Agenda
Part 3 of 3
A holistic view
What
Why
How
Strategic model for Culture
Then for creating leaders
Must change together
Your ideas for reforming how we develop and sustain our future
leaders are good but will not make a difference if senior leaders do
not know how to change the culture. They (the Army) do not have a
problem of defining what it wants or why it wants it. Senior leaders,
however, don’t have a plan for how to get there.
Dr. Steven Stewart
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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How?
Strategic Model




What? Cold War Army Future Army adaptive leader
Defined by Why? 2nd GW
global conditions 4GW
How? Strategic leadership must lead change
The two major events must occur simultaneously to answer
that question
Difficult Part
Strategy
For getting
there
The Culture
Different culture
Present-Strategic
Our goal:
Expeditionary
Army
To assist the people in between, those who plan
and execute, this must occur simultaneously
Reform Officer Education
and Training=New ROTC
Cannot have
One without
The other
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
New leaders to led
Future Army
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How?
Strategic Model – As I define What
The Cold War Army (2nd GW)
ROTC trains officers for the Major
Power War, where:
 They operate within
boundaries established by
fixed chains of command,
fixed doctrine, fixed force
structure, & known threat
 They train for certainty
within these boundaries to
fixed tasks, conditions,
standards
 Their decision making
process assumes linearity
with clear cause and effect
relationships
Future, Expeditionary Army
(3rd GW—to Deal with 4GW)
Instead, ROTC needs to educate and
train the new officer to deal with Small
Wars, to:
 Operate with flexible chains of
command, beyond doctrine, with
variable force structure, &
unknown threat
 Train for uncertainty with no
boundaries to uncertain tasks, in
uncertain conditions, with
uncertain standards
 Solve asymmetric warfare
problems that are non-linear and
whose solutions lie outside the
defined boundaries
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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How?
Cultures are different?- “Adapt or Die”
Today’s Culture
Stress process
Forecasting
Risk aversion
Bureaucratic
Top-down
Rank equals success
Change is criticism
=adherence to process
ensures success
Future Army Culture
Stress innovation
Experimentation
Prudent risk-taking
Agility
Feedback loops
Contribution valued
Change is evolutionary
=as long as objectives are
achieved
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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How?
How to facilitate these traits
How to do it
Future Army Culture
Stress innovation
Experimentation
Prudent risk-taking
Agility
Feedback loops
Contribution valued
Change is evolutionary
=as long as objectives are
achieved
Stabilization and unit
manning will achieve
“what right looks like”
Army schools need to also
become centers of
experimentation evolving
tactics and techniques
Contributions need to be
highlighted and rewarded
Evaluation reports need to
focus on short-term as
well as long term
contributions to the larger
organization up to the
Army
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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How?
How to facilitate these traits
In order to get here
Stabilization and unit manning
will allow time to get to
achieve what right looks like
Army schools need to also
become centers of
experimentation evolving
tactics and techniques
Contributions need to be
highlighted and rewarded
Evaluation reports need to focus
on short-term in present
duties as well as long term
contributions to the larger
organization up to the Army
Encourage networking and
matching the right teams
How to
Doctrine manuals are short,
concise and on principles
Let personnel homestead, and
rotate to TDA back to unit
assignments
After command or primary staff
positions, duty as an
instructor at Army school,
ROTC, or West Point is
sought after, larger units even
oversee these places in their
regions allowing for rotation
to and from and hosting
Change cultural definition of
success, address rank
structure
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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How?
How to facilitate these traits
To get here
How To
Doctrine manuals are short,
concise and on principles
Let personnel homestead, and
rotate to TDA back to unit
assignments
After command or primary staff
positions, duty as an
instructor at Army school,
ROTC, or West Point is
sought after. Larger units
even oversee these places in
their regions allowing for
rotation to and from and
hosting
Now we can address how to
develop our leaders
Award innovators like those who
started and run
Companycommand.com as a
way to network and run a
feedback loop
With units on cycle, they will
rotate to and from places
giving Soldiers array of
experiences
Admit that each traditional level
of war is complex and takes
longer and more knowledge
to master
Reduce bureaucratic staffs and
flatten the organization see
notes below
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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How?
