Three Revolutions: From Training to Learning and Team Building

TO PREPARE a video program titled All We Could Be, I interviewed Army leaders about the rebuilding of the Army that occurred from the time of the Vietnam war to Operation Desert Storm. (1) We discussed doctrine, training, leader development, organization, materiel, and soldiers (DTLOMS). While most agreed that the change in Army DTLOMS during this period was evolutionary, all believed that the changes in training were revolutionary. Either the training changes or the improved quality of personnel in the all-volunteer force was the dominant influence in the Army's successful transformation after Vietnam. There has been ample focus on the recruitment of quality soldiers that has led to the individual competence associated routinely with today's special operations forces (SOF). Leaders have not discussed the training dimension as much as they have discussed the value of quality personnel. Yet, it is training that produces quality soldiers. Change in training has accelerated since Operation Desert Storm. The Army is now passing through an impressive second training revolution and is poised to launch a third that will be more important at every level (strategic, operational, and tactical) than the preceding two. The second revolution enlarged development and emerging institutionalization from training to education. Now there is potential expansion from traditional learning to effective, efficient learning and teaching for individuals, teams, and perhaps, units. The expansion will also build and sustain high-performing teams of leaders across the range of America's Army, including joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational (JIIM) organizations. The First Training Revolution The training revolution began in the 1970s when the emerging U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) advanced the following deceptively simple propositions: * Conduct performance-oriented training; soldiers train best by doing. * Train to task, condition, and standard (TCS); this is the systems approach to training. * Realize that all training is evaluation, and all evaluation is training. These propositions, which spawned an enormous effort to define individual and collective tasks, provided the basis for soldier training and evaluation products that range from soldier manuals to Army training and evaluation programs. Conduct performance-oriented training. In the 1980s, the Navy's successful Top Gun fighter training program inspired the creation of the National Training Center (NTC) as the first of the combat training centers (CTC). Planners also developed an innovative individual and collective training model and sought ways to better distribute training support to soldiers in traits. These efforts were successful beyond TRADOC's original expectations and had revolutionary effects on Army readiness. Training to task, condition, and standard. Well-defined, common training requirements drew the active force and reserve forces together by establishing uniform training requirements and assessment across the total force. Soldiers and officers were uniformly trained in their military occupational specialties and officer specialty codes, respectively. This was an enormous benefit to unit leaders in a globally deployed force. The rigor permitted fair, unbiased assessment of individual task proficiency. TCS was of great value in implementing equal-opportunity programs. Either a soldier performed to TCS, or he did not. If he did, he was rewarded. If he did not, he was out. This standard applied to Active Component (AC) and Reserve Component (RC) soldiers. Without such accepted assessment tools, the Army might not have been able to introduce equal opportunity as rapidly as it did, given America's litigious society. The component parts of the CTC model are observer/controllers (OCs), an opposing force (OPFOR), the after action review (AAR), and an accurate instrumentation system. …