The Kind of Guys You Go to War With

Though I finished Moneyball during the early Fall (a perfect time to think about baseball)-- I wasn't really reading a baseball book.

Its author, Michael Lewis, was no doubt fascinated by the sport. It's hard not to be for Bay Area resident, I suppose. But Lewis made his name as a financial writer, and his previous book was about an eccentric tech entrepreneur named Jim Clark, who founded Netscape and took it public in 1996.

When I first started teaching at an entrepreneurial charter school network in 2005, our hyper-creative management team recommended Moneyball as a textbook for understand data-driven decision-making.

What could any of that have to do with military operations? At its essence, the bestselling baseball book is probably more appropriate as a case study about how to approach classic problems in new ways. And the military always has classic problems.

A few insights from the way Billy Beane made the underdog Oakland A's one of the most competitive teams in Major League baseball are appropriate for leaders in all organizations-- particularly the Army.

Beane Took a Unique View

When one of the Oakland Athletics' outfielders asked his team for a desk job in 1990, management was perplexed. The GM, Sandy Alderson, was brilliant-- an Ivy League lawyer and former Marine-- and decided to include Billy Beane in on his new style of mangement. So he hired Beane, who in turn tried to learn everything he could about running and organization from Alderson, who didn't have much of a history with the particular organization he was trying to transform. By 1997 Bean was the general manager. 

Bill James was the godfather of sabermetrics, an insurgent movement caused baseball as a social club to become more exclusive and defensive for a while. But Beane didn't let his pedigree as a blue-chip baseball recruit and young athletic phenom, or his status as the general managers of a storied and successful baseball franchise to prevent him from looking at the social club form the perspective of an outsider. He was the ultimate insider, but chose to break the rules. 

Too many leaders get conservative once they are put into a position to actually make a change. Beane has enacted certain rules to prevent him from becoming a victim to caution and conservatism:

• No matter how successful you are change is good.
• The day you say you have to do something, you're screwed.
• Know exactly what every baseball player is worth to you.
• Know exactly who you want to acquire and go after him.
• Ignore the newspapers.

The third and fourth rules might not have much bearing to organization generally, or the Army in particular (though they certainly might). But one, two, and five seem like they could be chapters in a Peter Drucker book.

Change is good. If nothing more, forcing change requires leaders to perpetually assess strengths, weaknesses, assets, and capabilities.

Hatteberg the Mindful
Lewis uses the word, "thoughtful" to describe how Hatteberg approached hitting. As a Red Sox, Hatteberg was frustrated by his team's preference for aggressive, reckless hitting, rather than his predisposition to bat informed and patient.

The most reliable organizations rely on the Hatteberg types, at least when it comes to high-stakes operations. Scholars call it "mindfulness," rather than "thoughtfulness," but it describes the same thing-- purposiveness and deliberation. These are the hallmarks of getting things done. When Soldiers are at their best, they are mindful.

Scott Hatteberg was the epitome of Oakland's system, which was implementing a plan and executing it systematically.

Guys You Go to War With
And about Hatteberg, he became a pretty good first baseman, despite the fact that he was scared to death standing there. One of Oakland's coaches, Ron Washington, was skeptical that the former catcher could turn himself into a respectable baseman. Writes Lewis:

Wash what he made of the transformation of Scott Hatteberg into an above-average first baseman, he just shook his head and smiled. "He made a liar of me," he said. "Now he goes out and does what he does and he's a ballplayer, reacting." Then he'd think about it for a moment and say, "These are the kind of guys you go to war with. The Scott Hattebergs."

Would you go to war with Scott Hatteberg because he could catch balls and tag runners out at first? Maybe. But Washington would go to war with him because he could put his mind to getting the mission done. He didn't dwell in his weaknesses, but worked hard to overcome them. The best leaders get guys to do this every day, and the best Soldiers make a lifestyle out of it.

This is likely my last Moneyball post, but I'll read it again and again.

Complaining the Army Way, aka Don't Gripe to the Brass

I complain a lot. Well, I take that back for modification.

I complain about the Army a lot. And even more specifically, the active duty Army. Big Army, as opposed to the Army National Guard. And while I'm clarifying and qualifying, let me add that the extent that the National Guard invites complaints is in direct proportion to the degree to which it tries to emulate Big Army.

On to the topic, then.

When a higher ranking Soldier politely accused me of simply pointing out flaws in the Army instead of trying to productively engage them, I had to reflect on that. Of course, I think my complaining is productive, because it's legitimate. Doesn't everybody?

Well, turns out, no.

To get to the bottom of it, I looked into bona fide social science. There are plenty of people and organizations who want to know why people complain (the Army isn't one of them, by the way.)

For starters, there are many types of complaints. Some whine. Others vent. The whiners and venters think they are just blowing off steam. But the irony is, Guy Winch, author of The Squeaky Wheel tells us, that we are not blowing off steam but creating it.

I might be guilty of that. But in an effort to affirm my behavior, I kept digging. 

According to Jeffrey Kassing, a communication researcher at Arizona State University, people vent because they feel helpless. In an organizational setting, this manifests as dissent. According to the literature (a really fancy terms that simply means, "a bunch of published studies"):

expressions of dissent can occur when employees combat psychological and political restraints imposed by modern organizations, when they choose to exercise freedom of speech in the workplace, or when they decide to use dissent as a means of participation.

Now here is the fascinating part (fascinating for people who get really excited by findings in journals with titles like, Management Communication Quarterly!) This dissent-- we'll call it complaining from here on out-- can be grouped into one of three types:

1. Articulated complaints (expressing dissent directly and openly to managers)
2. Antagonistic complaints (dissenting in an adversarial way, but with a perception of protection from reprisal)
3. Displaced complaints

Can you guess which one this blog predominantly expresses?

