Archive for category Training

Leadership: Adaptive Leader LLC–Leadership Training By Don Vandergriff

Oct 17

Posted by Matt in Leadership, Training | No Comments

Don illustrates how to use Outcomes Based Training & Education (OBT&E) and Adaptive Decision Games (ADGs) to teach and develop adaptability – shaping leaders and teams who achieve out-sized results and help continually evolve their organizations to thrive in the face of change and adversity.
Don began his work on personnel management and leader development with the question “How would John Boyd develop the kinds of leaders he saw as most effective?”

Wow, this is cool. Don Vandergriff is another outstanding John Boyd enthusiast that is actually applying his ideas to leadership training/consulting. This would be a fantastic training provider to look to if your company is looking to square away your management systems. (Or maybe your company could care less about leadership?….)

So who are Don’s clients so far? Well if you look at his client page, you will see a whole list of private and public organizations, to include the Army, Marines, and Navy SEALs. Check it out and definitely like them on Facebook or their other social networking sites they list. They also run a blog with an RSS feed. -Matt

Website for Adaptive Leadership here.

 

Adaptive Leader

Adaptive Leader focuses on helping you develop the right kind of leadership and decision making skills within your organization.
We are a world leader in the application of cutting edge Outcome Based Training and Education (OBT&E) having worked with the British Council, Johns Hopkins University, Wells Fargo, United States Army, the U.S Navy Seals, the Baltimore Police Department and many other large innovative organizations.
Our unique OBT&E model can be applied to a wide variety of areas to encourage rapid learning and extremely fast team cohesion. The process enables participants to develop leadership skills, moral courage and decision-making skills in a safe but pressured environment. All our workshops are completely interactive with participants fully engaged throughout.
Our unique application of the “After Action Review” tool allows us to craft customized Adaptive Decision Games based on a client’s own market place experiences; meaning your leaders and future leaders can be trained with your business as the case study.

Author, Innovator and Leading Thinking on the Development of Adaptive Leaders
Don Vandergriff has been quoted as an expert on leader development, personnel management and fourth generation warfare in publications ranging from the Washington Post, Inside the Pentagon, Army Times and The Atlantic Monthly, and his ideas featured in Harvard Business Review.
Don illustrates how to use Outcomes Based Training & Education (OBT&E) and Adaptive Decision Games (ADGs) to teach and develop adaptability – shaping leaders and teams who achieve out-sized results and help continually evolve their organizations to thrive in the face of change and adversity.
Don began his work on personnel management and leader development with the question “How would John Boyd develop the kinds of leaders he saw as most effective?”

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Iraq: Foreign Military Contractors Spearhead Effort To Train Iraqi Forces

May 17

Posted by Matt in Industry Talk, Iraq, Training | No Comments

“This is the model that Iraq is very comfortable with –low .U.S presence in uniform, a lotta contractors, and they’re getting the quality instruction, the quality training that they really need,” Lieutenant General Robert Caslen

Here is a quick story and update on some more contractor training programs in Iraq. But in this case, this is training that the Iraqis want and need.  Perhaps the Police Development Program that DoS is running should take some notes?

What is interesting is that the article listed some numbers.  Check it out.

But they left behind the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq (OSC-I), a group of about 157 military personnel under U.S. embassy authority, and some 600 civilian contractors, mostly retired soldiers.?They are working with the Iraqis on everything from training on new equipment, such as U.S. M113 armored personnel carriers and M1 Abrams tanks, to military education.

600 hundred contractors training the Iraqis? I imagine that figure includes support contractors as well, because for every trainer or soldier, there is the logistical support in the background that keeps them going. That is still impressive. But what is equally important is the public private partnership that is going on to make that happen. 157 military personnel are there, helping to implement this training and advising as well. -Matt

 

 

Foreign military contractors spearhead effort to train Iraqi forces
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Explosions throw up clouds of smoke near Iraqi soldiers with armored vehicles, who check for casualties, spot enemy forces in the desert ahead of them and then open fire.?But the blasts are only simulated artillery fire and the “enemy forces” are pop-up silhouette targets, not gunmen and vehicles.
That is just as well for these soldiers on a training exercise, as the puffs of dust kicked up by bullets downrange indicate that their aim is often off the mark.?An Iraqi company commander led his soldiers in the exercise at the massive Besmaya military base southeast of Baghdad, but it was a foreign contractor who controlled the scenario.?It was the contractor who ordered the targets raised and lowered amid the sounds made by .50 caliber machine guns on the armored vehicles and the chatter of M-16 rifles.?Contractors, who also assist soldiers in preparing for drills and with after-action reviews, are at the forefront of U.S. efforts to train Iraqi forces.?Negotiations on a post-2011 U.S. military training mission broke down last year over Iraqi reluctance to offer the trainers immunity from prosecution, and almost all American soldiers left the country last December.

