A fellow student was researching the relationship between education and promotion within the Army, so I wrote him this quick reflection: its very true that military promotions are multi-variable; explicitly we consider the whole person concept. Education IS a factor, but only up to a point Examples: 1. enlisted soldiers get promoted based on […]
Tag: paradigms
4 Reflections on Design
4 Reflections on “Design” that are guiding my inquiry, inspired by thought provoking article and commentary at the School for Advanced Military Studies, which is engaged in deep think on the entire military decision making model: 1. The challenge of codifying artful design. I am trying to integrate these 2 statements from the article; It […]
Reflecting on Mentoring and counseling
the faculty i respect the most at our college are the ones who voluntarily take on the challenge of being a faculty advisor and engage the students in one on one educational and career counseling. there is a move afoot in the Army to formalize and systematize the mentoring “program” across the force, and I […]
Designing education for uncertainty
Being comfortable with being uncomfortable is turning out to be an essential element of our curriculum. Our officers are routinely being put into situations where their training is not helpful or where it can even be counterproductive. They’ll have to rely on the principles we have educated them on (rather than training) and their own […]
Cultural context in qualitative research: can it even be done?
A “critical friend” in the action research process is a trusted agent who gives deep insights from the outside into the nature, quality, and path of your introspection. They help keep you grounded, and offer triangulation points in the sense-making process as you grapple with your own questions and insights. They act as sounding […]
Blogs and democratization within hierarchical organizations
an update on “giving voice to important matters” after we briefed him on the power of blogging, our commandant, the senior military officer in charge of the college has embraced the idea and has started asking provocative questions about the future of the college’s curriculum and modes of instruction. Students and faculty are starting to […]
PAR Journal entry: initiating the “Force generation” project
this is the text of an info paper I wrote for our Deputy Commandant to send to the 3 and 4 star generals in charge of Army leader education and training. It describes the motivation for and purpose of our inquiry into “the education gap of force generation”, and lays out a methodology and strategy […]
College, teach thyself?
My commentary from a discussion thread at the CAC blogs on the topic of General Officers education and selection. I am interested in how we improve the capability of the college to support life long learningi nour student officers (and faculty). I argue that our college should be as flexible as the organizations we are […]
The right way to get out of debt from Bridgewater Associates
says it nicely in few words: not harsh, or only as harsh as capitalism itself, from Bridgewater Associates: “There is no easy way out of a debt restructuring. Someone will have to bear the cost of prior bad decisions. The people who should bear the cost are those who made the bad decisions to make […]
Reflecting on personal learning environments: teacher as model student
At the last CTU residency, on the last day my breakthrough insight was to approach the research question on leader curriculum development at the Command and General Staff College from the perspective of giving voice to the students, who are professional military officers operating at the graduate level and fresh from combat experience in Iraq […]