Look, the reason I write is to find an audience. I am but a humble staff sergeant. I can't go to the colonel (whose main priority is to please a general) with a complaint. A lieutenant colonel can't even lodge a complaint, because the colonel used to be in Delta Force, so if you say something that upsets him, his mere glare will emit extracorporeal lithotripsic shock waves directed at your head and turn your brain to mush. For this reason, anyone O-5 and below must wait until the D-Force guy has had three cups of coffee and the Cowboys have won at least two games in a row before speaking with him, just to be on the safe side.

Me? I just write a blog. It is a safe way to express displaced dissent. The good kind of complaining. Or at least the best kind in the Army.

You see, displaced complaints are marked by,

disagreeing without confronting or challenging... It involves [complaining] to external audiences and/or to ineffectual internal audiences... [which] include nonwork friends, spouses/partners, strangers, and family members. Employees [complain] to these audiences because the risk of retailiation deminishes. (Kassing, J. 1998. "Development of the Organizational Dissent Scale," p. 192). 

Dissent serves as a corrective feedback mechanism. So I am really just trying to better the organization. And you wonderful readers are a part of that important work!

So, in the interest of telling the entire story, if dissent (complaining) is a way to provide feedback, then assent (praise) should be a regular practice, too, when appropriate. I think this blog has praised the Army quite well here, here, here, and here, for examples.

So I'm not done complaining. I'm just trying to do my military duty. 

Are Soldiers and Teachers that Similar?

My two chosen life endeavors seem very different. I began teaching around 1999, then abrubtly joined hte Army in 2007. The worlds sometimes feel very far apart.

But I never really left teaching. Whether I am in a reserve status and in a civilian classroom, or activitated and doing the NCO thing, I teach.

You see, I believe that delivering instruction and training is at the heart of the NCO’s role in the Army. Although leading troops and supporting operations are critical jobs for non-commissioned officers, training and mentoring never stops, even during operations.

There has been a long debate about what makes for effective teaching. With the billions of dollars that are poured into K -12 public education in the United States, valid and reliable findings about the return on that investment has interested administrators, parents, and taxpayers for some time. Only recently have studies and measures been developed to answer the questions that get at the heart of what it means to be an effective teacher.

Ronald Ferguson, Senior Lecturer in Education and Public Policy at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, has made some important discoveries about how to measure teacher effectiveness. Traditionally, teachers have been evaluated by their superiors (much like NCOs are) during formal observations. Lately, they have been evaluated according to their students’ performance on tests. Ferguson wanted to know if student evaluations could be used to reliably measure teacher effectiveness. Through his own research and studies commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the evaluation tools he created predicted “value added” on student learning quite reliably. In other words, the surveys that students used to evaluate their teachers articulate the variables that indicate teacher effectiveness.

Ferguson’s measure consists of what he calls the “Seven Cs,” and just a quick description of those constructs shows that a good teacher is synonymous with a good NCO. They are the things good trainers must do when delivering instruction; they must: Care, Control, Clarify, Challenge, Captivate, Confer, and Consolidate.

Let's just consider (another C!) the first one.

Caring refers to the lengths to which NCOs will go to ensure that their students learn. It shows investment in the students. It is, as the NCO Creed states, placing the needs of students above his or her own. Ferguson puts it this way: “Caring goes beyond “niceness”; caring teachers work hard and go out of their way to help. They signal to their students, “I want you to be happy and successful, and I will work hard to serve your best interest.”

We understand that leaders need to show compassion and the type of care that servant leadership demands. Retired First Sgt. Cameron Wesson explains that, “Soldiers can sense when their leaders genuinely care about them and this builds trust. This trust forges a bond between all and solidifies the team. That bond is all-encompassing.”

So would a good teacher make a good NCO, or vice versa? Do the other Cs apply to good Soldier leadership? Think about the best NCOs you know, and tell me if I'm right. 

Leading through Communication, Marine Style

It was beautiful in its simplicity.

Yesterday, on a routine training exercise (as routine as anything can be in a combat zone) I watched a young Marine captain direct a handful of aricraft as they delivered dozens of rounds of ordnance on a helpless rock in southern Afghanistan.

It wasn't the explosions that made the greatest impact on me, but the captain's calm and crystal clear style of communication.

Everyone followed his orders-- it was obvious to me that he had complete control of his team, the Georgian troops who were with him to ensure security of the training site, the Army aviation observers, and our small public affairs attachment.

As we marched a few hundred meters from the infill site to our designated training area, Apaches flying protectively overhead, I couldn't help but marvel that I was actually here. Over the past 12 months I have read extensively on the Afghan War, about how men have fought and died doing pretty much what I was doing at that moment. I  wasn't under any delusion that an attack was imminent-- Kandahar is now as secure as any place in Afghanistan. And, well, the Apaches. But it was a moment of mindfulness about how acutely real my situation was.

At any rate, my assignment was to document the mission of this Marine captain. His precise task is less important to the story than how he led.

It is cliche to note the importance of communication in military operations. The tragedy of cliche is that it represents a truism that has lost all meaning. Communication couldn't be more important when you are dropping ordnance from aircraft. Yet to most Soldiers, to communicate well means talking louder and longer.

The Marine captain proved otherwise, doing basic things that resulted in smoother operating.

He repeated things that weren't clear.

He asked those he worked with to restate what he said.

He asked his subordinates to explain to him what they understood their tasks to be.

He asked seniors if they understood the terminology he was using.

All this he did while choreographing some complex airstrikes with pilots he couldn't see and probably never met. Perhaps he did this precisely because of the complexity of his tasks, because he neither saw nor knew the those men who were blasting away at the mountainside.

He was also very calm, and I never saw him so much as sneer at one of his men for saying the wrong thing, for asking a question, or for taking too long to think about how to formulate an aswer.

If he wasn't so busy at fighting the counterinsurgency, I'd ask him to write for "My Public Affairs."

(Photo by Marine Cpl. Joseph Scanlan)

Can Soldiers (or Students) be Trusted to Evaluate Their Superiors?

Those Harvard boys have it all figured out.

