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Adopting Mission Command: Developing Leaders for a Superior Command Culture
In September 2010, James G. Pierce, a retired U.S. Army colonel with the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, published a study on Army organizational culture. Pierce postulated that "the ability of a professional organization to develop future leaders in a manner that perpetuates readiness to cope with future environmental and internal uncertainty depends on organizational culture." He found that today's U.S. Army leadership "may be inadequately prepared to lead the profession toward future success."
The need to prepare for future success dovetails with the use of the concepts of mission command. This book offers up a set of recommendations, based on those mission command concepts, for adopting a superior command culture through education and training. Donald E. Vandergriff believes by implementing these recommendations across the Army, that other necessary and long-awaited reforms will take place.
The need to prepare for future success dovetails with the use of the concepts of mission command. This book offers up a set of recommendations, based on those mission command concepts, for adopting a superior command culture through education and training. Donald E. Vandergriff believes by implementing these recommendations across the Army, that other necessary and long-awaited reforms will take place.
328 pages, Hardcover
Published September 15, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 20, 2019
This book is the latest in a string of insightful and thought-provoking works by Don Vandergriff on the topic of professional leader development within the US military. I have read pretty much everything that Vandergriff has written, and "Adopting Mission Command" is a worthy exclamation point to the body of writing that he has produced since the early 2000s. In this book, the author brings together all of the threads of thought that he has traced over the past twenty or so years to craft not just an argument for comprehensive reform but an all-encompassing "how to" guide that is useful at every level, from senior officers to junior sergeants.
While nothing will ever top "Raising the Bar" for me (this was the one that gave me the initial exposure to many of hte basic themes and techniques that Vandergriff has long advocated), I think that "Adopting Mission Command" could rightly be considered his magnum opus. One can explore the historical roots of Auftragstaktik, the intellectual forerunner of what the US Army today calls "Mission Command," in the iniatial chapters of this book before proceeding to the more practical "how to" sections. Explanations of relevancy are ever-present, keeping the reader on the desired azimuth throughout the journey.
What I like best about "Adopting Mission Command" are the practical examples and from-the-field testimonials about the effectiveness of the techniques and approaches that Vandergriff advocates. This isn't just a work of theory - It is a fusing of theory with practice, with the balance rightly shifted toward practice considering the mountains of writing and studies that back up the "why" and the underlying theory.
At the time of ths publication, the Army is engaged with some significant efforts to reform our personnel system via its Talent Management Task Force. What is encouraging is that many of the reforms included in these efforts are the same (or similar) to what Vandergriff has advocated for nearly two decades. Of course, the devil is in the details - or, in this case, the real challenge lies in the implementation. We will not know how successful the Army's reform initiatives will be for several years, perhaps not until many of us are retired from service. Therefore, "Adopting Mission Command" could not have come at a better time to help sustain the campaign of would-be reformers and to help educate the rising generations of leaders about what the future can be.
I tore through this book in only a few nights of reading - Admittedly, I am already very familiar with much of the material and I was honored to read some early drafts of various portions of the book, so that helped to speed my progress. However, I think that any leader looking to realize the promise of Mission Command within their organization will find this to be a page-turner.
While nothing will ever top "Raising the Bar" for me (this was the one that gave me the initial exposure to many of hte basic themes and techniques that Vandergriff has long advocated), I think that "Adopting Mission Command" could rightly be considered his magnum opus. One can explore the historical roots of Auftragstaktik, the intellectual forerunner of what the US Army today calls "Mission Command," in the iniatial chapters of this book before proceeding to the more practical "how to" sections. Explanations of relevancy are ever-present, keeping the reader on the desired azimuth throughout the journey.
What I like best about "Adopting Mission Command" are the practical examples and from-the-field testimonials about the effectiveness of the techniques and approaches that Vandergriff advocates. This isn't just a work of theory - It is a fusing of theory with practice, with the balance rightly shifted toward practice considering the mountains of writing and studies that back up the "why" and the underlying theory.
