Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to Deal with the Changing Face of War (Paperback)

~ Maj. Donald Vandergriff (U.S. Army; Ret.) (Author)

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Executive Summary

"Adaptability" has become a buzzword throughout the U.S. Army due to experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is the Army's introduction to 4th generation warfare. The Army recognizes that in order to move toward becoming a "learning organization" where leaders practice adaptability, it will have to change its culture, particularly its leader development paradigm. The challenge is great, but signs are beginning to appear that it might be possible as new ideas are implemented.

Today's leader development paradigm evolved from one that worked to support the nation's long-standing mobilization doctrine. Mobilization doctrine relies on a small core of full time professional soldiers, backed by large militias or National Guard forces in peacetime, to be prepared to expand rapidly in the event of a national emergency - such as war. Successful mobilization requires time and massive resources. Time is needed to get troops prepared, while resources compensate for lack of experience, professionalism and cohesion needed to fight and win a war.

To support the mobilization doctrine, the Army developed leadership training methods that paralleled management training practices in the corporate structures of the Industrial Age. The challenge for the Army was to get millions of citizens with little or no military experience and turn them into soldiers and officers in a short time. Industry provided the answers, and in the aftermath of the glow of victory in several wars, these approaches became institutionalized.

Some modifications were applied to leader development, but they happened along the fringes of existing laws, regulations, policies and beliefs. Army alterations to today's leader development paradigm may not be enough. The Army has "thought" and "acted" from an antiquated, mobilization-based leader development paradigm that still exists more than 16 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This Industrial Age model

About the Author

Maj. Donald E. Vandergriff, U.S. Army, retired on Aug. 30, 2005, following 24 years of active duty as an enlisted Marine and Army officer. He has served in numerous troop, staff and education assignments in the United States and overseas.

Vandergriff was named ROTC instructor of the year 2002-2003 and the 3rd ROTC Brigade instructor of the year for 2003-2004. Vandergriff is a recognized authority on the U.S. Army personnel system, Army culture, leadership development, soldier training and, in the early 21st century, the emergence of asymmetric warfare, also known as 4th generation warfare (4GW). He has authored over 50 articles, numerous briefings and two books.

The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command s Future Center renamed in December 2005 as Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) located at Fort Monroe, Va., hired Vandergriff to contribute toward the evolution of Army leader development programs and to recommend changes that will prepare the Army s leaders and soldiers for the future.

Vandergriff wrote this monograph in his free time during the final days of his assignment at Georgetown University Army ROTC. He has already shared its contents with the Army chain of command and other service agencies that deal with leader development.

Vandergriff and his wife, Lorraine, currently reside in Woodbridge, Va., with their numerous dogs and a cat.

Product Details

• Paperback: 132 pages
• Publisher: Center for Defense Information Press (December 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932019294
• ISBN-13: 978-1932019292
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #627,042 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In the 21st Century, It's The Quick or The Dead, January 19, 2007

By	C. W. Richards (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Vandergriff begins this monograph with the observation that fundamental ways of thinking about conflict must change from defeating other armies in set-piece battles to successfully resolving "fourth generation" conflicts that are practically never decided by battles. He characterizes this change as a shift from "linear" to "complex" thinking.

Many others, of course, have made this same observation, and Vandergriff duly acknowledges the big names in the field. Where Vandergriff makes his original contribution is in proposing specific methods for creating leaders who can carry out the program of change that he envisions. He calls his methodology the "adaptive course model" (ACM) and states its purpose as " ... creating leaders who understand and practice adaptability, while encouraging Army senior leaders to nurture this trait in their subordinates." As he notes, to accomplish this purpose, the ACM must encompass three elements: a culture of learning, a program of instruction designed to nurture adaptive students, and a corps of highly trained and competent instructors.

Vandergriff does an admirable job of explaining each element in the 40+ page Chapter 3, Creating Adaptability. It is worth noting that he draws on the latest research on leadership, including the data supporting the concept of "recognition-primed decision making," and employs a variety of techniques to make the program as "experiential" as possible. The name of the game is "adaptive leadership," and under Vandergriff, you'll be doing a lot of it.

Will it work? I am pessimistic, not because I doubt the power of his methodology - similar approaches have worked in the past - but because of the role of the Army in fourth generation warfare. Frankly, I don't see one. It's quite likely that Vandergriff's recommendations can create a better Army, but how do we judge "better" in a world where the threats appear to be nuclear-armed states on the one hand and shadowy, transnational "terrorist" groups on the other? It's not clear that we would risk land combat against the former and it certainly isn't clear what role the Army can play against the latter. To the extent that this view is correct, the Army doesn't have much incentive to change its comfortable culture in order to become more relevant in the 21st century.

