Transcript Historical Traditions

Agenda
Part 2
Part 2-Understand “Why?”
Purpose
Historical Traditions
2nd GW force
ROTC Follows
Myths
The Results
“The military school
system remains an
anachronism of 19thcentury pedagogy that
fails to make best use
of the dismally limited
time available to
soldiers for learning”
MG Robert Scales USA (ret.),
“Studying the Art of War,”
Washington Times (17 Feb 05)
In Sum: Where history leads us—today’s
ROTC program
Conclusion
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Purpose
 In order to evolve an organization it must:
 Be willing to admit that there is a problem
 Be willing to say, what worked, worked but what now?
 Then,
 First understand the “why” to where we are today
 Examine with an unbiased eye
 Assists in providing for a viable solution
“Who is to blame for allowing the learning deficit within the military to grow
so wide? The list of the guilty is long. Congress shares much of the blame.
In the past it has had a "show me the money" attitude toward funding
military education that required an immediate and demonstrable payback
for any fully funded learning program.”
MG Robert Scales USA (ret.)
“Studying the Art of War”
Washington Times (17 Feb 05)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
Results of a 2nd Generation Army in today’s world
“The Best Trained Army for the Wrong War”
 Maneuver Army
xxxx
 Brilliant execution in Race to Baghdad
 Unhinged the Taliban in Afghanistan
 Stability and Support Operations




Country/area specific
3 Block War
Company Commander’s War
Evolving 4th Generation War (4GW)
 Why is it this way? Starting to
change, but hard.
 History will help explain!
Information Operations and 4GW
Greg Wilcox SRI International 23 February 2005
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
Evolution toward 2nd Generation force?
 Prior to the Cold War, accessions were due to:
 Lack of esteem for military service
 Fear of a large standing Army in peacetime
 Crisis management
 The Cold War Army focused on:
 Winning the first battle dramatically (North German plain)
Drove the obsession with technology
A force dependent on logistics, with “short shelf-life”
 Plan for battles of attrition
Industrial-Age personnel system (Neo-Taylor)
“Cadre system” top-heavy officer corps
“The aim of leadership is not merely to find and record failures
in men, but to remove the causes of failure.”
W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis (1986)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
Evolution of today’s culture
 Evolves to a personnel system for a 2GW Army:




