Happy New Year from Columbus, Georgia. After 5 years of publication, I am concluding The Field Grade Leader blog. What started as a place where I could capture my thoughts on leadership expanded and transformed into something much more important. It turned into a community, a space where people could share their ideas and seek resources for their own development. I could not be more proud of what the blog became and the difference it made to so many leaders.
Thanks to the individuals who made it possible, volunteering as the Field Grade Leader expanded. Most notably, there was Augie Gonzalez, who pitched in as an editor back in the early days. Tragically, Augie and other members of his family died in a car crash while PCSing from Fort Leavenworth after completing CGSC. His death still stings and serves as a constant reminder of how fleeting life can be. I’d also like to thank Billy, Russ, and Heather, all-stars among the Field Grade Leader team.
We will leave the articles online as a resource for future leaders in hopes the collective work will continue to provide value.
I wish you all the absolute best in your endeavors and appreciate everything you do for our Nation.
The last few weeks have been incredibly hard to watch. After nearly two decades in Afghanistan, the war has ended. But it did not end with an unconditional surrender and a ticker tape parade, did it? Instead, on live TV, we watched the Taliban rapidly regain control of Afghanistan, ending with a crisis at the Kabul airport as people attempted to flee.
US Air Force Photo
So here we are, two decades later. We are a generation of wartime leaders, who, for a brief moment, have no war to fight. Before we move on, as leaders often do, let’s take a few minutes to talk through what happened, to make an honest attempt to learn through it. By writing this, I offer three simple questions. If you can, take some time today to reflect, think, and discuss.
How are you doing? For many, the end of this war has forced us to address unhealed wounds. We knew the war wouldn’t go on forever when we left in ‘05 or ‘11, but we knew we were contributing to a larger campaign. The war became a constant, something we could point back to and justify the collective sacrifice. Now that the war is over, many are wrestling with the conclusion and wanting to quantify that sacrifice while seeing images of the Taliban inspecting American military equipment.
What did we get right? While we’re working through all of that, it is important to remember what we got right. First, I couldn’t be more proud of how a rapidly formed joint force, including the Devil Brigade, handled a humanitarian crisis at the airport in Kabul. Now, as refugees begin to hit the States, we have ad-hoc teams coming together to welcome them. These efforts should make us all proud. This is the true American spirit, the very ideal we chose to fight for.
Also, many of us “got it right” when we fought in Afghanistan. During my time as a Company Commander in Paktikia Province, we protected the people in our area of operations. We provided them some semblance of stability, giving our enemies no rest as we hunted them through the valleys and into the mountains. Collectively, we gave the Afghan people a taste of freedom, their children watching and learning from our example. We gave their little girls hope. Only history can truly judge the impact of our efforts in Afghanistan.
How can we learn? As we get past the raw emotion of what’s occurred, let’s start talking about what we learned in Afghanistan. At the tactical level, share your experiences and challenges as a leader in combat. For other leaders, it is imperative to discuss our experiences on higher level staffs. These are tough conversations, especially when we discuss our own shortcomings, but they are essential to enabling learning.
This is a tough time, but what do leaders do in the face of adversity? We step up to the challenge and lead. That’s what I am asking each of you to do today. Be a leader and start a dialogue with your network. Together, we can shape how our institution learns and grows.
The latest installment of the Simon Sinek enterprise, The Infinite Game, has a lot of what I found compelling from Sinek’s past works. It explains a big idea in simple terms but this one didn’t seem to deliver. I found the read clunky and disorganized. I am a huge Sinek fan which is probably why I was so distressed. While he presents some valuable ideas in this book, I did not find the depth I was expecting.
That said, the overall premise of The Infinite Game is sound. Sinek starts with the idea that humans view the world in win-lose terms. Stated another way, we believe our games are finite. We know the players, play by agreed-upon rules, have commonly understood goals, and somebody always wins and losses at the end. We yearn for this consistency and often get frustrated with interactions fraught with disorganization and surprise. The win-lose dichotomy clouds our perception of the world, and we view our interactions through this prism.
Infinite games, however, are not the exception; they are common, and viewing the world under this paradigm is more useful than we realize. Known and unknown players play these games, without exact or agreed-upon rules, and they have no practical end. The primary objective of the infinite game is to continue to play. You can win at chess but how do you win in a friendship? Drug dealers aren’t trying to beat police to win; they just want to continue their business. This long-view method of perceiving the world changes incentive structures, understanding risk, and how we manage our resources.
To play the infinite game, you must start by adopting an infinite mindset. Sinek’s prescription is to advance a just cause, build a trusting team, study rivals, show existential flexibility, and lead. A just cause is the feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself supplying a purpose so appealing people will sacrifice for it. Trust is aligned with psychological safety to embolden risk-taking. A worthy rival is a healthy competitor giving your organization a focus. Existential flexibility is the ability to change a process or path to align better with your cause. Finally, leading with an infinite mindset is focusing on a long-term view and taking care of the team.