How to facilitate these traits
How To
To Get There
Convince Congress to pass a
Goldwater-Nichols for
personnel reform
Move from up or out to perform
or out, but much more must
be done to make that work
Access far fewer officers
Make it tougher to commission
Raise the pay of lower ranking
leaders so they can afford
middle class living, focus on
profession
New educational and training
requires a different
instructional technology than
that used in conventional E&T
establishments
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Award innovators like those who
started and run
Companycommand.com as a
way to network and run a
feedback loop
With units on cycle, they will
rotate to and from places
giving Soldiers array of
experiences
Admit that each traditional level
of war is complex and takes
longer and more knowledge
to master
Reduce bureaucratic staffs and
flatten the organization see
notes below
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How?
How to What CSA can do now?
 Create the environment required to create and
support adaptive leaders:
 Publicly praise and award signs of adaptability & innovators
 Work with Army Times and AUSA to highlight their actions
 Put on army.mil with message talking about such people
 Form a task force composed of such people despite the fact
that their careers may not appear to be “fast-tracked” as
reflected officially in their files
 The group advises and recommends the Army CSA on the
necessary cultural changes to support the 21st Century Army
 Continues to search for more examples of adaptability and
innovation
 Take these people and make them instructors in ROTC or at
West Point
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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How?
How to What CSA can do now?
 Adopt “Trust tactics” — five principal facets to achieve
decision cycle dominance over potential 4GW enemies
through the successful and independent decisionmaking of subordinate commanders
 The first of these is scope for initiative.
 The second is prudent risk-taking.
 The third facet concerns the commander's intent to “trust
tactics.”
 Fourth, superior-subordinate relations must be characterized by
mutual trust.
 Fifth, directive control presupposes subordinate initiative and
feedback.
Now, it is time to implement changes to officer accessions
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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How?
While creating leaders
 A program of instruction (POI):
 Educates and trains officers for wartime decision making:
 Adaptability
 Intuition
 Focuses on “Warrior Ethos”
 Mental fitness (“How to think”—classical education)
 Physical fitness (To sustain non-stop high-tempo OPS)
 Technical fitness (understands technology supports)
 A leader evaluation system that includes,
 360 Evaluations
“The environment in OIF is forcing our
 Uses three “guiding-actions”: junior leaders to confront the hard
 Problem solving
 Social judgment
 Knowledge
realities of a complex situation, a
relatively restrictive ROE, the presence
of innocents on the battlefield, and the
need to still accomplish the mission.”
Dr. Leonard Wong
“Developing AdaptiveLeaders,”
SSI, Army War College (July 04)
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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How?
While creating leaders
 And assists Cadre by:
 Searching for the best practices to develop
 Learning from history and current campaigns
 Evolving through experimentation
 Simplifying
 Scholarship program
 Evaluation and accession process
 Letting people teach
 Educating Congress to
 Mass resources
 Alleviate impacts of “requirements”
“Development of a culture of innovation will not be advanced by panels,
studies, or this paper. Cultural change begins with behavior and the
leaders who shape it.”
GeneralL Peter J. Schoomaker, Chief of Staff, Army
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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How Why What
Conclusion
 What this does for the Army:
 That it has to implement a strategic how-to for cultural evolution
 Through the use of “Parallel Evolution”
 Provides other examples of “Parallel Evolution” not being achieved
and the results
 The Strategic “how-to” of the culture,
 Allows other institutions to evolve to meet the goal
 Implement proposals outlined in this study that will grow adaptive
leaders for dealing with future complexities
 Allows adaptive leaders to be nurtured once in the force
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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