Dr. Ronald Ferguson, a professor at Harvard, has developed a measurement of teacher effectiveness. Since I generally like teachers, and since I generally like effectiveness (I suppose you could come up with a host of counterexamples to that, such as effectiveness of bacteria growing behind my ear, which I don't like; generally I associate effectiveness with things that are presumed to be good), I gave it a read. Back on track now.

Ferguson asks students to be the arbiters.

If teachers were military leaders, and students their subordinates, would such a concept work to build a better Army? Too easy, a too-enthusiastic NCO might say.

A less enthusiastic but more analytical family member of mine runs a well respected education consulting firm. Big contracts and big stakes. One of the things he does, per requirements under No Child Left Behind, is to help failing schools develop plans for improvement. These plans range from very simple to very elaborate, but the good ones have one thing in common: they begin with an audit of education practices.

And out of all the crazy ways to figure out what was happening in classrooms, the easiest, and probably most accurate, was to ask the students.

Simply ask them.

We know this instinctively in Army operations. We conduct AARs. But if we know how to assess operations, why don't we do it the same way for leadership?

So back to this Ferguson fellow, who has developed a survey for students that he calls Tripod, which measures three things: content knowledge, pedagogical skill, and relationships. These broad ideas are broken down into more specific constructs, and assessed with multiple measures. But I am intensely intrigued by the three broad themes.

First, I need to say that what makes for an effective Soldier-leader tends to be the same things that make for a good teacher. I have always believed that, and maybe its because those things are common to good people. (On the other hand, I think one could be a really good firefighter or an excellent symphonic conductor and still be a bad teacher or Soldier; I recently read of MAJ Jim Gant, whom David Petraeus reportedly called, "the perfect counterinsurgent." Turns out Gant was a pretty bad Soldier, and a jackass of the first order.)

Ferguson's Tripod hones in on three areas of expertise required of teachers.

Content Knowledge. Pedagogical Skill. Relationships.

Aren't those the same things we demand of our military leaders?

The best NCOs, if you ask any Soldier, are those who demonstrate competency in their job and general warrior tasks, skill in training others, and an ability to work with a team of subordinates and seniors-- content knowledge, pedagogical skill, and relationships. The Tripod fits almost perfectly.

As for the crux of Ferguson's measurement system, student surveys-- what if NCOs were assessed in part by subordinate input on those constructs?

Higher education runs on student satisfaction measures. We implicitly trust young men and women to give an honest appraisal of their professors' performance. We even expect as much in our military education system, to some degree, and in AARs. Those closest to the impact of leadership ought to have a say in judging it, no?

Revolutionary soldiers sometimes elected field grade officers, and while the selection process for officers is only tangential, it demonstrates the idea that followers have a vested interests in the type of leadership they get.

Wrapping up, because this post is quickly nearing record-length-- the end.

(Photo by SSG John Etheridge-- In a ceremony held at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, seven NCOs are inducted into the Sergeant Audie Murphy Club May 24, 2014.)

It's Easy if You Know It

What can you learn about academic subjects from training for a two-mile run? I had an epiphany about it while I was doing interval training: one of the biggest benefits from doing intervals is to break the 2-mile run (in the case of the Army Physical Fitness Test) into more manageable parts.

"Too easy" is a common, if maddeningly trite, Army phrase. But as all overused and under pondered phrases, it has a root in truth. Running a good 2-mile is fairly easy when you realize that running 800 meters at a reasonable pace is a piece of cake. Then, all you have to do is string four of those together.

Too easy.

More frequently uttered in a math classroom than the above Army training is, "this is hard!"

When teaching any skill or motivating someone to complete a difficult task, good teachers and leaders will make it seem easy. I used to respond to my math students, "it's easy if you know it."

So true. There are a few things instructors can do to make something seem easy:

1. Disassemble the problem into easy components. This is the essence of teaching math. One step at a time, then move on to more complex variation on one type of problem. Teachers get their students in the zone when they can relate something back to a concept that students have mastered.

2. Articulate to students when they know something. When someone is learning something, they don't know what they don't know.The corollary is that they don't know when they know it. Teachers need to identity that a-ha moment so students can build on the confidence of moving in the right direction. Also, success is partly a mindset, one that has to be developed.

3. Celebrate progress and accomplishment. Praise goes a long way, especially when one is struggling to learn tough stuff.

Now that I have left teaching for the time being, I'll be doing the NCO business to leading and teaching younger Soldiers. We'll probably even be doing a lot of training and assisting of Afghan forces one we get over there.

We'll see how easy that is. 

The Reasonableness Standard

Let's be reasonable folks.

Seriously, how frustrating is it to deal with unreasonable people? They pretty much suck.

I have never had an unreasonable boss, nor have I had unreasonable teachers. I have dealt with unreasonable people, though. (Why are they, more often than not, government employees?)

Every teenager has unreasonable parents, and cops are generally unreasonable when they pull you over; are they not?

So we all know unreasonable when we see it.

At any rate, an unreasonable person in authority—whether she's a boss, teacher, wife, or other leader—is cheating herself.

We ought to stand up, as a people, and demand reasonableness from our leaders.

An example is in order here. An Army officer I knew on my overseas deployment, who we'll call Col. Jerkface, always said "no" reflexively. He looked for opportunities to say no to his troops. Any time there was a request for any type of amenity, the answer was "no."

Moreover, there was absolutely no pleasing this man. He looked for failure in his subordinates. You could never say the right thing, or do anything to make him proud. He was, in a word, unreasonable.

Did he ever get the best from his troops? Absolutely not! Some would say that his cantankerousness was the source of his effectiveness. Baloney. Yes, unreasonable people sometimes do get things done, but I would argue that he’d be even more effective if he was a little more reasonable.

Oh, I just thought of a better example of unreasonableness in action. Again, from the Army (we are proving the government employee rule, here).

