Adaptive Leaders Course (ALC)

Old Dogs Teaching New Tricks

Part 2 of 2

By

Donald E. Vandergriff, U.S. Army retired

Submitted as a manuscript for consideration for AUSA

September 2007 (draft II, September 5, 2007)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SYColeman, the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Biographical Sketch

Mr. Donald E. Vandergriff, U.S. Army retired. He served for 24 years of active duty as an enlisted Marine and Army officer. He has served in numerous troop, staff and education assignments in the United States and overseas. He has authored over 50 articles, numerous briefings and three books. His most recent book is an analysis Army leader development Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptive Leaders to Deal with the Changing Face of War (December 2006).

Part 2 of this article will conclude this series on the Adaptive Leader Course (ALC) learning model focusing on the centerpiece of the ALC, Teachers of Adaptability (TA). This includes discussion of the certification process and implementation of tools they can employ to develop adaptability. Taken together, they form the beginning of the new leader development revolution.

The burden of imparting adaptability on students is with great teachers.  Individuals that qualify for these key roles in an ALC are coined the Teachers of Adaptability (TA). They are constantly updating and preparing new challenges to their students through a rigorous study of the latest lessons as it is applies to the profession of arms. Teaching cognitive skills involves exposure to new ideas, encouragement to experiment with theories concerning what works and does not work, and the ability to learn, evaluate and assess. An ALC sets the conditions where evaluation occurs with the student through various mission scenarios, each with different conditions.

The role of teachers and their methods are different in an ALC than in the Army’s traditional teaching model. Learning through many scenarios relies on a teacher’s ability to introduce increasingly difficult unit tasks in the development of adaptive leaders. The program should constantly expose students to individual and collective tasks that they have never seen. Teachers should not get “wrapped around the task,” but introduce and show students how the task fits into solving the larger problem. A better term would be to say students become “familiar” with most tasks instead of spending an incredible amount of time becoming “trained” (qualified) in any particular one.

There is an art to teaching. In the Army, it requires an understanding of war, proficiency in the technical aspects of the profession of arms, good leadership, imagination and patience. There is no room for big egos in a classroom. With these ingredients, the TA will find many ways to utilize tasks to employ the teach-facilitate-mentor approach. The goal of a true teacher is to prepare students to be better problem solvers than the teacher.

The key to the ALC is that individuals must know how to teach, facilitate, mentor and evaluate adaptability. How the Army certifies the leaders it chooses to teach these courses is critical to the success of the ALC. This goes far beyond today’s demand that instructors must master certain tasks or win certification as instructors by passing an online course consisting of multiple-choice questions.

Certainly teachers must understand individual tasks, but their knowledge cannot comprise only the ability to reinforce memorization of how to perform a certain task. Teachers of adaptability must understand the threads of knowledge that allow a combat leader to choose the appropriate number and type of tasks, how to combine these individual tasks as part of more complex task in order to solve the challenges that they will encounter in an asymmetric warfare environment. More difficult, instructors must understand theories, and how to experiment to solve unknown or unfamiliar problems that might arise in the classroom or on the battlefield.

With these general insights about the nature of an ALC TA, the next step is defining the selection and certification of teachers of adaptability.  Currently, the Army’s Instructor Training Course (AITC), also known as Instructor Qualification Course (ICQ) on many posts, which certifies many of the Army’s instructors, is dominated by a linear format which includes “how to” briefings on putting together lesson plans, schedules and calendars, all of which are focused on task proficiency. Selection of individuals to be Army instructors is usually based on the need to fill a slot, which in today’s personnel system, are not considered career enhancing. The ALC will be limited if the personnel system fails to provide the necessary resources for leader-centric courses, including the best and brightest individuals for instructors.

Certification for an ALC begins with the selection, and then the education, and finally the certification of those individuals who initially demonstrate the potential to teach adaptability. First of all, the Army as a learning organization needs to rank the importance of teaching at any course using the ALC model as second only to commanding or leading soldiers. The feeling among Army leaders should become, “if [I am] not leading or commanding troops, then teaching at an ALC is the next best option.” Becoming and being a teacher of adaptability does not come from a career need, but from a burning desire to teach and develop future leaders.

