Navigation, the Mind, and Culture: QMN056
Martial Mental Models: The Quartermaster, Monday, 19 August
(This week’s report is an 11 minute read)
NOTICE: This week’s report features former Green Beret Herb Thompson explaining some of his work as a US Army Drill Sergeant. Herb’s now a Cornell Executive MBA Candidate and a consultant with Accenture. And he’s taught more people than you or I ever will. (BJM)
BLUF: GPS is incredibly capable (usually) and via a smartphone incredibly convenient. The problem is that like so many other smartphone-delivered conveniences, we seem to have adopted them into our day-to-day lives unthinkingly and thereby invited in all the bad with the good without a second thought. The part of the brain that allows us to orient in space, recall events from the past (episodic memory) as well as the ability to imagine ourselves in the future - shrinks when it isn’t used. And people with deep roots around the world are relearning the old ways of navigation as a matter of culture - where modern technology fails us. After learning all this I think I’ll be trying to put the GPS away a lot more often - and you might too.
Brady here. In the fall of 2006 I had the pleasure of testing my land navigation skills on Camp Mackall’s Star Course - the legendary patch of Carolina pine and sand just north of the Rockingham Speedway and southwest of Pinehurst golf resort. Land navigation is a key component of just about every major combat-focused qualification course in the US Army and typically involves using a 1:50,000 map, a military protractor, and a lensatic compass to find given points at remote spots in the woods on a timed course (Brett McKay at Art of Manliness does a pretty good step-by-step of how this all works between the tools). Most Army land navigation courses give out a number of points at the beginning and let the tester determining the best sequence for finding them. The Star Course is a one-by-one event- you get one point at a time and there’s a “point sitter” at each one ready to give you your next point. That means in the process if you have difficulty finding one of your points, that could be as far as you get that day. Having completed land navigation courses in South Carolina, Georgia, Upstate New York and Washington state, I could say that the Star Course was the most difficult in terms of distance, time, and density of vegetation (actually a major factor in difficulty) I'd ever come across. I covered dozens and dozens of miles looking for those points, day and night, in 2006. I don't know how I made it to some of them, looking back.
The Army uses land navigation as a test for a few reasons- first it’s an individual event - every tester’s got to get by on individual skill. Second there's a ton of variability - each tester’s got to make it through the forest on their own. Third, you have to take what you're seeing on instruments and paper and relate it to the real world in real time. It's a cognitive competence test and most courses don't give you much time to practice. It’s easy to panic and get lost (especially when it’s a night course) - so successful candidates have to keep their wits about them the whole time.
What I didn't realize then that I'm starting to realize now is that this practice of land navigation was forming my mind and thoughts in a certain way - a way that I've likely lost after a decade of using Google Maps for navigation on my iPhone. As Maura O'Connor notes in her new book Wayfinding, and a Washington Post article she recently wrote, the hippocampus - the part of the brain that allows us to orient in space, recall events from the past (episodic memory) as well as the ability to imagine ourselves in the future - shrinks when it isn’t used. She also notes that atrophy in that part of the brain is linked to post-traumatic stress disorder and Alzheimer’s disease. It seems not using a map isn’t just affecting how I think today - it can affect my thoughts well into the future. By not using my brain, I’m allowing it to wither.
And it’s not just me - O’Connor notes that in 2008 only 8% of smartphone users were getting directions from apps like Google Maps - by 2014 that number was 81%. Are we setting ourselves up for a less-cognitively-capable society by relying so much on GPS, in such a widespread way?
And more than just the mind of the individual is affected by approaches to navigation. KSA’s brother Na’alehu has documented the 30+ year Polynesian effort to regain traditional maritime navigation methods in his films Papa Mau: The Wayfinder and Moananuiākea - a movement which started by reaching out to Micronesian grandmaster navigator Pius “Mau” Piailug and learning his ancient Carolinian wayfinding methods. This body of knowledge includes using a Star compass, taking in physical signals from the sea, wind, skies, and stars, and is passed down through cultural knowledge recorded in years of chants, dances, and stories. Maura O’Connor looks at other similar efforts to reclaim or maintain traditional navigation methods both among the Inuit in Alaska and among hunters in rural Australia. Just as the rest of the world is using the most lightweight and convenient ways of getting directions, these societies are digging up and reviving the old ways - which require lifetimes of effort to maintain and pass on. For them, navigation is an aspect of culture rather than a day-to-day chore to be tackled with your pocket device.
