Ben Gallachers post “Enough talk - how do we professionally develop people?” causes some questions to trip off the tongue quickly; What is professional education or development? Is there to much talking and not enough doing? How do we start "doing" professional development. This blog offers answers to these questions. First, it reviews documents by Director General Training and Doctrine Command and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to understand what Professional Military Education aims to achieve. Then, rather than, rebut Gallacher's implicit challenge it describes Army's institutional approach to improve professional education and proposes a framework for unit PME.
Background
The Ryan Review is the Australian Army's most comprehensive work with regard to training, education and doctrine. It describes education as follows:
“In an Army context, education provides individuals with the enabling skills, knowledge and attributes necessary to undertake military tasks, and includes activities that aim at developing communication and thinking skills. Education develops thinking processes that allow trained individuals to make connections between their training and the situations in which they find themselves in order to apply the best course of action to the situation. Education broadens an individual’s horizons, allowing training to be assimilated more quickly and with greater understanding. Education helps develop individuals and leaders who can think, apply knowledge, solve problems under uncertain or ambiguous conditions, and communicate these solutions."
The Ryan Review as refers to a US Joint Chiefs Staff directive on Joint Professional Military Education that covers similar themes:
"In its broadest conception, education conveys general bodies of knowledge and develops habits of mind applicable to a broad spectrum of endeavours. Education fosters breadth of view, diverse perspectives, critical and reflective analysis, abstract reasoning, comfort with ambiguity and uncertainty, and innovative thinking, particularly with respect to complex, ill-structured or non-linear problems. This contrasts with training that focuses learning largely through the psychomotor domain on the instruction of personnel to enhance their capacity to perform specific functions and tasks. "
Although the language differs slightly, the two documents describe education as a means to develop critical thinkers, with wide perspectives who are comfortable with ambiguity. The challenge that Gallacher points to is what to do to produce these attributes. Other nations have advanced quickly to "do professional development" by democratising the academic component of PME. In 2001 the General Staff Headquarters of the People's Liberation Army and China Central Radio and TV University partnered in an effort to enhance the educational opportunities for NCOs. Seven years later the PLA announced that more than 20,000 NCOs had learnt undergraduate and associates degrees because of this partnership (PLA Daily, February 1). The UK Army has a system of funded academic qualifications, short courses, professional placements and military courses.
Change is also under way in the Australian Army through the Ryan Review which makes nine recommendations related to education. Progress towards these recommendations is monitored through DG TRADOC’s monthly SITREP. One of the outcomes will be a PME system that links academic qualifications, experience, and military courses with Command, Brigade and Unit PME. Outside of Army and FORCOMD HQ, the 1st, 3rd and 7th Brigades have implemented Brigade PME programs that attract high profile speakers, beyond the reach of unit funding, and offer insights into fields of endeavour outside of most of the attendees normal roles.
Below Brigade level the Ryan Review notes that Unit and Sub unit PME programmes are inconsistent. There are many reasons for this that are beyond this remit of this post to explore but what follows is a framework that seeks to promote wide perspectives and abstract thinking aligned with a unit's tasks. The framework should not be overly prescriptive because Army benefits from officers deriving their thinking skills and models through different pathways. This framework is applicable to all sub units, cells, directorates, anywhere there are leaders. PME should:
Be Led by the unit leader. PME cannot be delegated, its planning and execution are a command responsibility. Leaders drive the planning, preparation and execution of PME with written orders.
Be a blend of training and education. Army schools teach Officers and SNCO to execute Tactical Exercises Without Troops (TEWT) as a check that they have learnt the IMAP and understand tactical concepts; however TEWT can be used in ways different to this. TEWT are useful to teach wide perspective, critical thinking and comfort with ambiguity and they do so in a context familiar to the military professional. Some suggestions:
- Conduct TEWT at Corp or Division level, write the TEWT and demand outputs that force the participants to orient on political, economic and diplomatic factors. See Robert M Citino, The Path to Blitzkrieg, Doctrine and Training in the German Army 1920 - 39 for further ideas. If a tactical TEWT is not appropriate the group can develop and wargame solutions to a higher headquarters problem such as force generation. The key is to consider different perspectives and use a tool like a TEWT or wargame to practice critical thinking and reasoning.
- Conduct TEWT in tactical situations at the beginning and end of conflicts. At the beginning and end of conflict the relationship between the military and other components of national power is most apparent. These situations also present opportunities for Courses of Action beyond simple tactical questions of left or half left approaches. This approach is consistent with US Army efforts to educate officers on the continuous interplay of violence and politics.
- Promote wider thinking by conducting a TEWT as the enemy to allow the participants to use the weapons, cultural freedoms and tactics of "the other."
- Conduct TEWT in historical contexts other than the present.
Coach 21st Century leadership traits. Roger Noble says that the skills a modern officer needs are "listening, awareness, empathy and relentless curiosity." PME models that focus on academic work have few mechanisms to coach this behaviour. If officers and soldiers don’t have these skills, they need to be coached by their leaders to develop them. These skills can also developed through experiences and activities such training teams with other nations and activities to support indigenous communities or other components of society not as fortunate as most Australian Army Officers and Soldiers.
Mandate and check reading and writing. Reading widely and writing are both mechanisms to deliver PME and essential skills for military professionals. A PME program should specify reading and writing tasks and performance in these tasks should be recorded in annual performance appraisal reports. The PME program should provide support for those that struggle in these areas, this instruction may need to come from the leader if they are the more accomplished writer.
Continuously Introduce the Unknown. PME is more interesting and facilitates the development of broad perspectives when it exposes the participants to topics outside their experience. Three obvious ways to do this are intelligence updates that include a culture and society component; capability updates from other units (EW, UAV and Air Defence, Sense Warn Locate are novel to most in the combat brigades) and experts from other fields - Paul Green of the North Queensland Cowboys coach is a prime example of this.
Be a break from the everyday. It is implied that PME fosters a desire for the participants to continue learning in their own time - to do this PME should be interesting and break routine.
None of this is revolutionary - all of it is more work - and our reluctance to do this work remains the number one barrier to effective PME.
Blending Training and Education in Unit PME