Civc Engagement Model Training

Handout: “Commander’s Intent” Throughout this document, we will utilize the term, “Commander’s Intent,” popularized in the book, Made to Stick. This term has its basis in the United States Army. The Army used to provide detailed plans for each level of hierarchy, from generals to foot soldiers. If the objective for a mission was to take control of a hill, the old Army plans would describe each tactic in detail – set up a perimeter at 0400 hours; attack at 0600 hours; take the midway point at 0700 hours, etc. This detailed level of planning gave rise to another Army truism – “no plan survives contact with the enemy.” The Army is now utilizing a “commander’s intent” for each mission – a plain English, simple, singular objective for the mission. The commander’s intent is the clear outcome desired – to take control of the hill. The term is meant to create universal and crystal clarity about the outcome desired, understanding that specific strategies and tactics will shift based on changing conditions.

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Handout: Lao Tzu Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching Simplicity See Simplicity in the complicated. Achieve greatness in little things. Agility Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle. A tree that is unbending is easily broken. Discipline A tree as great as a man’s embrace springs from a small shoot; A terrace nine stories high begins with a pile of earth; A journey of a thousand miles starts under one’s feet.

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 Handout: Shane Battier The No-Stats All-Star Michael Lewis, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, February 15, 2009 “Here we have a basketball mystery: a player is widely regarded inside the N.B.A. as, at best, a replaceable cog in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win….as [Darryl] Morey [from the Houston Rockets] puts it, "He can't dribble, he's slow and hasn't got much body control." What he will say, however, is that the big challenge on any basketball court is to measure the right things. …. For most of its history basketball has measured not so much what is important as what is easy to measure — points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots — and these measurements have warped perceptions of the game…[But] How many points a player scores, for example, is no true indication of how much he has helped his team.

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Handout: Genghis Khan Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Jack Weatherford. 2004, Three Rivers Press. Pages 233-234: Without deep cultural preferences in these areas, the Mongols implemented pragmatic rather than ideological solutions. They searched for what worked best; and when they found it, they spread it to other countries. They did not have to worry whether their astronomy agreed with precepts of the Bible, that their standards of writing followed the classical principles taught by the Mandarins of China, or that Muslim imams disapproved of their printing and painting. The Mongols had the power, at least temporarily, to impose new international systems of technology, agriculture and knowledge that superseded the predilections or prejudices of any single civilization; and in so doing, they broke the monopoly on thought exercised by local elites.”

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