TRADOC: Where Tomorrow

1
Adaptive Leaders Methodology (ALM)
18 February 2009 Mr. Donald Vandergriff Leader
and Soldier Gap Analyst Army Capabilities
Integration Center (Forward)
TRADOC Where Tomorrows Victories Begin
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History of current training model

• Evolved from Industrial Age training philosophy
• Influence of General DePuy
• tell them what to do, tell them how to do it,
  and check that they did it right.
• Needed in the age of linear industrial war with a
  volunteer Army
• Impacted by
• End of the Warsaw Pact as a threat model
• Cold War drawdown effect on Army leader behavior
• Army assumptions regarding war in the
  information age
• Follows Competency theory of education (train
  for the test)
• Result- almost religious allegiance to the
  unchallenged doctrine of training to
  task/conditions/standards, yet they cannot
  explain why it is the Army way

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Drivers for Changing the 21st Century Army

• Complexity of warfare
• Faced with continuous employment across the full
  range of military operations, the Army will
  require extraordinary strength in the moral,
  physical, and cognitive components of the human
  dimension
• Characterized by persistent conflict with a
  thinking, adaptive adversary
• Must counter attempts to exploit the seams of
  U.S. and international expectations of military
  conduct
• Must contend with adversaries interspersed with
  diverse civilians (religious, ethnic, and
  societal)
• Expectations for Soldier and Leader
• Employ advanced weapons against an adaptive enemy
• Recognize that tactical decisions have strategic
  consequences
• Direct widely dispersed non-contiguous networked
  joint forces in increasingly complex full
  spectrum operations across the spectrum of
  conflict
• Cooperative leadership that releases authority to
  lowest level of competence

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What is ALM?

• Allows students to
• Experience the emotional trauma of failing within
  a safe, face-saving environment and
• find answers for themselves and build intuition
  a necessary trait of adaptive leaders
• Employs a POI that consists of
• a case study learning method
• tactical decision games (TDGs)
• free play force-on-force exercises and
• feedback through the leader evaluation system
  (LES)
• Select leaders at various levels already
  champions for application (combat veterans get
  it)

• What it is not
• a prescribed list of
• scenarios
• a singular process
• an all or nothing
• the end of task,
• condition and standard

Follows latest research on learning, Dr. Robert
Bjork, UCLA
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ALM-Evaluating the Individuals

• Placed in positions two to three levels up in
  order for them to understand how their unit
  operates in context
• Emphasis maintained on an instinctive willingness
  to act
• Effect of students actions overall, not on the
  method they may have chosen
• Use two criteria to judge students
• Timeliness of their decisions
• Justification for that decision
• Employs 360 degree assessments
• Individual understands their own strength and
  weakness against time and mission

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Centerpiece-Cadre

• Knows how to teach, facilitate, mentor and
  evaluate
• No room for egos
• Understands art of facilitating
• Respectful identify good ideas
• Confrontational, keep the pressure on
• Talks only 20-25 of the time
• Socratic method
• Does today prepare and certify for cadre fit 21st
  Century Training model?
• Need focus on how to develop adaptability (not
  administration)
• Practice the art of facilitation
• Learn how to coach
• Help others deal with complexity