The Army should then select potential TAs based on recommendations from a Soldier’s chain of command and mentors. The evaluation reports of Soldiers should also mention the traits and attributes mentioned in the beginning paragraphs of this section. In addition to the wishes of the individuals and recommendations of others, there could also be a competitive entry examination or an interview process wherein current TAs can further screen for the right teachers. Just because the candidate is selected to attend ALC Certification (ALCC) does not automatically qualify them to teach in an ALC.

Those chosen to attend the ALC must be prepared to erase their memory. That is, they must unlearn how they themselves were trained in their careers. This will be a challenge to establish: preparing these newcomers to teach adaptability must occur within a positive and encouraging environment. Those preparing people to teach adaptability should impress upon them that the new methodology will come as a great shock, but that success will bring significant rewards – such as knowing that in turn their students will become well prepared for the most challenging endeavor, leading other Soldiers in war.

TA candidates attending the ALCC will encounter a course similar to the one that they will teach if they are certified as a TA. Learning for Adaptation begins in the preparation prior to arrival to the course: students should be given minimal instruction but expected to have administrative requirements completed prior to their arrival. Web pages should provide them with necessary materials, but the student should be forced to do the work and complete the tasks on their own. Then, upon arrival on the first day, candidates should be put in positions where they have to teach to their peers—“thrown in the thick of things.”

Intermittent between their stints as teachers, students will be taught by teachers of adaptability or “Jedi Knights”– those who possess the most profound commitment and astute mind – on how to teach, infuse enthusiasm and relate the importance and development of implicit communication. As candidates proceed through certification, they should be introduced to the ALC principles by experiencing them first hand, and then encouraged to discuss their value during an AAR. TA candidates should be constantly thrown into leading and teaching classes and observing other students conducting training.

They should participate in AARs where current TAs introduce facilitation techniques such as active listening, the art of asking questions, teaching to the objective, and how to brief instructions. Teachers of adaptability may highlight these techniques by demonstrating how to do them correctly or incorrectly while the students critique the teacher’s demonstration.

After the exposure to teaching adaptability in the classroom, students should be introduced to the scenarios and how to develop scenarios, as well as to the tools used to deliver scenarios through the experience of using case study method, tactical decision games or free play force-on-force exercises. All scenarios should conclude with a group AAR exercise, evaluating the candidate that facilitated the scenario, and finally the observing cadre should counsel the candidate on their performance through a questioning process. The TA should not provide answers during the counseling session, but merely provoke thought.

The students come to understand the nature of the feedback loop after going through several scenarios, AARs and counseling sessions. While the AAR can revolve around the performance of students in the scenario, students begin to grasp that the focus of feedback is not on whether decisions made during scenarios were good or bad. The key to feedback is that students come to understand the process, i.e., why and how the decision was made. Furthermore, students demonstrate in front of a TA that they can also facilitate an AAR and impart this process on their fellow students.

An ALCC should conclude with current TAs evaluating each student in his or her conduct of a scenario using a TDG. Each student should be given a scenario that they have not seen before, with little time to prepare. Then the student should demonstrate their ability to teach, facilitate, mentor and evaluate adaptability while conducting the scenario. The class will be composed of other TA candidates with one of the current TAs serving as an evaluated student (the student who will present their solution to the problem in the scenario). The scenario concludes with an AAR, followed by a TA candidate facilitating a discussion wherein the TA acting as the student will be questioned about his performance by the TA candidate.

Some candidates will pass this evaluation, and will move on to be certified as TAs, and others will not. Those candidates, who do not attain the status of TA, return to their units with valuable skills they can apply to their current leadership roles, and at a later date may apply to return to the ALCC.  The ALC is being accepted by many leader-centric institutions for instilling adaptability in future Army leaders, but it will fail if it is not resourced to attract not only talent, but those who want to teach. On the other hand, it is also unrealistic, with today’s demands for good leaders and quality Soldiers, to expect any course using ALC to get all the talent from the field.

With this in mind there are a couple of ways the Army can ensure the ACM has quality teachers.  First, not every cadre member that occupies the traditional role of tactical officer (TAC) at a leader-centric course that uses the ACM needs to be certified. The Army can focus limited resources on preparing and certifying selected individuals who then take their abilities and skills, and occupy positions where they not only teach, but oversee other cadre members who are not qualified.