Temporary officers appointed when needed
Professional entrance requirements unpopular
Management science defined military professionalism
Theories of Follet, McGregor, Maslow and Adams, shaped
laws, regulations, policies and beliefs (Culture):
“Sunk Cost” and “Career Investment” theories defined
career template used to motivate constructive behavior
“Tangible Incentives” (rapid promotions, monetary rewards,
prestige and power) to retain talented people
Concepts used by McNamara in lieu of “classical military
thinking.” Too often it’s using numbers to “prove” what the
commander has already decided—exactly the opposite of
the scientific method
 These in turn guided the way ROTC evolved and is in
fact guiding it today
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
2nd Generation Army Training & Education Model
 Neo-Taylorism
doctrine:
Army
ROTC training and education
 Everything had a Task, Condition and Standard
 Competence was assessed as a mastering appropriate task,
condition and standard (avoiding mistakes)
 Judgment and evaluation were not really required or expected at
the tactical level (junior officer level)
Lower level leaders focused on HOW not WHY or WHAT
Received the mission, determined the appropriate tasks,
maybe adapted to terrain, and THEN EXECUTE
Regulations and manuals covered everything
“Frederick Taylor’s system work processes were broken into small,
repetitive components; and jobs were designed around these repetitive
tasks. Workers became replaceable parts in a huge industrial machine”
Richard Black “A Strangely Soft Voice: Caring for the Soul of
Big Business” Zion’s Herald (May/June 2001)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
ROTC follows
 Guided how ROTC responded to the evolution in war
 1819 Foundation of Norwich Military College
 1862 Morrill Act—to create pool for mobilization.
 1916 Institutionalized to create pool for mobilization
(why the “R”eserve in OTC)
“It was not until the decade of the 1980s that the ROTC began to
move in a different direction. A program whose effectiveness had
long been limited by its organizational diffusion and lack of
standardization was transformed in a relatively short period of time
into an efficient producer of commissioned officers.”
U.S. Army Cadet Command: A Ten Year History
(U.S. Army Cadet Command, 1996)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
ROTC follows
 1919-1970 Providing officers for mobilization/crisis
 Post Vietnam cries “We want change!”
 1978 RETO study
 1984 “Reserve Officers’ Training Corps study group
report”
 1984-86 MG Robert Wagner’s changes in ROTC
 1996 “Army Science Board Ad Hoc Study”
 2000 “Future Lieutenants Study”
There were improvements:
“Cadets also felt the pressure. The taking away of their discretionary time
certainly added to their strain. It was the shift in the focus of Advanced Camp
from the teaching of military skills to leadership evaluation, however, that
really ratcheted up cadet stress levels.”
U.S. Army Cadet Command: A Ten Year History
(U.S. Army Cadet Command, 1996)
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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Historical Traditions
ROTC follows
 The Army adopted many of the individual
recommendations
 “RETO” Leadership Assessment/Standards
 Major General Wagner and “The ROTC Study Group
Report”:
 Established Cadet Command
 Imposed a standardized program of instruction (POI)
 Made “Advanced Camp” harder
 Brought in better officers and NCOs to serve as cadre
 “Future Lieutenants Study”
 Impact was limited
 No one assumed ownership of ideas
 Implemented piecemeal
 Meant to solve short-term problems, not providing a longterm vision
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
ROTC follows
 “The Way Ahead” (2001) first significant attempt to shift
culture, but focused internally,
 Good Points, recognizes:
 College life has changed
 Important to maintain contacts between the Army and social elites
 Assignment to ROTC as a high priority—a sought after
assignment outside command—if the officer corps is to evolve
with war
 ROTC has to change its industrial-age based, rote curriculum
“Future battlefields require a more liberally educated, mentally adaptable
leadership to coexist in a culture with high standards of cohesion and
discipline. An adaptive Army will require very high standards of entry
training for commissioned members, to acculturate tactical knowledge in
the force at a very early stage.”
Col. Robert B. Killebrew, USA (Ret).
“Toward an Adaptive Army” Army Sept 2002
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
ROTC follows
 “The Way Ahead” (2001), cont.
 Downsides
Emphasizes the “Production” of officers
Subordinates ROTC to other academics
Lack of rigor is not the cause of the problem
Over-emphasizes material incentives
“In its major wars, the United States has been willing (and rich enough)
to compensate its material wealth for what it lacked in preparedness for
war. Once mobilized, America war industry in the 20th Century
overwhelmed its enemies with weaponry.”
Major General Robert Scales, U.S. Army (ret)
Firepower in a Limited War (1999)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
ROTC follows
 “The Way Ahead” (2001), cont.
 Downsides (cont.)
Persists in the obsolete distinction between officer and enlisted
recruiting
Focuses on a small part of the problem—successful
commissioning—rather than the larger problem of representing
the Army. Fails at
 Exciting young people about the prospect of service
 While recruiting SALs, raise academic rigor as well
Fails to evolve ROTC education or training with warfare
“Education aims at acquiring the right intellectual constructs and learning
the appropriate principles of selection so that the needed tools are
available and the right ones can be selected and used to achieve a
desired effect. It is about trying to learn whatever it is we do not know but
that we envision what we need to know to survive and succeed.”
“Brilliant Warrior,” LTG Jay W. Kelley, USAF, (AUG 1996))
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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Historical Traditions
ROTC follows
 Any reforms will be undermined by:
 The Army’s short-term focus on “Making Mission”
 To meet Congressional and Army “requirements”
 Myths about the Army in our nation
 Which in turn blocks necessary “Cultural Shift”
What are Lieutenants saying about their preparation:
One engineer noted, “I don’t think that I am much of an engineer at all. I
think I am an infantry guy with a lot more equipment.”
A field artillery officer stated, “I definitely didn’t think that I would be
clearing buildings as an artillery officer, or working with the CIA or
Special Forces or anything like that. Never, never ever.”
Dr. Leonard Wong, “Developing Adaptive Leaders” (July 04)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
Myths based on history?
 Myth 1—Today’s youth don’t want to serve:

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

Do not sell on Army’s merits
Low standards accepted to attract and retain
Scholarships have to be used to entice people to join
Only people that can do nothing else join the Army
 Myth 2—The frontiersman/minuteman
 Hard work can overcome any obstacle
 Soldiering is natural to Americans
 Anybody can be a leader if they want to
Elihu Root
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
Myths based on history?
 Myth 3—Disdain for European-based military
professionalism:





