still see useless twits commanding them).

A second system is really cultural at the policy level. Leadership, as with most things, is a composite of a skill set that can be taught and a talent that is inborn. If you've got a really good talent, the training should bring that out and enhance it. having said that, the model I assume exists (and there is a lot to support it), says that any one-size-fits-all policy model will encourage the pursuit of mediocrity. This basically means that recognized and supported career paths have to include what might be called "excellence in place"; this avoids the Peter Principle. It also means that you have to have parallel career paths defined by talent groups.

At any rate, that's where my thinking is running at the moment.

Cheers,

Marc