One group that can adopt Vandergriff's ideas is modern business. Many of the techniques he recommends to create and evaluate adaptive leaders in the Army will work with obvious modifications for business. They are sorely needed: As Deming preached, virtually all the problems of US industry over the last generation can be traced to failures of leadership. It's instructive to contrast senior military and civilian leaders on this point. The top generals of the Army really do see their people as their primary resource, and they aren't reluctant to spend money to develop them. To be competitive for promotion, for example, officers need to spend four or five of their first 20 years improving their civilian and military educations at the Army's expense. This is not a philosophy that permeates private industry: An executive vice-president at Wal-Mart, for example, complained to the board in October 2005 that workers with seven years experience at the company cost more than new hires but were no more productive, a statement that would flabbergast any military professional.

For those who do want to improve the performance of their companies by improving the capabilities of their people, Vandergriff's little book cuts through the fluff and delivers a tightly packed duffel bag of philosophy, ideas, and techniques, many of which were tested by Vandergriff himself during his years of training future officers (he was ROTC Instructor of the Year in 2003).

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Prerequisite for Winning Any More Wars, February 8, 2007

By	War Wagon - See all my reviews

Don Vandergriff is arguably the best major to be not promoted
by the U.S. Army. Among other things, he was their ROTC Instructor of the
Year in 2003. While his passover may not bother most Americans, it should.
For when careerism becomes so rampant in a military organization that
exceptionally talented professionals are rifted for being
proactive, that organization may also have trouble winning wars. As a
retired Lieutenant Colonel myself, having communicated with Don
many times at Georgetown University, and still in touch with his "most
promising" cadet, I know of what I speak.

Among other things, Major Vandergriff is a realist. He knows that until
just recently the U.S. Army had no reason to change. Now that it has
once again proven its ineptitude at counterguerrilla and 4th
Generation Warfare (that which is fought in martial, political, economic,
and psychological areas simultaneously), perhaps Major Vandergriff's
insightful plan for the future will finally be acted upon.

He argues that the most effective way to change the Army is by changing
the way new leaders are trained and what they are trained for. Then, as
these leaders migrate through the system during their careers, the Army
will change along with them in an inevitable, organic process. "Changing
the culture of the Army and the military is generational and begins with
the Army's newest and potential leaders." (p. 24) In essence, he wants
to teach young lieutenants how to responsibly consider alternatives
instead of blindly following what they perceive to be established
procedure. In the process, he hopes to create an army that is more
adaptible at its bottom echelons to an ever-changing combat situation.
This is essential to beating a loosely controlled foe who likes to fight
at close range.

Major Vandergriff is too professional to talk about a problem without
also providing a fully tested solution. He calls his methodology the
"adaptive course model" (ACM) and states its purpose as " ... creating
leaders who understand and practice adaptability, while encouraging Army
senior leaders to nurture this trait in their subordinates." As he notes,
to accomplish this purpose, the ACM must encompass three elements: a
culture of learning, a program of instruction designed to nurture
adaptive students, and a corps of highly trained and competent
instructors.

There may never again be a large set-piece battle. WWIII will, in all
likelihood, be fought unconventionally and will look, in its initial
stages, like what is going on around the world today. If the Army's
current crop of senior leaders wants to be favorably remembered by
history, they best take to heart Don Vandergriff's proposals.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good, hard look in the mirror, December 27, 2006