The profession of arms does not require extensive study
Military science does not rank alongside other
ROTC means an “easy ‘A”
Lessons of military history are insignificant today
Learn from the Germans, they lost two wars?
 Myth 4—Tangibles dominate Intangibles or Machines over
People:




Quantitative analysis can solve any military problem
People only do what they have to do to get by
People cannot be trusted
“Technology-Ideas-People” in that order
Commanders COA worksheet
of the MDMP
Frederick Taylor
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
Myths allow for excuses
 Some highlights,
 “Academics first!”
 “Cadets can only do so much, and that is at the
basic level.”
 “ROTC cannot rank with other on-campus or
traditional academic programs/departments”
 “My cadets can’t do that. Are you crazy?”
 “Oh, they will learn later at OBC or their unit”
 “If the POI is hard, then we will drive people away”
 “Recruiting is the priority because everyone knows
how to train”
 “Only programs that make ‘mission’ are successful”
 “The quality of cadets that a program produces is
not a factor in their decisions.”
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
The Results: The production-line”
The Army’s response to:
 current shortages
 future field grade short falls
 force structure changes,
i.e., increase of Unit of Actions
Strategic, operational and
tactical impacts
To meet the cycle of decline
Increase “mission”
“The Army “machine” equates 2LTs with
ZERO years of experience to Captains
with 10 years of years.”
But in reality:
 Experience goes down
Quality decreases
 Competence suffers
 Retention pays
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Historical Traditions
The Results: “Can we do both?”
 Assumption: a numbers-based and a standards based
accessions program can co-exist without conflict
 Creates two conflicting demands
 “Commission only those you would want to lead your sons and
daughters”
 “Making Mission”
 But, Reality is Different!
 At Cadet Command, we only check numbers
 Short-term accomplishments are the only metric that matters
“My boss comes to visit once a semester, and all he
cares about is numbers, ‘are you going to make
mission?’ He never asks about training or what we are
teaching.”
Unnamed PMS (Sept 2004)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
 With a study of history we see:
 We have built an officer system based on assumptions that
 We always have time to get them [lieutenants] ready later
 Academic rigor of ROTC must be subordinate to the others on
campus
 ROTC must be treated as a club or extracurricular activity, not
an entrance route to a profession
 We use inhumane terms based on the theories of Frederick
Taylor when talking about our future leaders as if,
 They are like parts of a machine
 We are producing large numbers of officers for wars of attrition
 In turn, these allow us to justify one aspect of
readiness, on achieving numbers or statistical
readiness
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
 “The Way Ahead” did provide many routes for PMSs
to make mission,




