Stop - Think - Act: QMN042

Martial Mental Models: The Quartermaster, Friday, 21 June

(Today’s report is a 4 minute read)

BLUF: A slightly different format this Friday. In lieu of an essay/article, KSA rehashes a couple of articles regarding other aspects of SF decision-making and elite performance that we’ve been reading this week. 

KSA here. As we are all buried in work and I’m not sure any of you need to be subjected to my ruminations on the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count tool (LIWC, pronounced “Luke”), I’ll take this opportunity to provide a glimpse of some of the other stuff I’ve been looking at. 

KEEP YOUR REPTILIAN BRAIN IN CHECK WITH SMELL-L: Critical Thinking and SOF Decision Making: “Why does a Soldier make a decision that will ruin his career? Is his decision reflexive based on emotion, perception, bias or other motivation?” These are the questions posed by SGM Robert J. Burton in the April-June 2017 issue of Special Warfare magazine. Naturally, SGM Burton has a solution: the IDMP. “The natural reflexive process of decision making must be replaced with a deliberate, reflective process. A reflective process is necessary that is as rapid as its reflexive counterpart and provides an individual decision making process or IDMP. To take over any automatic thought processes that may be influenced by emotion, bias or other natural human filters, (every decision we will make) we have to STOP-THINK-ACT. (Emphasis ours) The IDMP provides the decision space necessary to step back from the problem and see it from a critical perspective. The IDMP can be broken down into its parts in the acronym SMELL-L: S - Safe, M - Moral, E - Ethical, L - Legal, L - Logical, and L - Lasting (second and third order effects). If we have a mechanism or warning light to stop and think for a moment, we can instantaneously redirect our cognitive process and engage the prefrontal cortex in making reflective decisions. The operator must think, is this the best decision with the information and time provided? Because no one wants a decision that stinks so apply SMELL-L!” (KSA)

GROWTH MINDSETS AND ELITE PERFORMERS: The Mindset of Performance Excellence “...the process through which one achieves elite performance is heavily studied. As such, one of the significant factors in achieving high performance is an ability to sustain engagement, partially attributable to three beliefs: a) that outcomes are within one's ability to influence; b) that the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) needed to perform well are perishable and need to be purposefully implemented for each performance and; c) that the technical and tactical KSAs needed are within the performer's control. Beliefs about one's own performance abilities and the abilities of others are interconnected in a variety of combinations that unintentionally filter how someone explains performance outcomes.” This is one reason why psychologists advise educators and parents not to attribute a child’s success to “being smart,” but rather to “working hard.” (KSA) 

DOOMED TO REPEAT: While Readers Gobble History Books, Colleges Shut Down History Departments (3 min) “To their shame, American universities have abandoned the task of cultivating a sense of common purpose, with ruinous consequences. Today, most Americans would quite literally fail the citizenship test. A 2019 study conducted by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation found that “only one state can pass the U.S. Citizenship exam” and that, nationally, only four in 10 demonstrate a basic understanding of American history.” (BJM)

VIDEO, REFS, PARENTS AND DECORUM: A 'crisis mode' at all levels: How technology put officials in a tough spot (16 min) "Officials are put on this huge pedestal of expectation that's unrealistic," Barlow said. "We are never going to be 100 percent accurate at any game at any level. Calm, cold rational people are quick to figure that out. It's the people that are entitled, it's the people that are needing complete validation on social networking or going to their job and bragging that their team won, those are the people that need to understand that this will be the case until we're replaced by robots. This is where we are, and we're ruining the experience for kids because of how we behave on the sideline. That's my biggest argument. As a parent, as a referee and as a coach, I simply want to say across the pitch, 'Shut up. Stop. This moment isn't yours. It's not your moment. Stop making it about you.'" (BJM)

CURRENTLY READING: The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle (KSA).

CURRENTLY THANKFUL FOR: Ashton Kutcher tweeting a link to The Quartermaster and for all of our readers, old and new.. I worked with/for Ashton from 2013 - 2016 on a number of projects, most notably A Plus, where I might have written an article or two. Because he’s one of the brightest, most driven and disciplined guys I know, I sent him a copy of The QMN and asked him what he thought of it. That he thought highly enough of it to recommend it publicly is no small compliment… and no small amount of pressure to make this better and better, which we will. Anyway: thank you to AK and to all of you who read, share, and find what we do valuable. (KSA)

Remarks Complete. Nothing Follows.

KS Anthony (KSA) & Brady Moore (BJM)