…But, it is all good. I have been blessed to get to spend the last three weeks with some really good leaders and teachers who want to want to go the extra mile to develop their students into better leaders.
I have spent the last weeks teaching my workshop “Deciding Under Pressure and Fast” on how to teach and develop adaptability at Fort Knox (the Armor Center) to various course directors and instructors. As well as running sessions on curriculum development using the Adaptive Leader Methodology or ALM.
I then spent another great week at the United States Military Academy at West Point working with the Department of Military Instruction (DMI) on how to apply ALM.
Both places have great teachers who want to do it better and are never satisfied with the status-quo.
ALM (called Adaptive Course Model (ACM) in the book Raising the Bar) is the leader development model I created from my experiments with leader development at Georgetown Army ROTC as well as from ten years of research on how to create leaders of character to deal with 4th Generation Warfare (4GW). And, it has not been all me, several good people, like my good friend and former boss Lieutenant Colonel Allen Gill, and fellow instructors Sergeant First Class Jeff Roper and Master Sergeant Bill Lewis (all retired now) also helped me shape the ideas in ALM.
Now, the Army is beginning to buy into ALM. It is always great to go to my workshop and instructors (both officer and NCO) show up with Raising the Bar tabbed and highlighted throughout.
I also translate the military applications of ALM into use by civilian organizations, “First Responders” as well as businesses. I am doing a conference in two weeks at Kennesaw State’s Coles’ Family Business Center outside Atlanta. I am also working with my friend and policeman 1LT Fred Leland on doing an Adaptability workshop in September or October. And, finally, I have also been fortunate to meet and work with Dale Stewart. We taught together at the Adaptability conference in March hosted by Greenville Tech (we also taught aside Dr. Chet Richards and COL Mike Wyly-two of my favorite people).
The applications of ALM through my workshop are beginning to makes its rounds somewhere almost weekly (within the Army) and month (everywhere else).
I will post a new leader update in the next couple of days. Then next week, I am off again to Gettysburg, PA to teach and facilitate the Gettysburg Residency for three and half days to the Executive Masters in Leadership (EML) students from Georgetown University. I am also working in company with some other great teachers like Dr. Lamar Reinsch, Dr. Bob Bies and Mr. John Fontana that make the Gettysburg experience great for the last three years of EML classes.
I am very fortunate.
Don
Have you done any work on developing a program that would put the ALM to work in operational units, for example, as an OPD program or officer certification program?
It would seem to be a natural progression to me. As good as your ALM might be in a school setting, be it USMA or BOLC, it can’t possibly replicate the opportunity for development that you find in a unit. In addition, being able to frame the TDEs and other exercises in the context of the unit that you’re in both makes a leader more ready to lead in that particular unit, as well as alleviating the ‘tactical decisionmaking in a vacuum’ syndrome.
Nearly 7 of my 8 years commissioned have been in tactical units. If there was anybody in the perfect position to educate and train me to be an adaptive leader, it was my company, battalion, and brigade commanders. Yet 90% of the time the unit OPD program was extremely weak. I attribute this to misguided priorities (“there are too many other pressing things to take time for OPD”), a culture that reinforces the status quo (“we never had that when I was a LT, and I turned out fine”), and the poor quality of OPDs when we do take the time for them (death by powerpoint, a bad habit learnt at the schoolhouses).
I have no idea how to make this work, but I would request you come up with a ALM-oriented OPD program template and sell it at the PCC at Leavenworth. I’ve seen too many battalion and brigade commanders who don’t appear willing or able to truly fulfill their roles as teacher, coach, and mentor.
I wish you luck.
John,
Thanks for the great insights.
Yes, we are starting to get ALM into units.
I agree with you on your other points.
The Army culture has slid to the point where it thinks it is schools (TRADOC) responsibility for leader development. At my workshop hosted by AWG this week, one CSM pointed out what you said. It is a unit (leader) responsibility to develop its leaders. The schools or courses are just one aspect. He also said, ALM and my book Raising the Bar are starting to make it into operational units.
When I was a company commander, I got kudos from division for having a great OPD program (but brigade and battalion did not care). It was centered around TDGs (TDEs) on a terrain board. I also did for all the NCOs as well. Even to this day, I run into or hear from my former lieutenants and NCOs, and they mention the quality of the OPD/NCOPDs we did.
There is one battalion commander who has already requested my ALM workshop for his leaders. So, it is slowly spreading.
Again, thanks for your comments, and good luck with your blog.
Don
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