In a class at my advanced Army journalism training, we were delivered a lecture via PowerPoint. Now these slideshows tended to be 40 or 50 slides long, chalk-full of text and dense information.

At test time, one particular question threw the entire class for a nut roll. To a man, we complained that we hadn’t gone over the information being tested. The instructor was skeptical of our pleas for leniency, but we stood firm in our defense.

This man scoured the slides for an oblique reference to the question material, and he found one. Never minding that he had skipped over that slide without mentioning it, he left us on the hook for the question.

UNREASONABLE!

Students need to operate in a real world environment. The real world, we like to teach them, is reasonable. In fact, we need to be to teaching them the lessons that supposedly buttress ours. Hard work, deadlines, follow though, manners—they are all rewarded in the real world because most people are reasonable.

If the world were populated only by Col. Jerkfaces or the instructors who find remote test questions from interminable lectures, then there wouldn’t be any incentive to do those things. Unreasonable people are arbitrary, and did I mention that they pretty much suck?

Let me now tell you how to be reasonable. If a student is sick, let him make up work. If a student needs help, help her. If a student doesn’t have access to a computer, work something else out.

A common practice for good teachers is to eliminate questions from a test that the entire class misunderstands. One of my students misread a question and answered the wrong question correctly. I knew she understood the material, so I made arrangements for her to earn the points.

We can get our jobs done while being reasonable. It is not a sign of weakness.

So the new standard is the reasonableness standard.

What are some horror stories from your organizations of people who don't meet it?

Teamwork Saves Lives and Time

"I am a Warrior and a member of a team."

That line from The Soldier's Creed might apply even better to students. While individual achievement is on everyone's mind, teachers all want to develop soft skills in their learners.

One of the most valuable of those skills is teamwork, and it's here that teachers can take some tips from Army trainers. Needless to say, Army operations rely on effective team interactions.

A course on the topic, developed by the Army, gives some really useful insight.

“You get what you pay for; if you want teamwork, you must reward it.” When teachers demand (or even merely hope) that students work together, what are they doing to incentivize it? How many points is good team work worth versus neat homework or participation?

I made a parent angry in my math class by grading students on teamwork. The concerned mother assured me that her son would earn As were it not for his deadbeat teammates. I stood firm, insisting that I was just as interested in his ability to cooperate with and communicate to peers as I was of his demonstration of individual  knowledge.

Even if he never joins the Army and has to deliver cover fire for his buddy who is bounding toward the enemy, he will likely land a job that requires team play. And one of the greatest lessons we can give our students-- far more important than how to find the solution set for a system of inequalities-- is the ability to cooperate and lead a team.

My incentive was to require classwork to be done in teams, with a strict formula for its evaluation. Each team's "foreman" would staple individual work into a packet. I graded random problems from the packet en toto, and assigned each team member the same corresponding grade.

The format lent itself to another team building recommendation from the Army: ensuring that responsibilities and decision making are clear. My math teams had specific roles assigned to each member.

There is no magic formula for bringing "community" to a team other than a sensitive leader who develops relationships based on understanding members' strengths and weaknesses. Students can learn how to be  good, sensitive leaders. They know what their peers can do well.

They also need to learn to communicate. In an effective team, everyone knows 1) what they are trying to accomplish; 2) why; and 3) how.

Then the fun begins. Conflict is inevitable, as any Soldier will tell you (Just ask the NCOIC of our detachment who was almost accosted for joking about throwing balloons full of feces at a snoring Soldier). But conflict should seen as an opportunity to grow, and teachers need to recognize those opportunities to teach skills beyond keeping the volume down or "staying on task."

Certainly the Army model has major shortfalls. Conflict is often resolved by stubborn seniors, who operate on the "that's how it's done in the Army" paradigm. But when teams are clicking, seniority takes a back seat to group decision-making. Even tough leaders can get their groups to solve problems together.

Creativity can get students beyond the impasse, as can having them write down their understanding of the expectations and plans.

After all, until students get comfortable in assuming a variety of roles within the team, we are the leaders. And,

“[The leader’s responsibility is] to clarify the team goals, to identify those issues which inhibit the team from reaching their goals, [and] to address those issues, remove the inhibitors and enable the goals to be achieved.”

Building teams is a process that never ends, and there is much more to it than the few ideas above. And though students aren't facing life-and-death situations in the classroom (hopefully) they can take another lesson from the Soldier and his creed:

"I will never leave a fallen comrade."

Teams help students understand that mutual success is good for the individual, too.

Is It Better to Be Reliable or Excellent?

A few weeks ago, I paid homage to Maj. Gen. John Schofield for his insight into what makes Soldiers successful. To be more specific, he referred to battlefield success as "reliability."

I instinctively concluded that reliability was a goal for every organization that required performance from individuals.

Then I was challenged. From a reader:

Interesting that you point out that the goal is "reliability" as opposed to something else like "excellence" or "commitment" or "creativity" or "sheer awesomeness." I think that sometimes in a non-battle situations, I'd actually prefer someone who's a little bit unreliable but capable of flashes of creativity and greatness.

It was a good challenge, but ultimately, the call on the field was upheld.

First, some concessions. Semantically, "excellence" could imply reliability. Some Army types would offer some rigamarole about how excellent means reliable and vice versa. 

But the way the reader framed it makes it clear that it's possible to be excellent inconsistently. We know that there are pro athletes who are capable of excellence, or who can dominate one night, then not show up the next. As a teacher, I had many students with those flashes, or even longer glows, of brilliance, but who were hopelessly uncommitted.

When I coached, I would have loved to have amazingly skilled athletes. I rarely had them. Much more valuable to me were the reliable ones, on whom I could count for dependable performances. Slow and steady wins the race, as the saying goes. 

In battle, General Scholfield knew, dependability and consistency is also more important than brilliance, if leaders don't know when it will show up.

How do Army leaders cultivate consistency, then? Drills and procedures. Their methods offer lessons to teachers who want consistency in the classroom, too. Best practice is rife with drills and procedures (without all the yelling).

