(This is best provided as two to four phases.)
Phase I – Understanding the Commander’s Intent
Responsive Leader: Key Skills to Comprehend, Dissect, and Critically Analyze
This one-day opening segment explores what is to be understood from a Commander’s Philosophy, Commander’s Intent, and Commander’s Guidance. Foundational pieces will be laid for how leaders should best unite their collective processes for dissecting information, analyzing the situation at hand, applying critical thinking, move into potential courses of action, and make strategic decisions throughout the process.
Each participant will learn how to develop and implement the Concept of the Operation, which involves: how the team combines its efforts to accomplish a mission, expand the Commander’s Intent and explain how the Commander visualizes the operation. The required major tasks, who is responsible, and how principal tasks complement one another round out the Concept of the Operation. When done correctly, it directs the manner in which the team cooperates to achieve a sequence of required actions.
Ultimately, throughout this training each leader will assess how to boost their own organizational effectiveness when faced with the challenge of effectively performing a mission. Each leader will enhance their skills to work outside of their directorate mission (silo/stovepipe) and work toward a collective and collaborative end result of which the Command will be proud.
Each manager will build upon their own organizational strengths. They will assess the areas that provide them with challenges and hone many of the critical thinking, decision making, and analysis skills that they may not have fully explored in the past—all aimed at focusing on producing solid outcomes for the Commander.
Critical Thinking & Analysis will focus on a 6-step model that assists individuals to use their best judgment to make decisions; it emphasizes Clarifying Concern, Understanding Point of View, Assumptions, Inferences, Evaluation of Information, and Implications.
Phase II – Achieving the Commander’s Intent
Strategic Communication, Decision Making, and Executive Outcomes
Leaders will gain confidence in methods to properly dissect information in order to successfully communicate, inspire, and empower their workforce into action. Making strategic decisions, and crisply communicating accurate information on status/findings/recommendations is essential to achieving the Commander’s Intent. It is the leader’s responsibility to ensure that everyone involved is communicating a consistent message in order to successfully achieve executive outcomes for the Command Group and beyond. Communication must include clear direction about desired outcomes with embedded objectives and specific timeframes for taskers and research. Achieving the Commander’s intent is all about remaining strategic while managing day-to-day responsibilities.
Leaders will explore the value of using a formalized decision-making process, which applies weighted measures/metrics when a more informed, objective decision/recommendation is needed for the Commander. The decision-making process also applies the critical thinking skills learned during Phase I.
Leaders will enhance their skills to write concise executive summaries that may also be used in Command briefings. Participants will enhance their skills to write succinct summaries leading toward efficient reporting on topics as well as briefing/presenting information.
Phase III – Enhancing Executive Briefing Techniques
Information and Decision Briefings
Participants will gain skills and confidence in their ability to provide solid professional briefings to higher-ranking military and civilian leaders. This training module will help leaders to present information more concisely, clearly, confidently, and accurately. Military-style information or decisions briefings may be presented using story boards, power point presentations, or a combination of both.
Each leader will work on enhancing their own professional style which includes thinking strategically, physical poise, voice projection, conciseness of details, and personal confidence. They will learn the ability to properly field questions, keeping their answers short and factual. With each new audience, they will learn how to quickly adjust their information to fit that audience.
When briefing times are cut short or suddenly minimized, briefers will learn how to adjust to cover only the key and essential points of their brief. Their notes will be aligned in a way that assumes that their time will be reduced last minute.
Phase IV – Heighten Organizational Accountability
Empowering, Delegating, Verifying and Providing Feedback/Coaching to Staff
Accountability is essential when ensuring that delegated tasks and projects are accomplished on time, with quality, and in collaboration with other players. Leaders empower via understanding and agreement of objectives, goals, schedules, overall performance, and teamwork.
Providing solid feedback to the workforce is one important element to holding people accountable. It requires excellent communication skills, development, engagement, buy-in, candid feedback, and employee ownership of higher achievements and responsibilities. Leaders will refine their current skills as they relate to their workforce, identify roadblocks that prevent them from providing proper feedback, and learn specific tactics for overcoming those obstacles. Participants will gain from the Cortel dialogue scripts. Scenarios will also incorporate each leader’s real-world organizational challenges.
Based on the tenets of the training program, leaders will then design their own process and approach to best navigate various situations.