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Iraq: Iraq Police Development Program–Will It Be Scrapped Or Just Reduced In Size?

May 14

Posted by Matt in Industry Talk, Iraq, Law Enforcement, Training | No Comments

The trainers are mostly retired state troopers and other law enforcement personnel on leave from their jobs back home, and a number of officials who criticized the program questioned what those trainers have to offer Iraqi police officials who have been operating in a war zone for years.
Mr. Perito said that the State Department never developed a suitable curriculum and that instead, advisers often “end up talking about their own experiences or tell war stories and it’s not relevant.”
Retired Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, now a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, who oversaw the training of Iraqi security forces from 2007 to 2008, said, “The evidence suggests that the State Department never really engaged the Iraqis to find out what they need and what they want.”

In an effort to ‘right size’ the US mission in Iraq, and adjust to Iraq’s desire to enforce their sovereignty, we are seeing an adjustment happening.  Which makes sense and is totally reasonable. It is the Iraqi’s show now, and it will be very difficult to sell them on a massive program that they think they do not need or even want.

Or, like the quote up top and what SIGIR identified in the report, that DoS should work a little harder at creating a curriculum or program that the Iraqis actually like and want more of. And that would take talking with them, and using some kind of metrics to determine what is working with the course, and what is not.(as SIGIR recommends)

Also, more work needs to be done to convince the police commanders and leaders of Iraq that courses like this actually do increase the effectiveness of their police. But that takes action, not words, and the service out in the field must be evaluated and surveys taken in order to get a feel for what is effective. That old Jundism of ‘get feedback’ comes to mind.

Another point was brought up in the article below that was interesting. And that is security for these police advisers in Iraq. With the military gone, the security these days for operations are contractors.

The Iraqis have also insisted that the training sessions be held at their own facilities, rather than American ones. But reflecting the mistrust that remains between Iraqi and American officials, the State Department’s security guards will not allow the trainers to establish set meeting times at Iraqi facilities, so as not to set a pattern for insurgents, who still sometimes infiltrate Iraq’s military and police.

So as Iraq hassles contractors, or as the Iraqis do a terrible job of securing places that these advisers might visit or the people they might train, that operations in this environment becomes very complex and dangerous. But it isn’t impossible, and security contractor will make it happen–just as long as DoS is working hard about the issue of how Iraqis treat security contractors.

If you are on this program and disagree with what was said in this NYT’s article or what was said in the SIGIR, definitely come up in the comments section and speak up. Also, if anyone at DoS wants to come up and speak about the program on this blog, by all means feel free to do so. Although DoS did make a public statement in regards to this article, and I posted that below along with the SIGIR report done last year about this program. -Matt 

 

U.S. May Scrap Costly Efforts to Train Iraqi Police
By TIM ARANGO
May 13, 2012
In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has slashed — and may jettison entirely by the end of the year — a multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here.
What was originally envisioned as a training cadre of about 350 American law enforcement officers was quickly scaled back to 190 and then to 100. The latest restructuring calls for 50 advisers, but most experts and even some State Department officials say even they may be withdrawn by the end of this year.
The training effort, which began in October and has already cost $500 million, was conceived of as the largest component of a mission billed as the most ambitious American aid effort since the Marshall Plan. Instead, it has emerged as the latest high-profile example of the waning American influence here following the military withdrawal, and it reflects a costly miscalculation on the part of American officials, who did not count on the Iraqi government to assert its sovereignty so aggressively.
“I think that with the departure of the military, the Iraqis decided to say, ‘O.K., how large is the American presence here?’ ” said James F. Jeffrey, the American ambassador to Iraq, in an interview. “How large should it be? How does this equate with our sovereignty? In various areas they obviously expressed some concerns.”