That gets to Schofield's point: discipline-- based on drills, I presume-- is best developed by mutual respect. In that regard, the Soldiers can take notes from good teachers. 

Yeah, yeah, we want to cultivate creativity, of course. We want our students to think as individuals. All that, of course, goes without even saying. What does need to be said is that none of those lofty goals are possible without a foundation of consistency, dependability, and yes, reliability.

As a teacher, I believe that all learners are capable of excellence. But just like the coach that needs consistent play from his athletes, I know that they will achieve excellence only if put into the right position. 

So my readers were once again sage: By a 15 to one ratio, they also said that reliability was preferable.

I knew I could count on them. 

Clarity, Part 3: Let's Be Honest

Ever feel like you don't need to know anything?

I sure hope not. It's hard to do your job or move ahead when you're in the dark. As a junior Soldier, I was often frustrated when my leaders wouldn't shed light on what was going on.

There is just nothing so infuriarting as waiting excessively for your table/ appointment/ date to show up, without being explained the delay.

In the military, there's this really annoying phrase that covers all lapses in communication: "need to know."

Leaders who don't feel like spilling the beans will tell others that the situation is on a need to know basis.

Bull.

Well, sometimes it's not bull, of course. There are security concerns in the Army, but it's such an easy phrase to fall back on, and it masks all sorts of communication dysfunctions.

Example, we have to do this paperwork again. We want to know why. The leader just says that we don't need to know why. Come to find out, the leader lost the original documents.

Just be honest, folks! If you lost something, or screwed something up, tell us. We might be grumpy in our compliance, but we will comply for the sake of the mission. We were going to be grumpy anyway.

Another peeve (is every peeve a pet one?) is when the people in charge won't tell us what's coming up. Need to know, and all that. If you haven't planned that far ahead, tell us!

Which finally-- if you're still reading this, you're in the top decile of patience among readers-- brings us to the point of the post: to be clear, one must be honest.

Teaching my class, I often have to admit that I don't know the answer to something. My students usually let these things slide, because I am honest.

And I believe my students need to know just about everything. How I grade their papers, what topics will be covered later, and whether I really want them to read the entire chapter. There's just no benefit to deceiving them.

If I feel the need to mislead about my intentions or practices, then I really ought to rethink my plan.

Honestly.

Good Leaders: The Readers Speak

The results are in. I will now proceed to inform you what 53 of my my closest friends/ email contacts/ their email contacts think are the most important traits of an Army leader.

But first, some setting of the stage.

While deployed, I wanted to know what others thought made for a good Army officer. Waiting in those famously long Army lines gave me ample opportunities to conduct a straw poll among comrades in my vicinity. The results were not surprising.

Most folks cited things like bravery and decisiveness. A senior NCO told me of the three Cs: Courage, Competence, and Compassion. I wanted to know what more people thought, and how rank influenced their perception of leadership. So I kept my list.

After the deployment I went back into teaching, and became more interested in what made for good educational leaders. A consultant who helps school and district leaders turn around their schools told me that an effective leader delegates properly, letting subordinates do their jobs while giving them clear parameters and goals; has efficient performance measures in place and analyzes the data frequently; and seeks to improve his expertise at every opportunity.

The Army has a phrase for the first two: "setting troops up for success." The third one it calls, "training."

I find it interesting that there is so much overlap between leading troops and being an effective educational leader. After the school year ended, I attended a course on the former. Warrior Leaders Course was fulfilling in many ways. We discussed leadership according to Army doctrine:

"An Army leader is anyone who by virtue  of assumed role or assigned responsibility inspires and influences people to accomplish organizational goals. Army leaders motivate people both inside and outside the chain of command to pursue actions, focus thinking, and shape decisions for the greater good of the organization."  (FM 6-22)

In that spirit, I sought the input of my friends and readers, asking them to list the three most important characteristics of an effective Army leader.

Knowledge or competence was a top choice of 62% of respondents. Forty-five percent put flexibility or adaptability in their top three. The two complement each other to inspire confidence in subordinates.

To my disappointment, only 11% chose humility as one of the three most important qualities. I have always thought that it is impossible to lead and teach without recognizing one's weakness. The ability to take input and criticism from subordinates also inspires confidence. It's a trait that gets overlooked too much.

A few other responses are worth mentioning. An effective leader:

• Punishes privately, reward publicly
• Makes decisions objectively
• Is willing to sacrifice
• Stands up to his superiors for his subordinates
• Leads from the front

The last one is a favorite among Soldiers. It means that the leader doesn't expect from subordinates what s/he isn't willing to do. It may sound trite, but it's one of my favorites, too.

The My Public Affairs Loyal Cynics have leadership down.

What are the most important traits in leading your organization?

The Discipline Which Makes Men Reliable

Some of the most inspirational words I have ever read came form a poster on the monochrome walls of the barracks at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

“The discipline, which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle, is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary such treatment is far more likely to destroy than make an Army. It is possible to impart instructions and give commands in such a manner and such a tone of voice to inspire in the soldier an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey…

Attributed to Major General John M. Schofield, they were excerpt from his graduation address to the class of 1879 at the United States Military Academy, where he served as superintendent at the time.

Schofield began his military career as a cadet at West Point, then served for two years as an artillery officer. He went on to teach until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he volunteered with a Missouri regiment. (Missouri, incidentally, sent troops to both sides of the conflict.)

While his career with the Army is not without blemish, he is remembered for his high-minded words to his students in 1879. As a professor and a warrior, he understood well the need for mutual respect between commander and troop, teacher and learner.

Too often in the Army, leaders want unqualified loyalty. Schofield knew that such loyalty had to be earned. He knew that harsh treatment-- the kind too frequently mistaken for authoritative expertise-- comes at the expense of performance.

He knew that hard-earned respect-- the kind that comes from compassion, empathy, and a commander's genuine interest in his subordinates-- makes men reliable in battle.