Second, the Army can compensate for shortfalls by the establishment of visiting teaching fellowships. These fellowships could be offered to civilians, as well as retirees that have already won awards and demonstrated their ability to teach. They would still have to be certified to teach at an institution using ALC, but this would ensure the continuous flow of new ideas into and out of those leader-centric courses. If the ALC is to grow and harvest the adaptive leaders the Army will need to win in full spectrum environment, then it must engender its cadre without stagnation.

Teaching in an ALC

Teaching in an ALC is mastering the art of facilitating. Facilitating or coaching means understanding and using different techniques: asking questions, using sarcasm and stepping in at the appropriate time and place with encouragement to continually rethink what they are doing, without being demeaning. Teaching in the ALC avoids, unless it is absolutely necessary, giving the student answers.

When the TA is acting as a coach it’s possible to see another example of the art of facilitation. At appropriate times during a briefing, a TA can interject reality into a student’s proposed solutions. The instructor may comment with phrases like “that’s not possible,” or “in reality this is what ‘x’ can do for you in that type of terrain.” Or, the instructor can ask probing, Socratic questions such as, “Does your course of action coincide with the spirit of the commander’s intent?” Or, “What caused you to change the mission you were given?” These repeated sessions aim at building character, adaptability, and intuition over time, through constant 360 degree assessments, feedback, mentoring and coaching.

“Professionals have coaches. Amateurs do not.” In other words, those students aspiring to be professional officers should be coached in a way that teaches them how to think. Coaching does not involve giving them the answers. Coaching is the art of guiding the student toward the answer on his or her own, so it becomes embedded. This is education and not training. TAs are professionals, and coaches are indeed needed and appropriate. Beyond merely talking about it, effective coaching must be made a cultural cornerstone and practical reality of a course that teaches adaptability. As Col. Jon Moilanen observed in a recent Military Review article:

Leaders mentoring leaders in a clearly defined manner, and complementary coaching of soldiers and teams, reinforces learning and motivation to adapt. Direct and recurring advice and council among leaders reinforces adaptive behaviors. Coaching has been demonstrated to contribute quantifiably to organizational productivity (up 53 percent), retention (up 39 percent), and job satisfaction (up 61 percent) according to 100 executives from Fortune 1000 companies.

The major benefit of this type of education is that students can experience situations that are either hard to enact in actual training or too expensive to enact in the field or as a computer simulation (war games). Student leaders can go over literally hundreds of scenarios without ever leaving the classroom. At the same time, all types of training, from physical exercises to field exercises, can be facilitated with scenarios. Scenarios establish a solid foundation to understand decision-making prior to moving into the field and where repeated trials can be much more costly. Obviously, scenarios are not a substitute for free-play, force-on-force exercises, but they do make the time and expense in the latter more valuable.

The course environment of an ALC must be one that treats, relies and trusts its teachers as professionals. It is imperative in teaching adaptive learning to treat students – whether cadets or lieutenants – with respect, while strongly challenging the students to think for themselves. TAs know that they are teaching correctly if they are initially unpopular with their students, especially with younger students where society has taught them what to think in providing road maps in everything they do with safety nets that prevent them from failing.

The ALC teaching approach forces students to work hard to find answers. Then, they work even harder to self assess their performance in scenarios.  Good TAs will constantly test their students, and respond to their questions with questions. Such a philosophy will quickly define the teaching environment. This approach will end trivial and insignificant aspects of current Army education, such as signing in and out, drill and ceremony, or marching students to an event in formation, while both training and educating. These methods also apply stresses and challenges to students without using the “rabid dog” approach (i.e. yelling).

In the latter context, task training and leader development become one. Any training task should be seen as a vehicle to teach adaptability. Striking a balance between training conducted through task performance and education of adaptability is important. The accomplishment of the task alone is not as important as the environment that is used to create it, while the teacher facilitates learning. Given the Army’s longstanding emphasis on skill mastery through competency based education, the need for this innovation is hard to instill.

The students in a class might be using the same tasks and mission, but the teacher has to have the ability to change conditions. The teacher should continually revisit the progress of each student daily to evolve his or her lesson plans.  This leads to constant AARs, and mentoring and counseling of individuals. The TAs use several methods to impart knowledge, and this includes the use of changing conditions of the situation while the students execute the scenario, the use of time, and the art of asking questions.

In changing the conditions of the scenario, the TA can create conflict between what students are ordered to do, and what is really going on. TAs can also issue vague operation orders (OPORDs). This forces students to make assumptions or educated guesses. For instance, as a teacher observes a student leader and his subordinates studying and beginning to solve a given problem, he can facilitate by “plugging in bits of knowledge” to encourage students to ask questions.