Militarily, the dependence of other technology on GPS has become so deep that new ways of navigating without GPS are actively being sought and developed. Whether through LIDAR or WiFi-signal direction finding, self referencing methods for military systems to get an assessment of their relative position is becoming more and more important. Adversary ability to deny GPS signal, as well as the likelihood of future conflict taking place in megacities where signal can be intermittent, are pushing R&D shops to find other ways for systems to know where they are.
All told, I think the problem is one of thoughtful adoption - GPS is incredibly capable (usually) and via a smartphone incredibly convenient. The problem is that like so many other smartphone-delivered conveniences, we seem to have adopted them into our day-to-day lives unthinkingly and thereby invited in all the bad with the good without a second thought. Hopefully we can find better ways of building mental capacity while being efficient and accurate with our own navigation. After learning all this I think I’ll be trying to put the GPS away a lot more often. And maybe I should try getting back into the woods with my map, protractor and compass again. (BJM)
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DRILL SERGEANT LESSONS with Herb Thompson
Herb here. You see one of the most impressive and profound transformations for people in a short period when they attend Basic Combat Training for the Army. The same goes for the initial training courses for other services, especially the Marine Corps. This transformation happens because of the trainee's hard work, a by-the-minute schedule to get the desired end state, and the capabilities of Drill Sergeants. Ask anyone the name of a particular teacher they had when they grew up, and they may not know. Ask any veteran, and they will always remember the name of their Drill Sergeant.
Drill Sergeants wear hats similar to state troopers and are usually depicted in movies or commercials yelling and screaming. While they do raise their voice, there is much more to how they train soldiers. Drill Sergeants are master trainers with an in-depth understanding of how to motivate people towards both a common goal and building them to be a part of a team - a process that starts on the first day and continues throughout the training. Working 80-120 hour weeks throughout the training cycle, time management for themselves and their trainees is critical.
As I look back on my time as a Drill Sergeant, I have three takeaways that transfer to conducting business.
Get your people to believe in something bigger than themselves.
Years ago, when I was a Drill Sergeant, a representative from a national car company contacted the Army and wanted to know how to do just this. The Army had me speak with this person, and I gave my insight.
In the Army, we rely on patriotism and service to the country to get trainees to believe in something bigger than themselves. What we also use is the power of a team and that everyone succeeds or fails together. In a training platoon, there will be no “one” winner. All must achieve success and pass the tasks so that the next evolution of training can begin for everyone. Yes, some may be recycled, but the larger unit must keep moving along in the process.
People can begin to believe in their small team at work when the conditions are set to empower and even enforce teamwork. A large organization can accomplish this by having core values that its employees believe in and are proud to represent.It may be your 10,000th time doing or presenting a task, but it might be the other persons first.
In the military training starts the first day in learning how to wear the uniform. Training will will advance across weeks to a point where the entire unit is conducting a coordinated task, such as a raid. For each of these tasks, the Drill Sergeant as thought about the task and how to communicate it repeatedly. They have done it themselves hundreds of times and trained on it even more. They rehearsed their presentation numerous times before presenting. However, for that trainee, it is the first time. It can't be assumed that every single step of the process - and why it's essential - is understood ; the task requires training.
When giving a sales pitch or showing a new employee a system on which you're an expert, it is effortless to gloss over items or ignore the "why" of a task. Remember to put yourself in the other person's shoes and understand what they might be thinking.Systems and processes matter.
The Army has written the doctrine and training plan to mass-produce both the trainers and trainees easily. What needs to be taught is very detailed and covers every aspect of the task - but doctrine is a manual or guide, and these don't train anyone themselves. Also, written by-the-minute daily schedules allow the Drill Sergeant to get to the end of the training cycle on time, because there is no room for error. Organizations must instill these processes for people to follow. However, they must also have systems in place to ensure they are appropriately enacted to maximize value and efficiency.
