Learning Infrastructure (U.S. Army Model)

A PIONEER IN LEARNING INFRASTRUCTURES

We have learned the most about learning infrastructures from the U.S. Army, a long-time strategic partner in the SoL network. I have seen no corporation with comparable sophistication in this area. For the Army, learning infrastructure includes:

• Training and Formal Education: this includes entry-level training institutions like the Military Academy at West Point all the way up to the Army War College, where colonels go for twelvemonth educational programs prior to being promoted to the most senior positions.
• Practice: ways that various types of simulations (computer-based and physical) are carried out and tools like After Action Reviews (AARs) are used to debrief and learn from simulated experience. This category includes institutions like the National Training Center, where large-scale multiple-day simulations are carried out.
• Research: study of real and simulated engagements to analyze successful and unsuccessful practices; includes institutions like the Army Center for Lessons Learned, which is responsible for distilling insights and lessons to shape future education and training, new simulation practices, and ultimately doctrine.
• Doctrine: the highest level of policy, articulating core assumptions and beliefs about successful command; this is the responsibility of the Office for Doctrine, directed by one of the most senior generals.

In many ways, the Army’s continual investment in learning infrastructure rests on a deep conviction in learning the lessons from history. For several years, the Army Chief of Staff hosted executives from SoL companies for a walking tour of the Gettysburg battlefield, guided by the Army’s “chief historian.” Two things immediately struck the corporate people about this: the fact that there was such a role and that the person in it held the rank of general, as has often been the case since the role’s inception. As we walked and talked, it became apparent that the other Army officers in the group also had a deep knowledge of details of the famous Gettysburg battle (widely seen as a turning point in the U.S. Civil War), and that they could quickly relate the lessons from that battle to current challenges they faced. This was no academic history, but a rather stunning example of “oral history” that had deep meaning for people. The officers knew the stories of individuals who had led different skirmishes, and who had been injured or died in particular places (over 60,000 perished as a result of the three-day battle). This history was personal, connecting directly to their own experience as commanders and soldiers, and to the costs of mistakes in judgment or execution—and the imperative to learn.

Most of the executives leave this experience with an acute sense that learning requires much more than good intentions and a few tools. It has to become deeply embedded in the fabric of how an organization works if it is to have a real impact. Many conclude that it borders on dereliction that their organizations invest so few resources in studying what has succeeded and failed in their past strategies, operational changes, and leadership approaches. Instead, they more or less “make it up as they go along,” with little serious theory to guide leaders at different levels. It’s no wonder that a new CEO typically sees his or her job as pushing a whole new strategy, almost as if there were no history.