Progression, 4 year
Compression, “catch up”
“Prior service” or “JROTC” credit for “basic course”
Complete Leaders Training Course (Basic Camp)
 Impact,
 MS III cadets do not start on common ground, have to “dumb
down” in order to catch up
 “Prior service” is a broad based term
 Teaching MS I & MS II skills correctly is time consuming
 Some “prior service” still need Soldier skills not learned in
their version of “prior service”
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
 Blame de-Carte on POI and training approach
 The “Crawl-Walk-Run”
 “Lecture-Demonstration-Practical Application” system
 Use of “True or False,” or multiple-choice based tests
 Curriculum easy for the cadre to implement (which they in
turn “dumb down”)
 Evolving curriculum different package, same substance
 Decision making tools “on the market;” but are not used
(Tactical Decision Games standard in USMC)
 Some are incorporating the latest lessons learned
“Moreover, focusing inward [on process] takes valuable energy away
from accurately assessing the enemy situation. After all, how productive
could perfectly executing the solution to the wrong problem really be?”
John Poole The Last Hundred Yards (1998)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
 Leadership Development and Assessment Course
 “If so critical then MS3 POI should reflect LDAC”
 Of the 4569 cadets who attended LDAC
Only 259 (5.7%) were attrited
116 failed the APFT (after numerous times)
52 were allowed to test a third time on Day Land
Navigation
Only 17 failed the course (for unknown reasons)
 In regards to Leadership Evaluation
“Cadets are to focused on leadership dimensions”
“Does that cadet have the potential to lead?”
“Everything is done to allow a cadet to “Graduate,”
“Even if a cadet received an “N”, they graduated!”
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
 LDAC Assessment (cont) :
 TACs felt that poor cadets were difficult to drop from the
course
 Poor cadets sent for “PMS to deal with”
 But, efforts are being made to increase “Physical,
Stress and Endurance”
 Foot road marches are increasing
 “STX Lanes” incorporating “variables”
 “Patrolling” 3 days of moderate stress
“The United States, once a most ardent and effective practitioner of
capital-intensive war, must learn how to rely as much on strategy as
on resources and as much on cleverness as on overwhelming force.”
Dr. Richard Kohn, “The Officer Corps for the 21st Century,”
Joint Forces Quarterly (Spring 1998)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
 The Leadership Development Program (LDP)
 “Control oriented” uses “competency-mapping”
 Does not explain variations in social judgment skills and problemsolving affect performance
 Skills can be mastered, anathema to the concept of lifelong
learning
 Creates a “competency trap” uses “single loop learning”
 Adjusts subsequent actions to avoid similar mistakes
 Ignores why the overall solution was sought in the first place
 Leadership skills appropriate for bureaucratic hierarchies
 Fails to capture emerging leadership concepts
“…it is reminiscent of industrial-age concepts derived from Taylorism,
‘scientific management,’ The education of strategic leaders is not an
endeavor suited to an assembly-line approach.”
George Reed, Craig Bullis, Ruth Collins and Christopher Pararone
“Mapping the Route of Leadership Education: Caution Ahead” Parameters (Autumn 2004)
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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In Sum
Where history leads us
 Accessions process
 Uses system analysis approach for leadership
 Values quantifiable assessment of specific aspects of complex
managerial tasks
 Centralization of decisions are reminiscent of the Age of
Corporations
 Ranks cadets in the entire command based on “stacks of files”
 Establishes one order of merit list for approximately 4800
cadets
 GPA is 50% of assessment without taking source of GPA or
major
“Mission First, People Always’ is on target. In practice, however, Army
leaders often put mission first but neglect people, especially in leaderdevelopment programs.”
COL Peter J. Varljen, “Leadership: More Than Mission
Accomplishment” Military Review (March-April 2003)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
 Recruiting (Marketing) based on objective management:
 No study to investigate the root cause of our shortfalls
 Do not redistribute the assets of reoccurring failed programs
 Scholarship process complicated
270 un-calibrated PMSs = 48% retention of 4-year scholarships
Management focus forces less than desirable behavior
 Too much focus on easily achieved target
 “We do not market a ‘product’ in ROTC, IT’S A SERVICE!”
 Marketing with tee shirts and key chains doesn’t Work
 Devotion of officer to recruiting bureaucracy is a waste of critical
manpower. “I know we can make it easier than it is!”
“We have failed miserably in providing college students a reason
to believe that our program will provide them a competitive
advantage in life. Remember, for the most part, selfless service is
contrary to how we have raised America’s young.”
Major Marty Klein
ROO Georgetown ROTC
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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In Sum
Where history leads us
 Assignment in ROTC?:
 Contractors—big indicator that it’s not worth sending good
people too
 Army view of quality (competence) conflicts with academics
 Advanced degrees—good enough for West Point, but not
ROTC
 Do those at the top understand what we do in the trenches?
 The Army culture is also at fault:
 Where does the Army place those on the fast track?
 Does not try to identify what leaders also make good instructors
 Pace of deployments, current assignment practices and the
pressures for command track assignments have sidelined
teaching assignments
“The ‘heroic warrior’ concept - the legacy of the ancient Greeks associated the military more with muscle, individual prowess and
patriotism than things cerebral like education.”
Robert O’Connell, Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons and Aggression
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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In Sum
Where history leads us
 Is it training or education?
 On-line and residence version of School of Cadet Command
necessary, but too much on administration
 On-line version pushes more burdens on PMSs already
strapped by recruiting, retaining, training, educating
 Most officers, especially NCOs, are good trainers, but are
they good educators?
 Use of contractors-sends mixed signal
 Many good people, but took a while to find them
 Are paying them for the impact they could have on the
future?
 “One gray beard around here [in a program] is enough”
 As the Army transforms can contractors stay abreast?
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
 What role does the structure of Cadet Command
have on creation of effective lieutenants?