Time is another factor teachers use to induce stress and enable adaptability. Teachers should time scenarios. When time is up, the student presents his or her solution. Peers then evaluate the student’s decision-making ability, not how he or she accomplished the specific tasks and mission. If the student did not accomplish the mission goals, the peer group and student leader should discuss why they did not.

Limiting time also goes hand-in-hand with another stress induced approach: teaching students how to ask questions.  Telling students that “there are no dumb questions” is counterproductive to teaching them how to think for themselves. Allowing them to ask dumb questions only reinforces bad habits such as not listening attentively when orders or guidance is given. In the real world, there is not much time for extensive follow-up questions over the tactical radio. Everything falls back to teaching the student how to deal with the stress of combat in the shortest amount of time.

Teachers must encourage students to seek more knowledge when they ask pertinent questions. The teacher will do this through the student brief-back of the proposed solution. Students should offer a solution to the TDG to their peers, who in turn should evaluate that student’s decision. In this case, the TA is there to guide and facilitate the discussion and to force the student to seek more answers (but with the condition that they should not provide the answers).

Students should seek more knowledge, either in the syllabus or verbally from the instructor on their own time.  With vast preparation required, the learning organization strives to keep TAs in one of three states when “on duty”: first, they will be teaching or facilitating, either in the classroom or in a training environment; second, they will be preparing for their next lesson or scenario; and finally, they will be evaluating student adaptability, which should always be accompanied by the provision of mentorship and either verbal or written feedback. The POI of the adaptive leader course puts more responsibility on the shoulders of both teacher and student to manage their time.

Teaching and coaching relies on the art of facilitating. Teachers and coaches facilitate by knowing the right time and place to say something that urges the student forward. They say just enough to leave the student to think about what they are doing, and figure out the solution.

Scenario and case study education

A new leader paradigm will permit building richer and deeper understanding of the self and alternative approaches to problem solving that will enhance one’s own ability to make good decisions. The Army’s current and future operating environments demand that the emphasis from the outset in developing adaptability must be on growing by “learning-to-learn,” not the mere ability to memorize information.

In the ALC, teaching is non-traditional with little reliance on podium lecture or the use of Power Point classes. The POI is experiential and revolves around scenarios. The process of learning through scenarios that grow in complexity requires the use of complex unit tasks in the development of adaptive leaders. Scenarios constantly expose and familiarize students with individual and collective tasks that they may have never seen before. Students are not “wrapped around the task,” but instead encouraged to see how the task fits into solving the larger problem. Students become familiar with the task while participating in a scenario.

Students are always in a situation conducive to the development of personal initiative and adaptability. Everyone takes an active role in the course. This may consist of learning how to evaluate students during scenarios through other students’ presentations, the observation of movie clips where adaptability was or was not demonstrated, evaluating other students from within a group, briefing solutions to the class or their group, or assuming a role during one of many exercises. This serves two objectives first it demonstrates experiential learning and second, it keeps students actively engaged.

Scenario based education should center on situations – both combat and non-combat – through an array of different tools to create the correct conditions in which the student can learn adaptability. Scenario-based education emphasizes one or more of the traits of adaptability as they were discussed in the original article published in the August 2007 edition of Army.

The teacher must thoroughly understand each aspect of adaptability in order to pass it on to students, both real world applications of adaptability as well as theory. Some aspects that are associated with adaptability include:

• Cognitive ability
• Problem-solving skills
• Metacognitive skills; these comprise the ability to critically assess your

own thoughts, always questioning, “Have I thought about this or that?”

As well as looking from the outside in and saying, “What consequences

does my decision have?”

Think of scenarios as “guideline-” and “principle-based” lesson plans that are templates the TA builds to teach students the aspects of adaptability. In the POI, responsibility for the improvement of training plans centers around a teacher’s scenario development. It is not left to combat developers or academic committees.

TAs develop and evolve their scenarios for their students, while coming together during planning sessions to coordinate the next phase of leader development and to determine scenarios and the timing for events that involve larger units than individual classes and more resources. Scenarios are used to expose students to many different experiences in order to build and nurture intuition.