By	Raymond Kimball "IAVA Speaker" (West Point, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Many of those who have experienced the Army training and education system first-hand view it as an attempt to stuff 10 pounds of "stuff" into a two-pound bag. The focus of most Army courses seems to be an attempt to throw the maximum amount of information at the student in the hope that some of it will stick and come back to the student at a later date when needed. In his latest work, Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to Deal with the Changing Face of War, Major (Retired) Donald Vandergriff poses a radically new way of approaching the traditional education system, one that eschews checklists and PowerPoint in favor of what he calls the Adaptive Course Model (ACM). ACM, Vandergriff posits, will focus on creating adaptive military leaders; these leaders will use that adaptability to seek innovative solutions to complex problems on the battlefields of the Three-Block War. Vandergriff has an established reputation as a visionary thinker in the fields of military personnel management and leader development, having written over 50 works on the subject over the course of a 24-year career. Vandergriff is unsentimental about the current systems of officer management and selection, calling them antiquated and profoundly dysfunctional in the current environment of Fourth Generation (4GW) warfare. He is emphatic that simple tinkering around the margins will not do - only a system-wide reform of educational practices (what he calls a "revolution in educational affairs"), coupled with a complete cultural shift, will produce the kind of leaders needed for the Long War. Although Vandergriff's work sometimes fails to meet the scope and breadth of its own defined topic, it is a seminal work on the need for change within the Army Educational System and deserves to be widely disseminated, read, and integrated.
From the start, Vandergriff aims his work at a broad audience - he makes it clear that he wants his work to be read not only by officers and leaders "on the inside", but by the general public as well. Because he has aimed so broadly, he spends more than half of the book defining the core problem: the Army education and promotion system is based on an antiquated, industrial-age paradigm that focuses on quantity over quality and views individual leaders as fungible cogs in a great set of gears. His critique is devastatingly detailed and almost painful to read; it stands in stark contrast to those who view warfare as inevitably progressing towards information dominance and transparency. One of his best comments on the subject should be reproduced and posted on the wall of every office in the Pentagon: "Effective business practices are often very different from effective military practices. This is particularly true in the area of personnel policies, where the idea of soldierly virtue embodies the ethos of self-sacrifice, and where, as Napoleon said, the moral is to the material as three is to one." Vandergriff then turns to the question of how to fix the system from the bottom up - his proposed solution of ACM promises to radically refocus the military classroom from processes and slideshows. These will give way to scenario-driven education that eschews a "school solution" in favor of an evaluative process that assesses how well a student is learning and adapting to changing circumstances. ACM adapts the small-group methodology already in use at most Army schools and takes it to its next logical step - a free-form exchange of ideas between student and instructor that challenges the student to make difficult and far-reaching decisions under difficult time constraints, and then defend those decisions to their peers and colleagues. Vandergriff notes the difficulty of selecting and training the kind of people capable of running such a program, and calls on the Army leadership to be more aggressive in rebuilding the current broken system.
Vandergriff's approach to the topic is visionary. Although many of the ideas he proposes are not new (the use of Tactical Decision Games, for instance, has been commonplace in Marine courses for years), this is the first time that they have been proposed on this kind of scale within the US Army. Much of what he proposes is already recognized as fundamental to good pedagogy and taught in Teaching Excellence courses around the country, but this is the first time they has been employed in the highly technical and complex field of military science. Rather than focusing on whether or not a student can regurgitate a particular piece of tribal lore, Vandergriff's ACM focuses on how a student came to a particular decision, and whether or not that process could have been handled better. This is a long-overdue change in an era where junior leaders routinely rewrite Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) "on the fly", and use those TTPs in the face of contrary elements of doctrine. The author does his fair share of slaughtering of sacred cows - he rightly denigrates the statement that "there are no dumb questions", noting that questions that delay critical decisions or cover material already reinforced in previous orders are, in fact dumb - they cede initiative to the adversary and cost lives on the battlefield. His insistence on an instructor-centric curriculum with broad guidance and objectives stands in stark contrast to the typical TRADOC course packet, with its Enabling Learning Objectives and Terminal Learning Objectives laid out in long-winded briefings and outlines. He rightfully minimizes the use of jargon and frequently references a glossary of abbreviations in order to make the work as accessible as possible to the general public.
Vandergriff's book does overreach at times, and ultimately falls short in delivering on its vision of a system-wide cultural change. For instance, he cites the new Basic Officer Leadership Course (BOLC) as a needed shift forward (from the old CAS3 and CGSC) of officer integration in general training. This ignores the fact that because BOLC takes place before any branch-specific training takes place, it really only functions as a training leveler between commissioning sources, rather than a source of transmission of ideas between branches. Likewise, his emphasis on the use of distance-learning technologies to cover "the basics" may be sound for the training of mid-level or career soldiers who have already developed the necessary work ethic, but is problematic for the training of cadets who may never been challenged to do anything of the sort. Some portion of classroom time will have to devoted the the basic elements of tactical and operational instruction - you cannot reasonable evaluate a student's decision to execute an L-shaped ambush until you are sure that the student really understands what that is. The largest problem with Vandergriff's work is that he underestimates the scope of change needed to support his proposed reforms. He rightfully emphasizes the need for cultural and procedural change within the Army, but neglects any call for such change in the multitude of supporting agencies that make Army Training and Education possible. Anyone who has ever tried to negotiate a shift in times with Range Control or get a Central Issue Facility to alter its standard menu items understands the difficulty of getting supporting civilian agencies to adapt the kind of flexible calendar and training philosophy Vandergriff espouses. With more and more aspects of garrison operations shifting over to contractors and full-time civilians, the gap in philosophy could become catastrophic, and reinforce an "us vs. them" divide that is currently all too prevalent in American society. The changes Vandergriff proposes must affect all aspects of Army education and training support, not just the ones wearing camouflage.
These shortfalls are relatively minor, though, and pale in comparison to the originality and audacity of Vandergriff's main arguments and ideas. The author has written a truly visionary work that deserves to be read at the highest levels and acted upon with all due haste. Every branch school commandant in TRADOC, for instance, should be required to read it, and then backbrief how their own Programs of Instruction support or fail to support the ideas laid out in the work. Congressional leaders on the Armed Services Committees would also be well served to survey the book, and prepare some hard questions for military leaders on how things have gotten to this point. Ultimately, Vandergriff's work should be viewed as a thrown gauntlet for others to pick up and accept the challenge of a long, hard look in the mirror.