Pragmatic Euphony  

The problems plaguing the Indian defence services are too well-known to be recounted ad infinitum. Grappling to find the answers to the two most pressing problems of recruiting and retention, this blogger was directed to Don Vandergriff’s blog [hat tip - Nitin Pai]. Although written primarily for the US army, Donald Vandergriff’s forthcoming book Military Recruiting: Finding and Preparing Future Soldiers ought to provide answers to many questions that engulf the Indian defence services today. Read the description of the book, which emphasises the temporal mismatch lying at the heart of the crises engulfing the Indian defence services.

The Industrial Age model continues to shape the way the Army approaches its recruiting, personnel management, training and education. Consequently, the Army’s personnel management paradigm – designed for an earlier era – has been so intimately tied to the maintenance of current Army culture that a self-perpetuating cycle has formed that diminishes the Army’s attempts at developing adaptive leaders and institutions. This cycle can only be broken if the Army accepts rapid evolutionary change as the norm of the new era. Simply recruiting the right people, and then having them step into an antiquated organization means that many of these people will not stay as they come into conflict with the premise of responsibility with authority, but instead their ability to contribute and develop is limited by the nature of a top down, centralized Industrial-Age and hierarchal organization. Today, recruiting and retention data bear this out.

The Army force structure and personnel system in place today evolved from one that worked to support the nation’s mobilization doctrine. Several factors have combined to force the Army to think about the way it develops and nurtures its leaders. Continual modifications to today’s paradigm may not be enough. The U.S. Army still “thinks” and “acts” from an Industrial-Age, mobilization doctrine-based leader development paradigm more than 18 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Industrial Age approach continues to influence the way the Army approaches its recruiting, manning, training and education despite advances in all the before hand mentioned areas. The Army has to do more than post rhetoric about “adaptability” on briefing slides and in literature. The Army’s personnel system designed for an earlier era are so intimately tied to the maintenance of Army culture that they form a self-perpetuating cycle that will diminish and even prevent the Army from becoming an adaptive organization unless it accepts rapid evolutionary change as the norm of the new era. One cannot divorce how the Army accesses, promotes, and selects its leaders from its leader development paradigm. The Army cannot expect to create leaders that grasp and practice adaptability and then after graduation enter an Army that is not adaptive or nurtures innovation. The Army culture must become adaptive and the personnel system evolves into one that nurtures adaptability in its policies, practices, and beliefs.