The purpose of the scenario-based education concept is to provide opportunities for each student to gain experience. Through multiple types of participation, either as a leader or team member, students receive breadth of experience and skills in decision-making to meet a specific set of circumstances. It is important to note that the teacher must also prepare to teach lessons from errors the students made in the execution of their plan.

Scenario-based education used with the proper tools provides students with supplemental information so that they can rely on experience when a new situation presents itself. Even so, these scenarios and the prescribed teaching approaches in this monograph are not substitutes for actual real-world experiences. Scenario-based concepts benefit student leaders by:

• Improving their pattern recognition skills
• Allowing them to exercise the decision-making process
• Improving and practicing their communication skills
• Increasing their leadership potential
• Building character.

Scenarios to enable these skills come in many shapes and sizes; that is where the instructor’s selection of a specific tool to deliver the scenario-based education is critically important. There are three other factors that must work together to produce learning synergy and successful scenario-based education. They are:

• Way in which an instructor facilitates;
• Ability of students to understand what is being taught (material should be presented in a context the students can relate to – another skill of good teachers)

• Capacity for mentorship (either individually or in a group through an after-action review).

Scenario packets, called Scenarios Enabling Adaptability (SEA) integrate the required skills of adaptive leaders, to be practiced and evaluated in the course of a seminar discussion or exercise. While in some respects scenarios are built to be accomplished by a team, they should ideally be integrated seamlessly into the conduct of regular classroom instruction.

In addition, SEAs are principle-based lesson plans should include a history lesson that compels students to consider multiple perspectives. Some other aspects of SEA packets in an ALC:

• A tactical planning exercise that compels students to visualize plans that might accomplish an objective

• A leadership lesson that may compel students to challenge their own biases

• If a student identifies a skill and wants to discuss it, that is encouraged.

Also, every scenario:

• Offers opportunities to practice leadership and decision-making, as well as to evolve adaptability

• Lets the learning objectives, not resources, drive the event.

Also, time is set aside for:

• Instructor preparation
• Student opportunities to seek answers, or prepare for the next mission

• Observation of what students do when not given a specific mission

Teachers should continue to adjust scenarios through “lessons learned” and student feedback from previous classes. The goal is to create better and more efficient ways to nurture students into becoming adaptive leaders. All parts of the “learning organization” should contribute action and feedback – its “command and control” – through overall cooperation. The development of adaptive leaders is fundamentally an activity of reciprocal influence involving give-and-take among all parts, from top to bottom and from side to side.

SEAs should include descriptions of possible scenarios that the instructor can select or modify to teach aspects of adaptability. Each packet should begin with a historical case study followed by lessons learned. Scenario packets typically suggest past and possible student solutions, while also listing the strengths and weaknesses of each of the “tools” that the TA might use to deliver the scenario, ranging from a small group symposium, to the use of a sand table, to possibly a MOUT site battle with paint guns (always conducted as free play, force-on-force exercises).

The SEA should also include a list of all tasks the student may employ in tackling the scenario’s problem, as well as a supporting annex that lays out the standards of that task. As a student’s development continues, the instructor can pick tools and scenarios that are needed to provide the student with the experiences he needs to develop adaptability. The TA should base this on an assessment of the student and on what resources are available.

Each TA can develop SEAs based on his or her own experiences to fulfill key objectives during the course. These are points in which instructors assess the progress of their students and provide them feedback in order to make improvements.  It does no good to give a very complex scenario if the student does not have the abilities or understanding of adaptability to attempt to solve the problem presented in a scenario, so in turn it assists the teacher with the evolution of the curriculum based on the evolution of the student.

The TA can change the scenario cases based on what the students achieve as well as the level of proficiency of a student unit. While the teachers want students to “experience the thing before they try to give it a name,” the teachers also want to give students problems that they can manage. This means that there should be some reasonable chance for them to solve a scenario, but only with a degree of stress. By exposing the students to overly complex problems, teachers may discourage them early on from taking risks and thinking boldly about their solutions.

On the other hand, whenever possible, the teacher should use scenarios that place selected students three levels of command above their own. This assists teachers with two important tasks: One is bbserving what the student would do when presented with a complex problem involving a chain of command. Teachers should not be concerned with the student’s ability to repeat information already given to him – what he knows – but rather, the student’s willingness to use different types of information to solve the problem. And two, placing the student in a command level to be able to understand the place of their unit in the context of larger unit operations. It is not seeking to make them “experts” in higher level operations, but to familiarize them with what goes on above their own level, and then giving their interpretation back to their peers. In essence, this “raises the bar,” challenging selected students whose abilities require more difficult problem solving.

