Adaptive Thinking, Resilient Behavior
Influence. Knowing how to persuade others is critical for someone seeking to effect change. If you do not have line 
authority, how else but through influence can you succeed? Your influence is based on credibility, but also on your proven ability to get things done. Sometimes persuasion comes down to an ability to sweet talk the higher ups as well as put a bit of muscle on colleagues (nicely of course) in order push your initiative through.
Respect. Mavericks, which GM said it was looking for, may not always be the most easiest people to get along with on a daily basis. After all, they are ones seeking to buck the system. But mavericks who succeed are ones who have the best interests of the organization at heart and in time earn the respect of thier colleagues.
One maverick I know who has been pushing to change the way the U.S. Army trains and promotes its officer corps is Don Vandergriff. A former Army major and twice named ROTC instructor of the year while at Georgetown, Vandergriff has tirelessly badgered the Army’s senior leadership to institute changes that would recognize and promote officers who knew how to lead from the middle.
And now, after more than a decade of his writing and teaching, it is paying off. West Point has become the latest but perhaps the most prestigious Army institution to teach principles of adaptive decision making that Don developed. Many of Don’s students have implemented such lessons successfully under combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Read the rest here.
Don’s methods excel at getting students to think creatively under the constraints of limited information, situational uncertainty and time pressure ( making the cognitive effect somewhat akin to the effects produced by the Socratic method and complex game playing).
ADDENDUM:
This would also be a suitable post to remind readers that Dr. Chet Richards has moved his blogging operations to a new site, Fast Transients.
Adjust your favorites and blogrolls accordingly.
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Fred Leland:
April 20th, 2010 at 11:20 am
Great post, references and examples of PEOPLE getting IT done!
zen:
April 21st, 2010 at 4:08 am
Hi Fred,
.
Much thanks. It is good to see Don getting the recognition he deserves!
Visitor:
April 21st, 2010 at 4:55 am
Sounds like Don has tried to persuade the US Military to start using a X Management Theory and has sweetened it up by utilizing von Hammer techniques to help install these middle management changes and made it his own training manuel! You mean they don’t provide management / empowerment training for field grade / high-level company grade officers?… Probably the reason Don left the DoD as a Major? He really stuck it out didn’t he? He teach the class on how to resign your commission in ROTC Training at G-Town also? Perhaps… This isn’t anything, cutting edge and I’m sure the Pentagon will be resistant, as DoD is primarily a Y Theory Operation / its the Model of all Model’s. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Don doing a few seminars and then some General shutting this down. Good ideas, its just that The Machine doesn’t like changes.
zen:
April 21st, 2010 at 5:12 am
As I heard it live from Don, William Lind was partly responsible for Vandergriff’s abrupt change of career. You can ask him about it directly at his blog though.
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As for "new", the Socratic method is, hmmm, 2400 years old. Seldom used, but still works! 🙂
Fred Leland:
April 21st, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Zen I aggree Don is making great inroads and taking the Adaptive Leadership Methodology to a level that bredds decison makers, not seen in my humble opinion.
It was not seen in the military when I was in where certain grades of frontline personnel were told they "DID NOT GET PAID TO THINK" to my last 25 years in law enforcement where the same mentality of "wait for me (The so called LEADER) to decide" is still practiced.
The cutting edge part of the equation in Don’s methodology is in the way that learning is brought out and facilitated through learning, unlearning and relearning, that develops confident decison makers who possess strength of character. This breeds much, much better performance in problem solving, including in hostile dynamic situations. Through using people, their insights and inovation while they interact with the environment.
Quite frankly ALM breeds EXCELLENCE in performance and thankfully there are those like Don out there spreading the word! Look around at the security situation at home and abroad…its obvious we need DECISION MAKERS!