The General may have understood that because he was a teacher. In fact, he found his way into Nine Weeks precisely because he gave me hope in Army training when the NCOs drained it.

An interesting exercise is to substitute the descriptors of war with words that connote learning. The quote thus reads:

“The discipline, which makes the students of a free society reliable, is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary such treatment is far more likely to destroy than make a society. It is possible to impart instructions and give lessons in such a manner and such a tone of voice to inspire in the student an intense desire to learn, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disengage…

Isn't reliability what we're after? Commanders want reliability in battle. In the business of warfare, nothing else matters. In school, we want reliable students. Put another way, we want students to engage in the curriculum, take an active part in their learning, and perform the tasks that the instruction demands so that they learn material. Reliable students are creative, adaptive, and smart.

Reliability men are discovered and developed by truly great teachers and leaders.

That's what the poster said. And the poster was right.

AARs and Nickelodeon

DJ Lance would make a nifty Soldier. If you don't know who he is, you are missing out on one of the most captivating and entertaining characters on all of Nick Jr.

I was watching "Yo Gabba Gabba!" with my brother in law the other day when...what's that? Why was I watching? Oh, my little boy was really the one watching it and we just happened to be in the room.

Anyway, I don't need to rationalize it, the show is hilarious, in a psychedelic, creepy sort of way.

The one we saw featured guest Jack Black, who rode into the diorama set on a talking, flying motorcycle. He made friends with the Gabba creatures who defy all logic with their fraternal powers and ability to talk without moving their mouths.

At the end of show, the human host, DJ Lance (who is 1000 times bigger than guest Jack Black), asked the friends to remember what they did that day. A brief montage of the episode's highlights ensued.

My brother in law, by the way, was even more entranced than my son. But he's an officer, so he's easily mesmerized by bright colors and loud noises. He said he liked the AAR.

The AAR, or After Action Review, is one thing the Army gets right. After each mission, Soldiers at every level conduct a review of all its phases.

According to the Army, an AAR is to be open, honest, inclusive, positive, and should relate to learning and training standards. It has four main components:

1. A review of what was supposed to happen
2. An explanation of what did happen
3. A description of what went well
4. A critique of what could be done better

The AAR, done properly, is elegant in its simplicity. It is also a very powerful component of learning. In effective classrooms, teachers who spend just a few minutes on the four steps will see noticeable achievement gains over those who merely assume that what was intended to happen did, in fact happen.

Leaders see things from an entirely different perspective from their subordinates. The latter need to explain it from their point of view in order to grasp what they need to do and know. Leaders need to improve as well; to become better at their tasks and to make training more effective for their underlings.

I love the AAR.

Even more than my brother in law loves "Yo Gabba Gabba!"

Let Me Have Your Attention

When two Soldiers appeared in my high school math classroom last year, every student came to attention.

It was a reflex thing. When those two men strode in, upright, full of confidence, and perfectly dressed in Army Combat Uniforms, the kids were in awe.

The reason they were there had to do with a course I was teaching. It has been documented in this blog before, so it suffices to say that I was teaching my students about the Warrior Ethos and how the Army can teach them skills for life.

My fellow teachers said they would love to have those Soldiers in their classes. There's just something about that uniform and what people in the biz call, "military bearing."

It's also that important to get students' attention. Perhaps the most important thing.

So, outside of dressing up in a combat uniform, what can teachers do to gain their learners' attention?

In a high school classroom, teachers do things like ringing a bell, flicking the lights, and offering up nifty sayings. My favorite was "one, two, three-- eyes on me!" Students (yes, my eager high school students) would reply with "one, two-- eyes on you!"

They are gimmicks, sure. You need a gimmick sometimes. Isn't a uniform a gimmick?

"At ease" is a good way of announcing a senior NCO. Most Soldiers respond pretty well to that. It's the military version of, "one, two, three-- eyes on me."

The worst thing a presenter can do is yell louder than the students. In the long run, however, yelling rarely works, devolving into a competition of volume. A classroom of 30 students will usually win that one.

Soldiers do that all the time, though. Yelling is stupid. It betrays a lack of confidence and authority.

The epitome of authority is high rank, and those with rank who rely exclusively on it are no better than the yellers. All presenters, whether a teach giving one of 180 lessons, or a commander briefing her troops, should demand attention from her listeners based on genuine authority-- the authority that comes from having something valuable to share.

When two Soldiers show up in a public school classroom, they probably have something interesting to share.

Teachers should work just as hard to make their stuff interesting.

Keeping Leaders Accountable

I have been getting into Band of Brothers, both book and miniseries. One of the initial lessons I learned was how important it is for leaders to be respected by their troops.

Are our Army officers and command NCOs really accountable? If so, to whom?

While the men of Easy Company were at Camp Toccoa, they developed a distinct disdain for their commanding officer, CPT Sobel. Some hinted that if they had the chance they would accidentally shoot him in combat.

It hurts any organization to force leaders on people without the former earning the latter's respect.

Early on in the colonial militia system, officers were elected popularly. Men were willing to fight, and followed orders; they just wanted the men giving those orders to realize who chose them.

It seems like such a foreign concept in our modern armed forces, but why can't what we revere in our civilian government work just as well for our military leadership?

The argument against voting for leaders in the military, I would assume, is that it would become a popularity contest at the expense of Soldiers getting the most effective leader.

Anyone who believes that doesn't trust the judgment of men and women who have volunteered to fight and die for their country. Nor is he acquainted with some of the substandard leaders currently serving, which is simply to say, the current system isn't perfect.

I teach university classes, and every week that I deliver lectures, I wonder very thoughtfully about how they are received. You see, at the end of the semester, all my students complete anonymous evaluations of my performance.

So far they have all been good, but I never forget in whose good graces I need to be.

Ultimately, my supervisors decide whether to promote me or even retain me. They decide which classes I am best suited to teach.