At the time of ths publication, the Army is engaged with some significant efforts to reform our personnel system via its Talent Management Task Force. What is encouraging is that many of the reforms included in these efforts are the same (or similar) to what Vandergriff has advocated for nearly two decades. Of course, the devil is in the details - or, in this case, the real challenge lies in the implementation. We will not know how successful the Army's reform initiatives will be for several years, perhaps not until many of us are retired from service. Therefore, "Adopting Mission Command" could not have come at a better time to help sustain the campaign of would-be reformers and to help educate the rising generations of leaders about what the future can be.
I tore through this book in only a few nights of reading - Admittedly, I am already very familiar with much of the material and I was honored to read some early drafts of various portions of the book, so that helped to speed my progress. However, I think that any leader looking to realize the promise of Mission Command within their organization will find this to be a page-turner.
March 11, 2020
“The principle thing now is to increase the responsibilities of the individual man, particularly his independence of action, and thereby to increase the efficiency of the entire army...” -Hans Von Seeckt
Mr. Vandergriff provides a work that looks to transform the educational system within the Army with mentions of also the Marine Corps. This work is largely Army centric with small mentions of Marines throughout. My overall take on the book is the Army needs to reconstruct the educational process and system to instill initiative and Auftragstaktik. (Once you understand commander’s intent, you are responsible for using creativity and initiative to adapt to changing circumstances and achieve mission accomplishment).
I agree more needs to be done for the education of the men and women within the DoD, but as a Marine find many similarities to Mr. Vandergriff’s end state to how Marines capitalize on empowering Non-Commissioned officers currently (biased as I believe the USMC has best the NCO’s around).
The beauty of this work is he takes the time to explain the history, the method, and how the Army can improve the current system to create one best suited to meet the demands of the future battlefields. Very timely work indeed, and with the recent release of MCDP 7 & E4SP 2020 my hope is those in a position to remedy shortfalls annotated in this work take the steps to do so.
Mr. Vandergriff provides a work that looks to transform the educational system within the Army with mentions of also the Marine Corps. This work is largely Army centric with small mentions of Marines throughout. My overall take on the book is the Army needs to reconstruct the educational process and system to instill initiative and Auftragstaktik. (Once you understand commander’s intent, you are responsible for using creativity and initiative to adapt to changing circumstances and achieve mission accomplishment).
I agree more needs to be done for the education of the men and women within the DoD, but as a Marine find many similarities to Mr. Vandergriff’s end state to how Marines capitalize on empowering Non-Commissioned officers currently (biased as I believe the USMC has best the NCO’s around).
The beauty of this work is he takes the time to explain the history, the method, and how the Army can improve the current system to create one best suited to meet the demands of the future battlefields. Very timely work indeed, and with the recent release of MCDP 7 & E4SP 2020 my hope is those in a position to remedy shortfalls annotated in this work take the steps to do so.
December 30, 2019
In the U.S. Army we have an unfortunate affection for buzzwords: “sustainment,” “network-centric,” “Military Operations Other Than War,” “Hearts and Minds,” and “Interagency.” This is not to say that these words and phrases are not, or did not, have important meanings. Rather, the real depth of meaning is lost as some use the buzzword carelessly: “sustainment” when you simply mean “logistics,” “MOOTW” when you mean “peacekeeping,” and “interagency” when you are talking about “department of defense.” More often than not, “Mission Command” is used in the same way.
Mission Command is often conveyed as a new command relationship which sees the commanding general as almost a bystander, making pronouncements on what he wants his command to accomplish and then letting the commanders of the subordinate units figure out how to do it. While mission command allows more leeway to subordinate commanders and possibly more creative solutions to battlefield problems, there is more to the concept than that. Mr. Vandergriff takes the time to take the idea of Mission Command back to its roots and to lead us to its modern application.
According to Vandergriff, the origins of Mission Command can be traced back to its Prussian and German roots. Prussia, a small state by European standards nevertheless developed a very effective army, bolstered by efficient drill and Frederick the Great’s experiences in battle. Frederick recognized the need for regimental commanders to have initiative rather than simply form a line of battle and blindly obey orders as to whether that line advances, holds or retreats. The idea that subordinate commanders act on the senior commander’s behalf to accomplish the senior commander’s objectives was wedded to the principle that the leader on the ground best understood the true situation and that leaders of all echelons were needed to provide an example for the soldiers to follow. With the formation of the Imperial German Army this became auftragstaktik, a system which built on Prussian military culture but which also emphasized rapid decision-making.