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
Reduced C2 from four to two headquarters
Each region controls seven brigades
Each brigade controls around 15-20 battalions
Realignment of personnel results in improper staff to provide
an added value
 Expanded span violates all traditional Army thinking
 Roles and functions of each level remain unclear
 Resources migrated to CC while C2 remained
 Result
 Layers of bureaucracy
 No value added, increased confusion, reduced efficiency
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
 Cadre input:
 “We still have cadre that are not comfortable teaching
anything but D&C (drill and ceremony). They are not
picking up on the lessons learned from Iraq”
 “Combat training has evolved with more emphasis on
patrolling, but still centers on ‘STX Lanes,’ which are
canned scenarios on most campuses” with the
emphasis on “process more than how to think”
 “Calibration of TACs is focused on writing the correct
‘blue card’ [Evaluation Form] vice teaching and
mentoring,”
 “Some cadre don’t know how to stand back and
observe”
 Academic rigor varies from program to program
 Depends on the Professor of Military Science
 Inspections from “higher” look more at administration
“paper work” and how the program is going to make
“mission” than assisting or advising or observing
education or training.
© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
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In Sum
Where history leads us
 What cadets say is different. They want:
 To be physically and mentally challenged
“More responsibility in leadership positions”
“Longer periods of time in leadership positions”
 Flexible leadership evaluation approach
“Cater to cadets w/various levels of competency”
“Give more to those who can handle it”
“Allow to experiment”
“Don’t lower the bar in order to pass through more cadets”
“Discourages and drives out good cadets”
“Don’t like wasting a lot of time at LDAC”
 “Want to get credit for the work put into ROTC”
 “Chain of command talks out of both sides of their mouths.”
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Tempered by obsession with “mission” [numbers]
Where history leads us
Where we need to go
2005 and beyond
1990 to Today
Cold
War
Training
Model
Cold War
Threat
Improved
Cold War
Training
Model
Ongoing
Adaptation
Thru LL
Traditional
Irregular
Disruptive
Catastrophic
From “Learning To Adapt To Asymmetric Threats”
The Institute of Defense Analyses (Nov 2004)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
 The answer unfortunately is defined by:
“We must focus on really getting that much
sought after scholar-athlete-leader. Doing so will
require us to purchase and distribute
significantly improved incentive items. We
need high quality milestone recognition items for
distribution at various stages of the recruiting
and retention process.”
U.S. Army Cadet Command “State of the Command” (2002)
 That sounds like management theories from a
century ago.
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
“Taylorism in Action Today (Neo-Taylorism):
Perfectionism—a belief that “best efforts” will achieve optimal results;
Management by objective (MBO) as a vehicle for enforcing
perfectionism; Rejection of continuous improvement; Belief in
certification as a guarantee of quality; Demands for repeatability of
processes; Denial or minimization of failures, and dismissal of the
opportunity to learn from them; Reliance on reengineering and
automation as a substitute for reducing inherent process complexity;
Spreadsheet mentality in planning (assumption that fixed or linear
relationships exist among variables); Quotas and work standards; Hiring
only high-GPA college graduates; Employee ranking and rating
schemes; Imitation of others without understanding why, how, or even if
they get their results: Concentration of measurement of outcome rather
than understanding of the underlying system of courses”
Kenneth T. Delavigne Deming’s Profound Changes,
p.26 (1994)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
Where history leads us
Number of Factors
 Our History
 “American Way
of War”
 Personnel
System focused
on Individual
Replacement
System (IRS)
 The Myths
 Focus on easily
defined mission
 Out of date HR &
Management
theories
4800
4790
4600
4400
4275
4200 4259 4175
4120
3900 3900 39003900
4000
38003800 3800
3800
3840
3600
3587
3571
3400
3308
3200
3281
3180
3000
FY'96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04
Results
 The End drives
the means
 Force officers
into ethical
dilemmas
 Recruits the
wrong type of
person for
service
 Impacts the
rest of the
Army
“But, this is our
measure of success”
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
In Sum
We Won't have the money!
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff
Conclusion
 Assessment: Army ROTC is behind!
 We are Out of Sync with Transformation
 Operate with many attributes that are Neo-Taylorism
 In setting goal of organization numbers trump quality
 Culture should see assignment as second only to line
duty
 The Solution: Make an intellectual investment
“If you’re going to change a large organization,
you have to do in a year or it will not get done.”
Jack Welch The G.E. Way: Management Insights and
Leadership Secrets of the Legendary CEO (July 1998)
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© 2005 Donald E. Vandergriff