Following the execution of each scenario, the instructor must sit down with the leader and his or her team, both together and separately, and go over what they have learned.  With the individual, it should be similar to counseling. With a team, this can resemble the existing Army After Action Review process. Also, due to a “zero- defects” mentality, students will often use caution when admitting to their mistakes or allowing others to criticize them. The AAR can turn into a session of “who shot who” if not properly facilitated by the teacher.

Some people recommend a “pre-mortem” to the AAR. The pre-mortem should occur before the scenario is finished or before any presentation of solutions by students. In the pre-mortem exercise, the teacher tells his students to imagine that the situation has ended in failure. The teacher then facilitates the students through all the things that could have gone wrong with the scenario.

Scenario delivery tools

SEAs are situational-based events that require the individual to exercise mental agility to meet the demands of the situational stimuli as he or she implements a problem-solving solution. First, the TA can use the case study approach with their students as introduced in the last section, or based on an assessment of the students, the TA may decide to use the other two significant aspects of the adaptive course model POI:

(1) Tactical decision games (TDG) are one of the best ways to develop decision-making skills with little cost, but the teacher must know how to facilitate a TDG or the wrong lessons are taught. TDGs are also referred to as decision-making games (DMG) by the Army Research Institute, which describes DMGs as:

Low-fidelity, paper-and-pencil simulations of incidents that might occur in battlefield environments. A DMG presents a dilemma with high levels of uncertainty. Each participant has a limited amount of time to consider how he would react, which adds time pressure to the exercise. DMGs are intended to provide low-cost experiential training, and to allow practice in rapid decision-making. They also provide a context for teaching and practicing other exercises.

(2) Free play, force-on-force field exercises. These can range from team versus-team exercises using paintball guns in nothing larger than a room-clearing exercise or small wooded lot, or large platoon- or company-sized exercises in the field.

Free play force-on-force exercises are the most complex and usually the most resource driven aspect of the POI.  Free play force-on-force exercises can be conducted by actual free-thinking opponents, such as one student unit portraying U.S. forces, while the other plays the role of the insurgent forces (with each side being issued orders that guide them toward creating the learning set up in the objectives of the SEA).

Or the exercise can be conducted also using opposing sides, but executed using computer simulation without leaving a building. Force-on-force, free play exercises should also occur at different levels of a leader’s development, and the exercises will lends themselves well to higher levels of student education.

Using “in the field” exercises at the tactical level will likely necessitate the use of several TAs and non-TA cadre, who are able to assist with the conduct of the scenario. Another misplaced belief by today’s culture is that these exercises should be a “free for all,” with little or no control. Again, to produce the best results, much preparation should be done including the creation of realistic missions and orders to give to the opposing sides in a scenario. Then, after students decide what they are going to do, what their objectives will be, and what resources they will need, TAs and supporting cadre should conduct a “walk through” of the exercise to see if it makes sense as it is written, or whether it should be modified in order to meet learning objectives, and whether it’s possible to conduct the scenario within a reasonable timeframe.

The walk through should be conducted as if students are taking the courses of action they would select during the scenario. The TAs and other cadre should use radios during the walk through as well as during actual execution in order to pass along observations from the opposing side, so the TA can use the information during the AAR, or to help facilitate the exercise. This also allows the TA to anticipate contact with the opposing side, to mentally prepare and war game what the student leader might do, and afterwards, what the student might have done prior to and during the contact – be it lethal or non-lethal.

A rehearsal should always build in the time it takes to conduct the AAR, as well as preparation times for movement and equipment, such as simulation calibration to real weapons. If these activities are not thought through and planned, and then executed to standard, then the actual event will turn into “Cowboys and Indians” and in turn degrade any development of adaptability.

While the force-on-force, free play exercise is seen as a course’s or unit’s premier event, there are also other ways the TA can deliver or introduce scenarios. Other tools to deliver a scenario include: Terrain Board Exercises (TBE), which aid teachers by showing at the micro level how terrain and weather affects a scenario. A TBE is a three-dimensional terrain model that uses various props to represent terrain, assets and liabilities. A scenario is applied once the terrain board exercise is prepared. The SEA lists assets, or factors, such as weather and materials (weapons and vehicles) that the student can use to develop a solution or optimize performance in some manner.