Think back again to the Band of Brothers episode in which CPT Sobel gets reassigned. His leaders knew that he would have performed poorly in combat, though he was good at getting a unit trained for war. Often, those higher in the chain of command don't get the clearest picture of a leader's skills and capabilities. Those below him often have a better picture. The best is a combination of the two.

I know we have command surveys, but those are often muddled, confusing, and not taken seriously.

The best way to keep leaders accountable is to let their subordinates rate them.

It's an important part of a big organization for workers to have respect and confidence in their leaders. It's equally important for leaders to know that their subordinates have a voice.

There Just in Case You Need Us

The more time I spend in the Army, the more I realize it is a contingency organization. That is, it prepares to do something it (or at least its civilian leaders) doesn't really want to do. Our armed forces are effective inasmuch as they can prevent war. In the event that war does break out, we must be ready to win decisively.

In summary, we are like the benevolent bully in the schoolyard of planet Earth.

Teddy Roosevelt famously said, "speak softly and carry a big stick." Good show, Theodore.

The United States Army has publicly adopted that mantra into its mission, strategies, and tactics in a few ways:

First, we invest heavily into our Armed Forces because we realize that excellence in military matters can secure our interests. The American People deserve much credit for taking the military so seriously, as I have written about.

Second, the United States has entered into multi-national partnerships that promote peace through a unified, deterrent military force. NATO is a perfect example of how nations with common ideals can prevent aggression by simply swinging around the big stick during batting practice.

Certainly the United States bears the heaviest burden among NATO nations. It is our prerogative, then, to influence its direction most. The more we train and fight cooperatively with allied armies, the more clearly we tell our enemies that it isn't prudent to start mess with any of our partners.

Third, we have effectively branded the American Soldier as the best warrior money can buy. Certainly it is expensive to train, equip, and stand up a Soldier. But it has proven worth the resources. The brand is successful on the home front, too, and helps ensure that the public will continue to support the Army, its personnel, and its mission.

Some folks wonder rather vociferously if we overspend on our armed forces. Surely we don't need to be 100 times better than the next best. We are like the New York Yankees in a little league.

But every dollar spent on the margin is more insurance that our force will not have to engage in larger wars. Sure, we are fighting two wars now, but how many other conflicts would we invite if our enemies saw cracks in the armor?

Just in case they start getting cocky, we are ready to fight.

History of the Citizen Army

More evidence that change is not always bad...

"While the thinkers of the Enlightenment were destroying the intellectual justification for standing armies, the technological advances of the age were making it increasingly difficult for untrained noblemen to justify their possession of the officer corps.

That from Stephen Ambrose' Duty, Honor, Country: a History of West Point. To extrapolate from his point, one could say that changes in society and culture often undermine our assumptions about how to best organize an army.

Armed Forces are usually very well suited to fight yesterday's wars. This makes perfect sense-- battle-tested warriors go on to train the next generation. In most organizations, said generation usually infuses its own personality and approaches into achieving organizational goals.

In the Army, that is much harder to do. Mores are codified, norms regulated.

But we should beware of too much reliance on tradition, especially in war fighting. Ambrose goes on to explain that the armies of the French Revolution (1790s) were more successful than their adversaries.

This point has been made by many historians before. Some claim there was no logical explanation. Ambrose asserts that the revolutionary armies were superior because they were larger and made up of the citizenry-- taken from the ranks of the middle class.

I agree. It was the Europeanization of the American militia model, which contributed to the defeat of the British land forces during the American War of Independence.

Our modern forces are so superior because their ranks comprise citizens who volunteer to lend their skills to the defense of a common good. Every U.S. Soldier freely takes upon himself an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies.

Particularly powerful are those militia forces-- now known as the National Guard-- who work in their communities, serve them in uniform, and often deploy to fight for them abroad.

These forces bring a much more practical skill set to the fight. They represent the oldest component of our Armed Forces, and they demonstrate that change and adaptation is a trait that Americans display proudly, and with great success.

Shawn Benjamin: A Leader the Army Should Want

Yesterday was my final day working as a high school math teacher in Richmond.

Among the most memorable moments was our group goodbye to all five staff members moving on to different pastures.

When it was my turn to speak, I lauded the leadership of my boss, Shawn Benjamin.

She is, by almost any conventional measure, an exceptional principal. She inherited a high school on the brink of failure and a culture that almost tolerated it. Three years later, she presides over the most successful school in the district. It is also the most improving. According to the state, it is getting better every year. It's a school that more parents want their kids going to.

Shawn Benjamin has done a remarkable job in a very tough position. This post could end up being very long if it were a profile of all the amazing and improbably things she has accomplished as the head of LPS Richmond.

I don't mean this to be a fawning profile though, but a case study in leadership.

I have spent a large portion of the last three and a half years as a full-time Soldier, surrounded by men and women trained to lead by and for one of the greatest institutions in the history of humanity.

On other institutions and leadership, several months ago I asked a man who consults and evaluates schools and districts what the three most important leadership traits are in school leaders. According to him, the best leaders:

1. Demonstrate an ability to make decisions based upon the priorities of student learning (hang on, I will get to the Army part in a bit).

2. Systematically evaluate the effectiveness of their personnel.

3. Find ways to communicate their vision to subordinates, and use the variety of skills among subordinates to achieve that vision.

The same traits apply to Army leadership. The best exemplar of those traits, though, is Shawn Benjamin.

Ineffective Army leaders are often poor communicators, relying on old authoritarian ways to get their message accross. Understanding or buy-in is generally not part of the message. Shawn, however, is a good communicator who has a defined vision of what she intends to accomplsih. She needs her staff to understand that vision, and she realizes each performs a vital function.

I have been struck by how she is able to decide when bold action and decisive calls are necessary versus thoughtful persuasion and motivation. What is particularly fascinating is how it seems that she employs the latter much more than the former. She trusts her subordinates, and we are integral pieces of her plan. She lets us know what we contribute, and that it's valuable.