Contrast this to the U.S. Army’s development. Mission Command describes the Army as a product of the industrial age: subordination of the individual soldier to the squad, the squad as part of the platoon, the platoon as part of the company, and so on and so on until you have an army and all its components. Each individual is trained on an assembly line to do the same specific job in the same specific way, each infantryman interchangeable with every other infantryman, each artilleryman interchangeable with every other artilleryman, and so on. In the machine age men are built in the same way as tanks and guns and trucks.
Leaders, also, have to be produced. Vandergriff argues that the officer education model used is inherently flawed because it is based on teaching a prewritten scenario with a definite “correct” answer. In real life there are no prewritten scenarios; even as we try to plan for contingencies those contingencies never unfold exactly as we plan. Also, there is no such thing as a single correct action… given actual resources and understanding of the environment one commander might come up with a solution to a problem that would be tackled in a completely different way by another commander with the exact same resources and in the same environment. But it’s not just not about different solutions that meet the same objective; fixed solutions prevent truly great leaders from coming up with brilliant solutions. Cookie-cutter training results in officers who are training to the test, not training to beat a thinking, learning enemy.
Vandergriff does not simply bemoan the state of the U.S. Army’s officer training program. Instead, he points to recent initiatives to break outside of the box: Adaptive Course Models to teach decision-making and Combat Applications Training Courses to teach soldier skills. He also points to the need to move away from the term “instructor” and use the word “teacher.” The role of teacher should be assessed as an important one and given the same recognition as other military skills.
I was surprised to find no mention of the Mission Command Training Program nor of the Mission Command Center of Excellence. Certainly in discussing the adoption of the principles of Mission Command it would be necessary to include the organizations which train for them and implement them. However, there is certainly much to think about in Mission Command and I agree with many of the issues the author brought forth. For Mission Command to be a success, training must mesh with philosophy.
Mission Command is often conveyed as a new command relationship which sees the commanding general as almost a bystander, making pronouncements on what he wants his command to accomplish and then letting the commanders of the subordinate units figure out how to do it. While mission command allows more leeway to subordinate commanders and possibly more creative solutions to battlefield problems, there is more to the concept than that. Mr. Vandergriff takes the time to take the idea of Mission Command back to its roots and to lead us to its modern application.
According to Vandergriff, the origins of Mission Command can be traced back to its Prussian and German roots. Prussia, a small state by European standards nevertheless developed a very effective army, bolstered by efficient drill and Frederick the Great’s experiences in battle. Frederick recognized the need for regimental commanders to have initiative rather than simply form a line of battle and blindly obey orders as to whether that line advances, holds or retreats. The idea that subordinate commanders act on the senior commander’s behalf to accomplish the senior commander’s objectives was wedded to the principle that the leader on the ground best understood the true situation and that leaders of all echelons were needed to provide an example for the soldiers to follow. With the formation of the Imperial German Army this became auftragstaktik, a system which built on Prussian military culture but which also emphasized rapid decision-making.
Contrast this to the U.S. Army’s development. Mission Command describes the Army as a product of the industrial age: subordination of the individual soldier to the squad, the squad as part of the platoon, the platoon as part of the company, and so on and so on until you have an army and all its components. Each individual is trained on an assembly line to do the same specific job in the same specific way, each infantryman interchangeable with every other infantryman, each artilleryman interchangeable with every other artilleryman, and so on. In the machine age men are built in the same way as tanks and guns and trucks.
Leaders, also, have to be produced. Vandergriff argues that the officer education model used is inherently flawed because it is based on teaching a prewritten scenario with a definite “correct” answer. In real life there are no prewritten scenarios; even as we try to plan for contingencies those contingencies never unfold exactly as we plan. Also, there is no such thing as a single correct action… given actual resources and understanding of the environment one commander might come up with a solution to a problem that would be tackled in a completely different way by another commander with the exact same resources and in the same environment. But it’s not just not about different solutions that meet the same objective; fixed solutions prevent truly great leaders from coming up with brilliant solutions. Cookie-cutter training results in officers who are training to the test, not training to beat a thinking, learning enemy.
