The Adaptive Officer: Think, Communicate and Influence

Abstract

The majority of officers will be working in a multi dimensional and unpredictable operational environment on complex problems that require an integrated inter-agency and/or coalition solution. To assist in developing those solutions officers will need to be more cooperative, compromising and collaborative in order to shape the desired outcome. This desire requires the ability to think critically, communicate effectively, and influence others through persuasive argument. This article seeks to highlight a how Army can develop officers who can think, communicate and influence other non Army people to implement the Adaptive Army initiative.

Introduction

In 2008, I read Jim Hammett’s interesting and thought provoking article in this journal on the decline of the Infantry Corps. It is fantastic that an officer is willing to argue in a logical and passionate way about things that really matter to him. However, for someone who has commanded both regular and reserve infantrymen and two operational task forces, it concerns me that the argument is based on the apparent premise of ‘us and them’. Last time I attended a Corps Conference the Special Forces fraternity were part of the Infantry Corps. In Afghanistan, the Special Forces are involved in executing Deep Battle operations in order to shape the Close Battle, where combined arms teams protect the reconstruction and training effects of our task force. That has been the role of Special Forces since their inception. Regardless of this observation, it is great that this journal is creating a forum for debate by providing an opportunity for senior officers to be influenced by well written articles based on a subordinate’s critical analysis of an issue.

In hierarchical organisations such as the military, the ability for original thought can often be stifled by the many layers of bureaucracy and there are sometimes many hurdles a young officer needs to cross in order to get the ear of a senior officer. The recent Adaptive Army initiative seeks to overcome these layers to allow ideas to be debated, and potentially change organisational structures, processes and procedures. To be effective the initiative requires a culture of openness and candour that invites and fosters counter points of view. For the Chief of Army, the ongoing excellence of Army will require ‘constant re-evaluation of how the Army as a whole thinks and operates’.¹ The limitation to achieving his intent will be the inability of some officers to mount persuasive arguments.

Today, the majority of officers will most likely be required to work in an environment that is multi-dimensional and unpredictable, requiring integrated inter-agency and coalition solutions to complex problems. This complexity requires the Adaptive Army Officer to be able to think, communicate and influence others through persuasive argument. Conversely the majority of interaction I have witnessed has been dominated by Army officers who seek to impose a pure military response to a complex problem. The result, not surprisingly, is a lack of commitment by other agencies to unify effort to support a holistic and resource effective solution. Quite simply, officers have alienated others by trying to control the agenda and have failed to provide balanced arguments in simple persuasive language. To counter the implicit failing suggested by my observation (based on experience as a Task Force Commander), officers need to be encouraged to be more cooperative, compromising, and convincing in order to influence the desired outcome. This desire is enabled by an ability to think critically, communicate, and work with non-Army people. The aim of this article is to highlight these three fundamental qualities that an Adaptive Army Officer will need to possess to achieve the Chief of Army’s intent.

Think Critically

An officer’s ability to analyse complex operational and organisational problems critically in uncertain and constrained environments is essential to the successful implementation of a commander’s intent. Mission success is dependent on the staff being continuously involved in developing comprehensive solutions to support the execution of operational or campaign plans. The key part to this process is the initial framing of the problem to prevent restricting options. From my experience, the majority of people find it easy to frame a problem by focusing on what they know about the issue, based on past experiences. This action tends to limit exploration of peripheral considerations and restricts options from the outset. In most cases, these peripheral considerations are disregarded early in the process due to a lack of understanding of competing views of the same or similar event. This lack of appreciation is often shaped by hidden assumptions and innate bias and perceptions. It can often result in an inability to see competing and alternative views, and can arguably prevent the full assessment of the second and third level implications of a particular event.

To negate the impact of this lack of depth in analysis, the development of critical thinking is necessary to ensure officers have the skills to scope, identify and adequately evaluate alternatives. In most cases, their bias is shaped by preconceived ideas and a lack of awareness of the operating environment, culture, human behaviour, politics and other agencies. The result is a predisposition to argue along lines that confirm their belief systems to defend a preferred outcome, or try to relate to something similar that has occurred in their past; in effect what I would call the ‘template’ solution to likely activity. For example, in the Solomon Islands a number of my junior staff informed me that a ten-man section was required to protect two police on patrol. As young platoon commanders they had employed this method of protection when working with the United Nations in Timor Leste. I said, ‘but we are not in Timor Leste and this is not a UN operation’. The result was an increased effort to understand how the Participating Police Force (PPF) conducted operations, and what they required from the task force to support them. These discussions led to the establishment of a combined operations room that was managed by the PPF, with my staff officers providing advice as required. Being exposed to other agencies exposes those officers to alternatives and different ways to think critically about an issue.