The key point I took from this book was the need to focus on the long-term vision over a short-term goal-oriented approach. The short-term mindset incentivizes near-term wins without regard to long-term effects. This is akin to an Army unit focusing on individual weapons qualification statistics over the amorphous vision of being lethal when engaged with the enemy. Weapons’ qualification percentages are easily measurable and comparable; they’re also eminently necessary to winning a battle. Succeeding in battle, however, requires many more skills that are much harder to define than just shooting straight. Theoretically, an organization could be successful in battle with poor weapons qualification skills. At least one deep thinker wrote the acme of skill was winning without firing a shot. Thus, too much focus on short-term measures can lead to some great shooters at the expense of honing other necessary skills not easily measured.
In the end, Sinek’s big idea is worthy of reflection, but I recommend watching his talk on the web before picking up this one.
Lieutenant Colonel Christopher L’Heureuxis an Armor Officer who likes to write, think, and sip whisk(e)y.
A Guest Post by CPT Justin Beverly, CPT Michael Zequeira, and MAJ George Fust
Welcome to the Battalion! As an incoming field grade officer, we know you are busy so we will get straight to the point. The following article will bean introduction to the Battalion intelligence section. We want to enable your efforts by helping you understand the section. The intelligence warfighting function is critical for organizational success both in garrison and deployed. We hope you leverage this initiative to gain anunderstanding of the intelligence section’s capabilities and limitations as you shape your vision for the staff. The S2 is more than a glorified weatherperson. Leverage the ideas below to minimize friction while maximizing unit readiness.
Editor’s note: As the world watches the best of professional golf in The Master’s this weekend, it is not ironic that we have the opportunity to run this piece. For the Army, the Master Gunner is the foremost professional on how to make our organizations lethal. Their expertise, knowledge, and drive are the same as the individual who will wear the “Green Jacket” on Sunday. If you want to win when you arrive on the next battlefield, find the NCO wearing the “Master Gunner Identification Badge” on your staff, it is imperative to make them a centerpiece of your staff and all training to ensure we do.
Of all the NCOs in the Operations Cell (S3), none is more valuable than a Master Gunner (MG). On any particular morning, you’re most likely to encounter the “Mike Golf” whittling away at one of several projects that seem to require attention. During the humdrum of the morning routine, the MG has to answer emails, re-route correspondence, and oversee both the land manager and the ammunition manager. On a typical day, this takes the first hour to complete before they are free to travel, moving down to the Company’s to catch up on maintenance and crew training. Moving rapidly from place to place, the MG can be difficult to pinpoint unless they are tethered to a computer somewhere, working diligently to generate a product that is as close to complete for the next big brief.
Commander of 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division in 2015 at the National Training Center (NTC) going through Orders Development Process with Staff. Photo provided by Captain Sean Williams
In June 2004, I signed in to the Headquarters (HQ) of the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division (Ready First) at Ray Barracks, Friedberg, Germany. I signed in to the unit rear detachment since the Brigade was completing an extended tour in Iraq after the Shia uprising in Sadr City and Najaf. I briefly served as the rear detachment S-1 and later the rear detachment Executive Officer. When the Brigade redeployed, I transitioned into my official first staff assignment – the Brigade S-3 (Operations) section. Within the S-3, I served as the Assistant S-3 for Plans responsible for planning and writing the Brigade’s Operations Orders (OPORDs).
In the last few years, I have heard numerous discussions on what an Operations Sergeant Major (OPS SGM)actually does at the battalion level. Doctrine provides some guidance but truthfully, it is minimal, which could be good or bad depending on the organization, the leaders in the organization, and the OPS SGM. The purpose of writing this article is to offer my thoughts and lessons learned throughout my ten months in the position for two different organizations. It is my hope that it could help a future SergeantsMajor along with his or her field grade counterpart and the Battalion Commanderin the garrison environment.
The first standardized brigade in the continental Army had one major.As the staff expanded, the Army increased the numberof officers in a brigade and battalion. For a company-grade officer who has never been on a battalion staff, the majors may seem unapproachable, but they have always been essential to a unit’s operation.Their experience, relationships, and leadership help the unit function. Whether you are a Company Commander or a member of the staff, it is important to know who the majors are, what their jobs entail, what roles they play, and how you can build a relationship with them.
Guest Post by MAJ Doug Meyer of The Company Leader
Staff work isn’t always glamorous. But the reality is that you will spend most of your career in a staff role. Even the highest-ranking officers in our military are not commanders per se, but chiefs (and one chairmen) of staff. The requirement is crucial; do the hard and scientific work of war where your output will directly impact the soldiers and leaders charged to enthusiastically carry out your orders. Glamorous or not, if you want to be a great officer then you must be a great staff officer.
“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
-Donald Rumsfeld, 21st Secretary of Defense
To my fellow Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) peers, this course is an opportunity to understand our current Army and we can help shape it for the future fight. This is our Army. This is our moment to be stewards of the profession that we have invested a decade or more in. The Army most of us plan to be a part of for the next decade. Our life choices have led us here. Now is the time to stay switched on. While completing CGSOC, I propose three broad areas to focus on and think about. These include organizational leadership skills, stewardship of the profession, and personal goals. The Army gifted us an entire year for personal development and to contribute to our organization. If not us, then who? If not now, then when?
