Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
...but that's the whole problem! - Most Armies do not use "examples of what worked well in the past could guide the future concepts and provide more support for the “solutions” presented." because they are generally oblivious of what worked well in the past or even how it worked.

Using military history to find out what worked and what did is extremely problematic - It's what I do - and the current "COIN debate" is writ large with folks ignoring uncomfortable historical facts.

Additionally folks make fraudulent use of "positive examples" to prove what they want to prove.
In the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) mode, I would get a core group representative of the Army community from all ranks, and have them interview each other with questions like:

"What makes us successful when we are at our best working with other agencies?"

"Imagine the Army fifteen years from now as the best organization. What does it look like? What are we doing more of? What are we doing less of? What are we doing that is completely new?"

"If you could develop or transform the Army in any way to advance fully the Army's objectives (as stated in the capstone), what three wishes in order of priority, would you make to contribute to its excellence?"

From there, the core group can also explore the Army's "peak performance" from the past, and identify the ways of doing things that are valued so strongly they should be sustained.

Again, I'm not sure if the capstone was meant to be a visionary document, so maybe that's why the authors took a problem-solution approach. There are other approaches available, like AI. Our default is usually from a deficit-base, looking at the Army as a machine that can be broken apart, analyzed, fixed, and put back together, with the final ideal product already in mind. Instead of the machine metaphor, to me a flowing river metaphor may be more useful.