The Army already has systems to evaluate performance of personnel, but it takes a solid leader to harness those systems, make them understandable to everyone, and help Soldiers evaluate themselves based on established criteria. The next step is to enact measures to remedy shortcomings. Make the organization better. Shawn has done that, and it is quite apparent.

A principal must make choices based on whether they will result in greater student learning. Sometimes deciding how to meet that lone criterion is obvious, often it is much more subtle. In the Army, the mission is obvious, and many leaders let the thousands of other concerns cloud what should be the central judgment.

Ms. Benjamin is a model leader. She could very easily fit in among combat or joint-force commanders. You see, the traits that make her so successul at a high school with a seemingly impossible mission are the traits that are necessary for anyone leading people in any situation-- peacetime military and combat included.

I will forever look to Ms. Benjamin as a paragon of leadership, in and out of the Army.

An Experience to Remember: the First Salute

My brother-in-law is now an officer in the greatest Army ever assembled.

Cadet Clint Chamberlain was commissioned last Friday, along with seven other reserve officer trainees from the University of Utah ROTC Ute Warrior Battalion. I had the honor of rendering him his first salute.

He is now 2nd Lt. Chamberlain, and he joins the corps of officers in the most powerful army in human history—the Army of the United States of America. Though many commentators have described our land forces in similar terms, I don't use the phrase lightly. It is almost cliché to say it, but it is, indisputably, the most dominant Army ever to go into battle.

Everyday more young men and women join the force and add to its strength. I was reminded of that strength at the commissioning ceremony of the eight Ute cadets, who represent the best qualities of American character.

The keynote speaker at 2nd Lt. Chamberlain’s commissioning ceremony declared we are the best because our Soldiers—officers and enlisted—are committed.

I believe that is only partly true. Other armies have committed soldiers. I served with many in the international Kosovo Force. Other armies have dedicated men, physically fit (often more than ours) and mentally tough. In many other countries it is considered more prestigious to serve in the armed forces than it is in the U.S.

So what sets us apart? It is commitment, but it's not all to be found in our Soldiers. The commitment lies with the American people.

Our Army hasn't always been the powerful force it is today. It won't continue to be, but for the commitment of the voters who insist on excellence. The American public understands that the key to maintaining our way of life is an armed force ready and willing to protect it.

Some speak of the disproportionate resources our military receives. Indeed, it is expensive to train and arm a Soldier. Rightly, most Americans think it a worthy investment.

Others would like simply to see our power recede. They misunderstand what American power represents in the world, and how it benefits our daily lives.

The American Constitution calls for a national armed force, but our founders, in word and deed, proclaimed their suspicion of standing armies, while enshrining the part-time civilian militia's central role in maintaining liberty in the Bill of Rights. So it certainly wasn't inevitable that our military became the dominant force that it is. And it isn't a certainty that it will remain so.

Decisions need to be made in order to maintain the superiority of our military. The most skilled and dedicated officer isn’t worth much without the material and moral support of the people he swears to defend. Many politicians have been elected who have undermined our military by promising to defund key projects, hamstring their fighting ability for political considerations, or ceding sovereignty to international bodies. For the most part, the public hasn’t handed such politicians the power necessary to diminish our military capability. For that, the American People deserve credit.

Commitment. Of our Soldiers, and of the People of the United States.

My salute to 2nd Lt. Chamberlain represents my pride in and respect for him, and my commitment to the military he serves.

Beat Your Face and Stop Thinking!

In an effort to reach out to the military community and share some of my thoughts on the civilian education-army training nexus that is the “My Public Affairs” blog, I started a discussion thread on Military.com.

My main point is summarized thusly: If the tasks that Soldiers perform are different now than they were 100 years ago, would it be wise to adjust the training methods to teach those tasks? Some say no, I say yes. That's all. Relax.

With emphasis on the last word. Granted, I was a bit provocative and sarcastic in my original post, but I didn’t realize that I would strike such a sensitive chord in some of the Soldiers.

Evidence, and a best of list of the counterpoints:

“Sounds like you'll have yourself an excellent LIBS' rendition of Basic Training . . .you puzzy.”

“Aside from the above...Thank You for Volunteering...”

‘Preciate it!

“Dude, you are thinking too much. I went through Basic Training in the middle 80's and I have B.A. too. Back then, Soldiers with B.A. were rare and older ones were rarer still, I was in my 30's. Everything back then was very easy, nothing that required deep thought, remember, most of the recruits back then barely had H.S educations and I had more education than the D.S. Heck, One of my last units my C.O. still hadn't finished his B.S. I understand from U.S. Army Times that Basic is kinda reinventing itself.”

Sad when people within any organization don’t want you to think.

“Beat your face.”

I don’t even know what that means! Can a seasoned Soldier please comment on the origin of that phrase? Doesn’t sound flattering.

“Guess what- you're Ivory tower is now Green! As a private doctrine does not concern you in BCT, Learning the Army methods & way, learning the skills necessary to kill, survive and take care of yourself and buddy are what is important! You can try to judge BCT once and if you pass and become a soldier! Beat you boots!”

“Please Proffessor [sic] show me where in the business world where: you go without sleep for up to 96 hrs, march 30 miles in one day carrying 120-14-lbs of equipment, eat one meal a day if lucky, move while people are intent on killing you, move forward under fire to kill those who are trying to kill you, try to patch your buddy's torn body together while bullets are flying around you? The point of BCT is to tear you down, and reshape you into someone that will obey orders together unders [sic] stress (they don't shoot at you in training) so that you will follow and not set around a campfire holding a discussion on the orders before moving.”

Good times on Military.com. I’m still posting, holding my own, but it’s about 25 to one at last count, with the occasional nod to one of my better arguments (which are legion, I might add).

My goal is to grow this humble little blog to rival the behemoth that hosts my confrontational thread. Will you help me?

If you decline, I have only one thing to say—

Beat you face!

(Photo by David Dismukes)