Though they work as part of a larger training team, a single Drill Sergeant brings hundreds of young people annually from the civilian world into a military one - a complete mindset change - in a very short amount of time. The larger task is accomplished through extensive preparation - and from that preparation and repeated execution comes a level of understanding on how to teach. Motivation, understanding and repeatability are all key factors in getting a lot of training done right. (HT)
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BOOK REVIEW: ANTIFRAGILE by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
KSA here. The older I get, the more selective I get about my time: how I use it, who I share it with, what I allow as far as distractions, and what I’m willing to tolerate as far as inefficiency and ineptitude and the incumbent flatteries that one must pay to these cracked pillars of business on the road of ambition. Although I recognize that some time has to be sacrificed as part and parcel of employment, I do what I can to mitigate the hemorrhage. Becoming selective about time means becoming selective about everything. As a reader, this includes books. If a book isn’t going to entertain or enlighten me, I refuse to think about it, let alone read it. Once in a while, I come across a book that succeeds in not only doing both, but also in affirming my intolerance for things that waste my time. Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder is such a book. Taleb’s book isn’t about survival in the face of adversity. Antifragility isn’t about toughness or robustness. In a storm or a volatile market, fragility crumbles and robustness perseveres, but antifragility does something altogether different: it thrives. It gets better. It likes chaos and disorder. “Some things,” Taleb writes in his prologue, “benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty.” This quality is not, mind you, to be confused with resilience. This is not “bouncing back” from a calamity. This is growing and becoming stronger because of calamity. This particular aspect of antifragility will undoubtedly appeal to a large swath of The Quartermaster’s audience, but my interest in it is in how it applies to options. For Taleb, the power of options – both in the market and elsewhere – is that they provide a rare kind of favorable asymmetry wherein the potential risk is limited to a known sum or outcome and the potential gain far exceeds it, in some cases (the stock market) being theoretically limitless. Of this optionality, Taleb writes (emphasis his), “antifragility equals more to gain than to lose equals more upside than downside equals asymmetry (favorable) equals likes volatility.” Simply put, an option is “an agent of antifragility” because you gain more – in the long run – from being right than you lose from being wrong. Moreover, optionality requires less information: the asymmetry, applied correctly, works in your favor. “You are only harmed if you repeatedly pay too much for the option,” Taleb writes, later adding that “All you need is the wisdom to not do unintelligent things to hurt yourself (some acts of omission) and recognize favorable outcomes when they occur. (The key is that your assessment doesn’t need to be made beforehand, only after the outcome.)” In that sense, optionality allows us to be stupid – that is, unknowledgeable – about the inner workings and mechanics of the system we’re working within. Taleb has his fair share of enemies and detractors, but he’s wise in that he doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of time debating them or trying to convince them: more often than not, he brushes them off as bullshit artists or worse. I admire this: it is as pointless to argue with – or even engage – critics as it is to argue with barking dogs. I’ve been carrying Antifragile around as my subway book… and a reminder to embrace chaos, avoid wasting time, and keep my options open. (KSA)
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STANDARDS AND ACCESS: Study: More Students Are Graduating College Because It’s Gotten Easier (8 min) “While student achievement over this timeframe decreased, as measured by math test scores, their college grade point averages and graduation rates increased. In other words, it appears colleges are further inflating these measures, a trend that has been documented since federal taxpayer funding of so-called higher education exploded. “Our findings combined with trends in studying and labor force participation in college suggest standards for degree receipt have changed,” the researchers conclude. They controlled for students’ background characteristics like family income and race, the majors they choose, and the kind of colleges they attended, and found all of these “explain little of the change in graduation rates.”” (BJM)
CATCHING UP ON MISSILES: Army finalizes deal to bring Israel's Iron Dome to the US to test it against cruise missiles (2 min) “Iron Dome, a joint venture between U.S. defense contractor Raytheon and Israel's Rafael, became famous after the Israel Defense Forces used it to shoot down incoming rockets and projectiles fired into Israeli territory by terrorist groups in the Palestinian territories. The system came online in 2011 and intercepted 1,500 targets by April 2016. During a 2012 conflict with Hamas, Israel said Iron Dome was 90% successful in shooting down rockets that threatened population centers. American officials hope that success can be replicated against more advanced threats, specifically cruise missiles. Lawmakers, defense officials, and national security experts have warned that the United States is falling behind in missile defense, as adversaries such as China and Russia build up their arsenals and invest in new technologies such as hypersonic missiles that can theoretically defeat current defense systems.” (BJM)
A GROWING ISSUE: Commandos’ Behavior Prompts Pentagon Review of Special Operations Culture (3 min) “The unusual review ordered by the four-star officer, Gen. Richard D. Clarke, and announced Monday by his command, comes amid growing concerns among senior Pentagon officials and top-ranking commanders about misbehavior and criminal offenses by Special Operations forces. “Recent incidents have called our culture and ethics into question and threaten the trust placed in us,” General Clarke said in a letter to all Special Operations forces. “This trust is paramount and must never be compromised.” Last month, an entire platoon of Navy SEAL commandos was abruptly removed from Iraq amid reports of an alcohol-fueled Fourth of July party and an accusation that a senior enlisted member had raped a female service member attached to the platoon.” (BJM)
Remarks Complete. Nothing Follows.
KS Anthony (KSA) & Brady Moore (BJM)