Vandergriff does not simply bemoan the state of the U.S. Army’s officer training program. Instead, he points to recent initiatives to break outside of the box: Adaptive Course Models to teach decision-making and Combat Applications Training Courses to teach soldier skills. He also points to the need to move away from the term “instructor” and use the word “teacher.” The role of teacher should be assessed as an important one and given the same recognition as other military skills.
I was surprised to find no mention of the Mission Command Training Program nor of the Mission Command Center of Excellence. Certainly in discussing the adoption of the principles of Mission Command it would be necessary to include the organizations which train for them and implement them. However, there is certainly much to think about in Mission Command and I agree with many of the issues the author brought forth. For Mission Command to be a success, training must mesh with philosophy.
November 9, 2019
Author, former Marine and retired Army officer, Donald E. Vandergriff has hit a homer with his book, “Adopting Mission Command—Developing Leaders for a Superior Command Culture.” As a retired USAF Lt. Col., I began reading this book wondering if his insights into Army battlefield adaptability could and would cross services to mirror what we faced in my Air Force training environment. I was extremely impressed with how well this book was researched and written, and notably surprised at how adaptability weaves its way throughout both services. Three of the many takeaways that I want to highlight are listed here:
1. Rote memorization is no longer enough to produce the kind of soldier (service member) required for today’s complicated challenges.
2. His synopsis of Boyd’s OODA loop transcends across all services. The side in a conflict that executes the OODA loop more effectively gains an advantage because it forces the opponent into reaction mode. Amen.
3. The book covers the transformation to “Outcomes-based Training.” What we’ve learned, and many already knew is that service members must be able to figure things out on their own. That’s not written in any checklist and is a difficult concept to teach.
Finally, all aspiring leaders should order and read this book because it proves that overall, there is a rhetoric about adaptability. Just using the word adaptability in a PowerPoint presentation doesn’t cut it. The author presents a conflict between rhetoric and reality. He addresses the why and the how but now it’s up to our future leaders to start changing the culture now. We must retain and promote the right people today to deal with adaptability problems on future battlefields. I only wish I could have read this book before attending my Professional Military Education (PME) classes back in the day. I recommend to any leader, future leader or potential leader (both military and civilian) that you order and read this book today. I guarantee you’ll reference it for the rest of your career.
Ken Murray, Author, "On Parr”
1. Rote memorization is no longer enough to produce the kind of soldier (service member) required for today’s complicated challenges.
2. His synopsis of Boyd’s OODA loop transcends across all services. The side in a conflict that executes the OODA loop more effectively gains an advantage because it forces the opponent into reaction mode. Amen.
3. The book covers the transformation to “Outcomes-based Training.” What we’ve learned, and many already knew is that service members must be able to figure things out on their own. That’s not written in any checklist and is a difficult concept to teach.
Finally, all aspiring leaders should order and read this book because it proves that overall, there is a rhetoric about adaptability. Just using the word adaptability in a PowerPoint presentation doesn’t cut it. The author presents a conflict between rhetoric and reality. He addresses the why and the how but now it’s up to our future leaders to start changing the culture now. We must retain and promote the right people today to deal with adaptability problems on future battlefields. I only wish I could have read this book before attending my Professional Military Education (PME) classes back in the day. I recommend to any leader, future leader or potential leader (both military and civilian) that you order and read this book today. I guarantee you’ll reference it for the rest of your career.
Ken Murray, Author, "On Parr”
May 1, 2023
In 2007, I became a serious student of decision-making, especially in the area of rapid, tactical decision-making as it applies to the fire service. That same year, I also began to study John Boyd's OODA Loop (observe, orient, decide, act) and Auftragstaktik, both are topics that Vendergriff discusses.
Although this book is directed towards military practitioners, the information contained within the covers applies to both the fire service and law enforcement, and individuals in both professions would do well to read this work.
Although this book is directed towards military practitioners, the information contained within the covers applies to both the fire service and law enforcement, and individuals in both professions would do well to read this work.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews