Jan.11.2009
10:08 am
by Ed Beakley
New Year, New Administration: Ready or Not?
Question still pertinent after over seven years since 9-11and three years past Katrina : What if nothing leaders have ever been taught or experienced is sufficient to the problem? ...
The development and exploration of critical "operational threads" for future editions is still necessary. It would appear to me that education for wearing a uniform in Detroit … or in Baghdad requires a global focus as well as local. Lessons in one are needed in the other.
Here are some issues under consideration:
- Civil-military joint response and military integration with National Incident Command System mandate
- How Organizations respond
- Team of Leaders (TOL) concept as discussed in detail on previous posts (derived from Commander Leader Teams (CLT) concept). This has interesting implications/carry over for civilian Incident Command/NIMS
- "Separated but Unified" – Common outlook for multiple organizations needed in the face of hyper complex disaster events. LL from decision making in the crucible of the Hanoi Hilton as intriguing example.
- Network Enabled Operations and use of Knowledge management concepts in crisis preplanning and operations
- Col John Boyd's OODA Loop and "Destruction – Creation" in the 21st Century
- Overcoming a negative start OODA Loop
- Regaining Relative Superiority (from SPEC Ops by Admiral William McRaven)
- Defining the "The Enlightened Soldier" better yet "The enlightened AND resilient community" in the 21st Century
To date some of these issues have been addressed. But the events in Mumbai, the economic woes, continued violence in Gaza, the turmoil in Mexico all signify a continuing volatile world. Correctly labeled "War" or not, confrontation and conflict (open violence) persists.
Are we well enough prepared for that we can predict?
Are we ready for the Black Swan- the unknown unexpected?
Discussion of these threads and others will continue to periodically posted. What are your thoughts? Suggestions? New Threads?
Ed @ White Horse
email me: projectwhitehorseatroadrunnerdotcom (note anti-spam format)
Filed in Adaptive Leadership, Announcements, Essays, Resilient Community, Team of Leaders | One response so far
We are not prepared, and by the sight of it – far from it. Preparation of the kind envisaged by Ed requires both concentrated and concerted effort at all levels of development and application, and centers on essentially cognitive rather than professional development of people and, to a degree, organizations. Institutions charged with such preparation (colleges, universities) fail: their personnel is either inexperienced in these matters, often does not understand them, or are experienced in methods which belong to the older reality when “things” seemed to be more clear-cut. In the post-educational sector, we do not have civilian “staff colleges” that would provide the “advanced post-professional education” step toward the envisaged, broader, and more prepared and ready state of mind.
The military provides its followers with a lot of training in unconventional thinking, but the latter is not (or rarely) translated into realities of civilian life to the degree required in the most complex environment of a catastrophe or even a mjor disaster. To make things worse, we lost the sense of proportion in our statements: we inflate the meaning of our words, then delude ourselves by what we say, incuring the sense of false safety where there should be none. Example: the ditching of US Air in the Hudson River. The pilot (althought, in reality, one ought to praise the entire flight crew) has been universally decried a hero/
In truth, all that can be said is that Captain “Sully” showed an exemplary professionalism whose character ought to be emulated by all, independently of profession we are in. And this is what is so admirable in the man: his profound mastery of trade, impeccable professionalism, and a magnificent sense of duty supported by the ability to deal with the unexpected and unoredictable. On a micro-scale he and all who participated in the effort showed the spirit that needs to be developed on the macro-level.
We have all tools that are required for such development (primparily technology-based training platforms), we have the people who already spent a considerable amount of time developing practical aspects of such preparation, we also have theories which facilitate the required preparation (Boyd, net-centricity, ToL – in sequence from personal to multi-organizational level). We have all that, and yet all exists in separate pools of knwledge, disunited, and with no apparent intent to fuse the required elements into the badly required whole.
Somehow, we have continuoulsy self-reinforcing tendency of not seeing cross-domain applicability of concepts, the need to adapt AND adopt, and the requirement to abandon the literal on behalf of the conceptually essential: ToL really can be applied to the preparation of Thanksgiving Day turkey, and Boyd’s thoughts to the pprocess of crossing a busy street. In either case, the outcome will be far better than without (and you may consider a practical experiment applying either concept to the suggested situations).
Ultimately, Discussions are important to clarify where we want to go, but discussions alone will not do much unless a practical effort is initiated. And the practical effort concentrates on “moving brains” rather than developing professional knowledge. We have attained the latter probably to the highest possible level, now we must concentrate on the former.