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Funny Stuff: Chinese Army Hand Grenade Fail!

Apr 13

Posted by Matt in China, Funny Stuff, Training, Video | No Comments

Probably the funniest and coolest part about this video is the instructor. He saves the soldier by pulling him into the trench, and then the soldier leaves after the explosion and the instructor goes right back to the ready line and squares it away. lol Now that is a dedicated instructor. -Matt

 

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Funny Stuff: Panteao Productions Make Ready Bloopers!

Sep 26

Posted by Matt in Funny Stuff, Training, Video | No Comments

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Leadership: CrossLead, By The McChrystal Group

Sep 23

Posted by Matt in Industry Talk, Leadership, Training | 1 Comment

Excellent. This is great news that General McChrystal has set up shop with a group like this. Not only that, but the type of leadership training he is providing is very unique and essential for our industry.

Here is the problem we face with today’s PMSC’s. How does corporate communicate and lead all of the various business units and elements of their company, when their company is dispersed globally?  Ideally, you would want everyone in the same room and once a day or once a week to discuss, analyze and synthesize the multitude of problems that the company faces.  But in our world, that just is not possible. And actually, for many of the large global corporations outside of our industry, this is their reality as well. The question is, how do you connect with your people, and lead a company that is spread all over the world?

So what the McChrystal Group has done here is to develop a leadership system called CrossLead that addresses this problem. How do you lead through an email? How do you inspire and connect with your people via video conferencing?  How do you set up your management teams and communications, and how do you leverage technology to actually be a good leader globally?  These are some tough questions, but if anyone has any insight as to how to do that, General McChrystal and his team have the experience to do so.

I think this is extremely valuable to PMSC’s, just because this Group understands the complexities of what it is we do. An example would be DynCorp, which has a massive army that includes everything from aviation mechanics and pilots, to police advisers and PSD specialists–just like today’s military.  A company like this operates all over the world, and in all of the war zones–just like today’s military. So to me, there is definitely something to be learned here by a master military tactician, leader, and strategist that knows how to leverage today’s technology to deliver the goods.

Below is some information from their website and definitely check out their Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube page for further information. At their Youtube page, you get a taste of some of the training and concepts, and I am sure they will release some stuff in the future. So it pays to subscribe. It also looks like they will be putting on one of their courses at Yale, and if you are interested in implementing CrossLead at your company, definitely give them a call. -Matt

 

 

Our Story
McChrystal Group is composed of leadership professionals with a shared background in service. From Navy SEALs to legislative and policy experts, the McChrystal Group brings a wealth of practical leadership experience in running multi-national, multi-agency, culturally diverse, and geographically dispersed organizations. From the battlefield to the boardroom, McChrystal Group has assembled the best leadership practices into a transformational leadership system called CrossLead.


The disciplined execution of CrossLead by a committed set of leaders will enable an organization to achieve the following results:
1. Dramatically improved shared consciousness and purpose
2. Faster and more inclusive decision-making
3. Better data and knowledge management
4. Rapid dissemination of best and worst practices
5. Optimized utilization of technology
6. Increased organizational transparency to enable accountability in execution

Development Programs
McChrystal Group will fully customize professional development programs to teach business executives and public leaders how to lead and organize networks in dynamic and challenging environments.
Single-day executive leadership program
These events are designed to discuss and relate CrossLead principles with an organization’s leadership team. The scope of work can range from a panel discussion with experienced professionals to facilitating an offsite engagement for key leaders.
Multi-day tailored executive leadership program
McChrystal Group will custom develop programs, including seminars and practical exercises that expose leaders to CrossLead mechanics and processes. The programs can range in size and can be hosted on site or at a destination location.
Comprehensive executive leadership development program
McChrystal Group will work with senior management to custom design a professional development program that challenges leaders to perform in tailored scenarios that best represent the unique requirements of their organization. This program will complement an organization’s professional development goals to include assessing individuals’ performance and potential, as well as team building through immersion in CrossLead principles, processes and mechanics.

Team
McChrystal Group is composed of leadership professionals with a shared background in service. From Navy SEALs to legislative and policy experts, McChrystal Group brings a wealth of practical leadership experience in running multi-national, multi-agency, culturally diverse, and geographically dispersed organizations. We are actively seeking the right people to join our growing team.

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