Liabilities may include factors that invite unrealistic courses of action. For example, a common error in combat is the miscalculation of speed and distance. Sometimes students project a solution that is impossible to implement because they ask one of their elements to move too far and too fast through terrain that would inhibit or slow even the best-trained units. The teacher must be prepared to challenge students’ proposed actions, and facilitate a discussion that makes students rethink their judgments. The students should show confidence in their chosen course of action, and be able to explain how he or she arrived at the solution.

A terrain board is a good way to employ a TDG, but another use of a terrain board is in phase one or classroom preparatory work for a “staff ride,” as well as during the AARs after the staff ride, to compare and contrast with what the participants observed. This can take the form of:

• A “listening exercise” where the teacher translates instructions from paper into an oral presentation to the students, followed by the students having a limited time to write the instructions down and give them back to the instructor

• Virtual computer-based war games where several students execute the same scenario of a game, and then discuss whether they were able to solve it

• Staff rides, in which cadre take the students to a battlefield following an introductory, preparatory phase in the classroom.

The actual visit is not a tour, but rather, an interactive experience where students role play one of the battle’s leaders, briefing his or her peers, as well as their teachers, on the perspective of that leader. The staff ride concludes with an AAR on what the students learned. However, the staff ride in an ALC is not the one currently practiced by some units in the U.S. Army where it becomes a staff tour.

A staff ride of an ALC employs an experiential training program that uses metaphorical exercises to teach leadership, teamwork and many other aspects of command and organizational effectiveness. Students learn work-related lessons while walking the very fields that Robert E. Lee and George Meade fought over. In the subcategory of military metaphors, battlefield and campaign staff rides place students in leadership roles, representing all levels of command to conduct decision-making and team-building sessions. 

The ALC Works!

“Most Army schools open with the standard bromide: ‘We are not going to teach you what to think ... we are going to teach you how to think.’ They rarely do. Critical thinking is both art and science. There are techniques to critical thinking, such as careful application of logic, or alternative application of deduction and induction. These techniques can be taught and learned.” - Brig. Gen. David Fastabend and Robert Simpson

Critically important to the institutionalization of adaptability in the Army will be superior military education and training. Not only will the Army need to produce leaders that possess adaptability, but the institutions tasked to develop leaders will need to become adaptive as well – to evolve as the future operating environment evolves. The ALC will provide principles that allow implementation of central ideas.

The Army’s cultivation of adaptability requires a vast effort – from the “topdown” as well as “bottom-up.” It is so central to the future of the Army that it applies to squad leaders as well as to the joint-force commander. The leaders of the future Army should have to make a truly gross error to create a negative blotch on their careers. Evaluations and performance reviews cannot continue to haunt adaptive leaders throughout their careers if they have only made an honest mistake.

Moving the Army toward a learning organization structure, where its institutions as well as its leaders are adaptive, will bring the collective creativity of the Army to bear in solving problems at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war. The culture will become one that rewards leaders and soldiers who act, and penalizes the ones who do not. Today’s culture needs to evolve so that the greater burden rests on all superior officers, who have to nurture – teach, trust, support and correct – the student who now enters the force with the ability to adapt.

The Army’s future leaders will also have the responsibility to self-police their own ranks, particularly early on if they become TAs within an ALC.  This makes evaluating, “racking and stacking” of graduates easier. It will also help determine early on who will have the character and traits to become an adaptive leader. The criteria should include observations of the student leaders in several scenarios. Before selecting or promoting subordinates, a TA should always be asked, “would I want this person to serve in my unit?” Throughout an ALC, a TA will instill in students the importance of accurate reporting and taking action when the situation demands it. The Army’s culture of the future will not tolerate inaction. Indecisiveness or the inability to make a decision will become the culture’s cardinal sin, not playing it safe.

Adaptability will become a product of the future Army; it will depend on what appears to be a relatively simple change in teaching technique in order to deal with the increasing complexities of war. The grasping, understanding and mastering of adaptability will come through rigorous education and tough training early on – quality, not quantity – to produce adaptive leaders. Leaders’ ability to be adaptable will guide decisions on how to accomplish their missions, while also helping them to recognize and compensate for differences in the temperament and ability of other Army officers, NCOs and civilians through unit training and professional development. Adaptability will provide a stable support structure to infuse and sustain Army leaders’ initiative in future operating environments.