Mission command is nice but I suspect we are indeed only paying it lip service

By Richard Buchanan


Best Defense office of mission
command

In 1993, when I left the Army
as a CWO (HUMINT/CI) myself and another CWO (Order of Battle) were training 7th
Infantry Light non-MI personnel on MI skill sets using a hand-jammed two-week
NEO scenario exercising against Abu Sayfeh. Down right counter guerrilla if you
ask me as we were using my Special Forces Vietnam experience to frame the scenario.
Bottom line up front -- if a light fighter is trained well in his infantry
skill sets counter-guerrilla operations are not a problem -- it was true in
1993 and it is just true in 2012 so why did we have to create COIN?

We were actually breaking
ground in 1993 by creating the CoIST and DATE concepts years before they became
standard terms. The MI Center in Ft. Huachuca was interested in the scenario
and concepts of our version of CoIST/DATE, but came to the decision that
guerrilla warfare was where the Force was not heading so they basically canned
what had been provided to them.

I then left the Force and
moved into the IT world of ATT and Cisco where for years we spoke using the IT
slogan "people, processes, tools" long before the Army broke into the G/S6
world.

Now 29 years later the Army
has "people, processes and tools" -- People is a PME system generating Cmdrs
and Staffs, Processes is Science of Control, and Tools is multiple mission
command systems.

I recently meet (after 29 years)
that same retired CWO who has as a retiree done his rotations to Iraq and
Afghanistan and just as I am he is still trying to educate the Force. When we
met we simply smiled and almost at the same time said "boy did we get it right
29 years ago" and then compared notes on what has been working and what is
failing since 1993. There are not many of us greybeards still out there working
with the Force -- and still the Force does not "listen."

So Tom's recent question ("Mission command is nice but what will commanders
actually practice it?") caused me to go
back and give it some serious thought as mission command is really something
some of us have been where possible practicing since 1993.

The question of how do we
facilitate mission command training in a Force that is centrically singularly
focused on mission command systems is a valid concern and yes one might in fact
think the Force is only paying lip service. Processes and tools are simple to
understand/control -- but the Art of Command is all about Leadership and right
now "Leadership" in the Force is a "black art."

The fuzzy "black art" thing we
call Art of Command with the equally warm and fuzzy terms of team building,
open dialogue in a fear free environment, and TRUST is the elephant in the room
that everyone wants to ignore. It is ignored in the AARs coming out of the DATE
exercises, it is ignored by MCTP AARs, it is ignored in Staff training
exercises and the list goes on.

WHY? The answer is easy -- not
many are comfortable and confident with themselves in the areas of Trust and
open dialogue or they have had negative experiences with these terms. Trust and
dialogue are hard to mentor day to day in the current Force.

Has anyone recently seen in
any CTC AAR or in any MCTP AAR a section on Trust? Meaning, was Trust being
demonstrated within the Staff or between the Cmdr and his Staff, a section on
how was dialogue being handled within the Staff or what the Cmdr's leadership
style was? That is, did it contribute to team building or did it push dialogue
and or contribute to trust being developed in his unit? Or was there ease in
the way the NCOs and Officers worked with each other. Or was failure tolerated
and learned from with the Cmdr leading the way in the lessons learned by a
failure?

Has anyone recently seen a CTC
AAR or a MCTP AAR speak out about the quality of the Cmdrs Mission Orders to
his subordinates (was it clear/concise) or did they speak about the quality of
the Commanders Intent -- two critical core elements in the "Art of Command"? Or
did the OCs speak about his and his Staff's micromanagement?

What is inherently missing is
a clear strong Army senior leadership emphasis on Leadership in the current
group of O5/6s and one/two Stars. Leadership that develops the team,
develops/fosters open dialogue and fosters Trust. If junior officers see that
emphasis in their daily routines then it becomes second nature to them -- right
now not many O5/6s are leading by example. We have way too few "truth seekers"
in the current O5/6 and one/two Star ranks.

In some aspects the necessity
for mission command (Art of Command and Science of Control-the processes not
the systems) has been articulated in ADP/ADRP 6.0, in the concept of "hybrid
threat" TC 7-100, in the doctrinal thinking behind Capstone 2012, and anchored
in the new DATE scenarios that are now standardized at the CTCs.

With the future of the Army
training being refocused on hybrid threats tied to DATE training exercises the
"Art of Command" is the key in moving forward. If the Cmdr has built his team
using the elements of Trust and open dialogue there is no "hybrid threat"
scenario that cannot be mastered by an agile and adaptive Cmdr/Staff.

In addition the concept of
"Design" then starts to make sense and just maybe we can move into a open
debate about whether the current decision making process MDMP makes sense in a
"hybrid threat environment" or should it be replaced by a different problem
solving process which actually "Design" and "mission command" demands.

Or as a recent article in
Tom's blog put it, "I am leaving the Corps because it doesn't much value
ideas." It is not only the Army that is having Trust issues. We are losing the
"best and the brightest" simply because senior leaders are not serious about a
"Leadership" that builds teams, fosters dialogue, and Trust.

Richard
Buchanan is mission command training facilitator with the JMTC/JMSC
Grafenwoehr, Germany training staffs in the areas of mission command,
MDMP/NATO Planning Processes, MDMP/Design, and Command Post Operations.
From 2006 to 2008, he rebuilt as HUMINT SME together with the Commander
Operations Group (COG) National Training Center (NTC) the CTC training
scenario to reflect Diyala Province. From 2008 to 2009, he introduced
as a Forensics SME into the NTC training scenario the first ever battlefield
forensics initially for multifunctional teams and then BCTs. From 2010 to 2012,
he trained staffs in the targeting process as tied to the ISR planning process
as they are integrated in the MDMP process. The opinions here are his own and
not those of U.S. Army Europe, the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, the
U.S. government, nor even the shattered remains of the once-proud New York
Jets.