The tendency for staff to over-simplify very complex issues related to human behaviour is symptomatic of a gap in preparing our people to perform operational staff functions. The interesting thing about human behaviour is that it is far from rational and therefore will always keep you guessing. To counter the influence that value judgments, bias and previous experiences have on a solution requires the inclusion of critical thinking tools in the officer training continuum, such as mind mapping. I have found that most officers can identify the problem and evaluate the implications, but find it difficult to determine what the connections are with other factors. By exposing them to thinking tools that assist in framing the problem those connections will be evident from the start, and should allow them to develop comprehensive and holistic solutions. The only caution I have is that staff need to remember that they are ‘tools’, whose function is to assist in understanding all the issues related to a complex operational and/or organisational problem, not the plan. Equally some complex problems cannot be solved, they can only be improved on, and therefore require constant redefinition to keep the plan on track.

Communicate

Once the problem has been defined, connections understood and implications determined, the key is how to communicate this outcome to others. This effort requires officers to be competent in expressing their thoughts verbally and in the written word. I have found that the majority of officers can verbalise their ideas, but have great difficulty in expressing those same ideas on paper. My concern with the standard of written work within Army is based on my experiences in Army Headquarters, operational commands, and my time as a member of the directing staff at the Australian Command and Staff College. I believe that this deficiency is due to insufficient time to practice the art of writing, lack of mentoring by senior officers, and little desire to improve by some officers. The impact of these three observations is that Army does not have an environment that encourages people to compose good prose or to improve this important skill. In most cases, the result is prose that often requires further translation and is susceptible to misinterpretation. In Timor Leste, I often received poorly drafted minutes and operational orders due to a belief that brevity and the use of ‘big’ words made the headquarters appear smarter than the task groups. The consequence was that my New Zealand Deputy Commander had to make a considerable effort to ensure there was no ambiguity in the staff work.

 The use of simple and concise language is the only way to overcome this difficulty. I have always believed that if someone can express their ideas in simple language, then they actually understand what they are writing about. Army can do much more in this area by returning to a system that constantly tests peoples’ skills, and supports this action with parallel writing programs. I remain convinced that the poor written work presented by officers is a direct result of a lack of focus on the ‘3Rs’ in Australia’s secondary school system. This inadequate preparation in foundation skills needs to be acknowledged and addressed in Army’s basic skills development program to ensure the Adaptive Army initiative is successful.

Conversely, the ability of officers to verbally communicate their thoughts is very good. The basic principles of listening to people, remembering people’s names, focusing messages on target audiences, and confidence in public speaking have always been evident in my staff. These actions seek to build trust and limit ambiguity by developing a relationship with others that will be important if they are seeking to influence those same people. The one area, however, that does need work is how to rate the success of that communication. I believe that this objective can only be achieved if you know your own and others’ feelings and emotions. This knowledge allows you to determine acceptance or disagreement by observing people’s body language and subsequent actions. In simple terms, are these people willing participants, or do they remain unconvinced that your ideas are going to work? Comprehending human nature is not intuitive, and as the concept of emotional intelligence identifies, the skills of understanding yourself and others (also called social intelligence) will be a key factor to successful social interactions. Therefore, more work needs to be done on the human dimension of the Adaptive Army initiative to develop those personal skills that allow officers to influence others as part of a coalition or inter-agency task force in a foreign country.

Influence

The ability to apply critical thinking competencies and to build on officers’ communication skills is one aspect of being able to influence other people’s actions. The other essential skill is the ability to build trust and maintain harmony when working with other Services, agencies, international organisations and indigenous people in the theatre of operations. One of the major hurdles to developing and implementing solutions to individual or multiple events is the inability for some officers to compromise and collaborate with non-Army people. There seems to be a motivation in most Army officers to want to (or at least be seen to) take charge. This assessment is based on my observation of the actions of my staff in Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands. In some cases it seemed that Army officers found it difficult to confront their own biases about the other Services, public service, agencies and the United Nations. Since these officers did not take time to understand these groups and therefore appreciate how to shape their audience, they were never able to influence them. I believe that the key to countering resistance is to get others to support your ideas through compromise, persuasion and collaboration.

