This article will review the authors observed trends of new field grades reintroduced back into their respective formations following their year of study at Command and General Staff College (CGSC). It will provide a synopsis of four areas that new field grades inquire about the most before they take on a staff position and considerations on how the environment has changed due to COVID19 since their last position prior to CGSC.
Microsoft Teams is a highly effective command and control system that empowers leaders at echelon to create a collaborative and inclusive environment to share information rapidly, increase understanding, and enable decision making. The Army must maintain this capability to effectively operate in a COVID environment in the 21st Century and Field Grade leaders must embrace technology that helps us propagate data, information, and knowledge across our formations quickly to enable Mission Command and maintain a competitive edge over our adversaries.
“Black Swan – First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations…Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact…”1
– Nassim Taleb, Black Swan
There are certain events and circumstances in life that will catch you unprepared or place you in unexpected situations. The author Nassim Taleb categorized these significant events as “Black Swans” in the book that shared the same title. The premise for those types of events is that they are unexpected and have radical and far-reaching effects. Depending on whom you ask, a global pandemic may not have been a surprise throughout certain parts of the world. However, the CoronaVirus-19 (CV-19) pandemic drastically changed how the military operates daily both in garrison and deployed environments. Routine daily in-person contact, group physical training, and meetings were replaced by phone calls, text messages, and smartphone/computer applications. The pandemic highlighted the importance of the individual disciplined initiative, distributed leadership, and technological solutions. The intent of this article is to offer insights from serving as a field grade officer during the CV-19 pandemic and provide concepts and recommendations for future field grade officers that are faced with similar circumstances.
In March of 2020, the majority of offices in the United States closed to protect its most precious resource, it’s people, from the coronavirus (COVID-19). The Department of Defense leaned forward and transitioned to a majority telework environment. How does an organization that is “key and essential” continue to operate? What are the mechanisms and fundamental processes that enable productivity in vulnerable, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments? The field grade officer must be adaptive and agile in operating any of the settings that may present as a result of COVID-19. These categories are the new normal.
By now, you’ve probably been inundated with advice on how to be an effective staff leader as an Iron Major serving in an S3 or XO role. You’re eager to establish efficient systems for operations and administration, develop a brilliant PSOP, lead the staff through MDMP, translate your commander’s intent into guidance and taskings, and oversee a command post. You’ve probably received some valuable warnings about the ways in which Majors fail. However, successful completion of every task and every mission as a Major means little if you leave a trail of burned-out, bitter, and cynical staff officers and NCOs in your wake. You are now visible to a far broader audience, especially company-grade officers and mid-career NCOs who may be nearing decision points about their future in the military. Unfortunately, the caricature of the grouchy, miserable Major stroking the commander’s ego and sleeping in the office has gained considerable traction in military culture. Gifted junior officers will often see this as a glimpse into their future and choose to pursue another line of work. Understanding and practicing the intangible elements of field grade leadership – beyond staff systems and MDMP – can elevate you from the clichéd stereotype of the grumpy, overworked, “yes–man” clawing for a top-block evaluation to a transformational leader that brings out the best in your unit and its people.
It was Romania, and four feet of snow had fallen the night before. Nearly all functions base-wide had been shut down for two days, but my Detachment still had a mission to do. With limited support, to include an impassable three-mile stretch to our office, my Detachment Sergeant and I were literally frozen in time. As we walked through a dug out tunnel of snow to our dining facility, we war-gamed what was important, what could wait, and what just didn’t matter anymore. We knew that we had to decide how and when to put our soldiers in harm’s way to complete the essential aspects of our mission. Even considering the Army’s prescribed Mission Essential Tasks (METs), our definition of essential had changed.
U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Shawn White, 20 Jan 2020
Over the course of my career, I have had some incredible experiences to discuss strategy with some of the world’s most brilliant minds. One particular moment that really stands out to me is when I had the opportunity to sit in an off the record meeting, in a small, intimate group with a former Secretary of Defense, who I had previously served under. Although I did not agree with all the decisions he had made, through the conversation I came to better understand how he came to those life and death decisions. It was illuminating to hear him discuss the difficult decisions of his career and then his reflection upon in retirement. Ultimately, did what he felt was right at the time for American security and few people have been in such an important role under that kind of microscope. Learning from people with this kind of experience is the best means to prepare for future difficult decisions. This opportunity did not come as part of a formal military program but through a Young Leader program at a think tank.
In more than 20 years of service there have been several opportunities to offer guidance, mentorship and opinions to other Soldiers on career moves and life decisions. Every situation is slightly different as most individuals have slightly different career, life or family goals. While it may make sense for that aspiring general to move their family five times in six years, it may not be the right move for someone who believes in the Chief of Staff of the Army’s guidance that taking care of our people is the key to success.
This year’s Command General Staff College will be graduating and PCSing (hopefully) in the midst of a pandemic that has fundamentally changed the daily lives of people across the world. As these newly minted Majors head back out across the force they are taking the institutional knowledge imparted upon them that will continue to move the Army forward. But it is important to take a look at how COVID-19 has possibly changed some of these lessons learned in the classroom.
This year’s graduation week initiative will be focused on conducting an “after-action review” of sorts to take a look at how we did in the ongoing response to COVID-19. We all saw leaders across the force do an exceptional job leading organizations through this and we have also seen the struggles to break our norms like haircuts and mass formations for accountability. So how have we done? How will the Army’s experience and DOD inform the future? What systems succeeded or failed? Did Mission Command work in this de-centralized environment or did it prove we talk the talk, but not walk the walk with MC? Should more staff work be done via telework? How else will COVID-19 shape the force moving forward?
Contact us at fglinitiatives@gmail.com if you are interested in writing a piece for Graduation Week or have additional questions.
U.S. Army photo by Markeith Horace, July 16th 2019
As a Mission Command Training Program (MCTP) Observer Coach/Trainer (OC/T), I have come to observe a trend. In a cursory glance of archived Warfighter Exercise (WFX) bulletins, which synthesize OC/T observations over the course of an exercise year into more generalized trends, I was alarmed at how similar each annual publication read. Why was this, and what’s the problem? Are all the formations in the Army similarly flawed? Moreover, is everybody simply wrong? Unfortunately, the answer to this isn’t simple.