These three qualities are essential if officers are to overcome the inherent tension created when there is an overlap in agency responsibilities in a theatre. In most cases these agencies appear, on the surface, to be supportive of the plan but will still protect their interests. Therefore, officers must be able to understand the rationale and motivation of those agencies before trying to implement any coordinated action. In Timor Leste there was a significant overlap in the responsibility for security between my forces, UN police, and the indigenous security forces. I found that while my staff were action driven, the other two players were process driven (in particular the United Nations), therefore there was a tendency for staff to often disagree over the real issue and required response. The way to overcome these tensions in my view is not to seek to control, but rather to cooperate and synchronise the various plans to achieve unity of effort. The tension was evident when the three organisations had to respond to riots after the announcement of the Gusmao Government in August 2007. The initial plan involved a significant amount of duplication of effort, and lacked a common understanding of what was happening. In the end, staff had to compromise in certain areas in order to convince the other players about what was important to my mission. The outcome was a strong commitment to the creation of a joint operations and information centre to coordinate future responses.

The issue, of course, is that not everyone can compromise or collaborate with other people. Either way, I think the power of a good liaison officer is not to be underestimated in facilitating inter-agency and coalition operations. Liaison officers are the glue to connecting the different agencies and providing timely information to decision-makers. This fact means that there is a need to ensure that high calibre officers are placed in liaison positions. The officers who can really influence take the time to comprehend other agencies and thrive on personal interaction. In Timor Leste I had two outstanding liaison officers who helped to solve the many problems the task force faced in working with the United Nations. These officers appreciated that success was founded on the collective will of individuals to belong to the security team, and a desire to see the team succeed. Typically, they were willing to listen to others’ point of view, kept any disagreements behind closed doors, and displayed great patience when dealing with arrogant people and misinterpreted direction. In some instances these officers implemented team decisions even if they disagreed with them. Their ability to influence was founded on their personal qualities of compromise, collaboration and persuasion.

Conclusion

The operational experience of many Army officers is growing and they are continually challenging how things are done, but to develop officers who can think critically and communicate with and influence others requires an environment that encourages candour and conflicting views. This environment should seek to encourage writing, the appreciation of human nature, and a passion for learning. One way to achieve this desire is to introduce critical thinking methods and philosophy into the training continuum, and encourage senior officers to assess the written work of their subordinates regularly. Another technique may be to include assessment criteria into annual reporting on a person’s ability to influence (separate from their leadership qualities). I doubt, however, that these ideas will really be effective unless officers want to improve their ability to think, communicate and influence; while senior officers must display a willingness to encourage and foster these abilities. This change translates into a desire to constantly search for excellence, like a music agent constantly in search of the next ‘hit’. The officer who wakes each morning wanting to add value to Army in everything it does will make it a truly Adaptive Army.

This article has sought to contribute to the debate on what abilities are required of an Adaptive Army officer by highlighting three key qualities that I believe are essential to support effective collaboration in an inter-agency context. These observations, in most cases, reinforce some of the qualities espoused by many leadership publications, and how the Army used to train its officer corps. The question is: how can these qualities be developed in young officers? This question is an issue for future consideration; however, I proffer some preliminary thoughts. First, a review of the officer training continuum seems important to ensure that from day one these qualities are developed, or more importantly that those officers who lack them are identified for remedial training. Second, establish a virtual development program that is easy to use and seeks to encourage, not force, officers to develop these skills. Third, senior officers must become less tolerant of what they accept in staff work, while providing their subordinates time and opportunity to develop the required skills. This action includes encouraging them to develop their ideas and write those thoughts for submission to journals in order to enhance the quality of the debate.

In summary, the power to influence is the key to success in the challenges Army officers are likely to face in the future. This capacity is enabled by the ability to think critically, build trust and communicate. The bumper sticker for the Adaptive Army officer in the contemporary operational environment must therefore be ‘think, communicate, influence’. Jim Hammett’s article influenced the debate on the employment of Infantry and Special Forces in Afghanistan by making officers think about what he wrote, and take a position. That is what the Adaptive Army officer does in the current debate.

Endnotes

1    Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie, Speech to Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 27 August 2007.