Improving the Decision Making Abilities of
SMALL UNIT LEADERS
Committee on Improving the Decision Making
Abilities of Small Unit Leaders
Naval Studies Board
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by Contract No. N00014-05-G-0288, DO #31 between the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of the Navy. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
Cover: Inset photographs courtesy of LCpl Khoa Pelczar, USMC (top); Cpl Benjamin Crilly, USMC (middle); and Cpl Adam C. Schnell, USMC (bottom). Background image courtesy of Cpl Michael A. Bianco, USMC.
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COMMITTEE ON IMPROVING THE DECISION MAKING ABILITIES OF SMALL UNIT LEADERS
ROBERT L. POPP, NSI, Inc., Co-Chair
MICHAEL J. WILLIAMS, La Plata, Maryland, Co-Chair
PETER A. BELING, University of Virginia
JANIS A. CANNON-BOWERS, University of Central Florida
SCOTT T. GRAFTON, University of California, Santa Barbara
SUSAN HACKWOOD, California Council on Science and Technology
STEPHAN KOLITZ, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.
STEVEN KORNGUTH, University of Texas at Austin
FREDERICK R. LOPEZ, Goleta, California
LAURA A. McNAMARA, Sandia National Laboratories
CHRISTOPHER NEMETH, Applied Research Associates, Inc.
MICHAEL I. POSNER, University of Oregon
ALAN R. WASHBURN, Naval Postgraduate School
GEROLD YONAS, The Mind Research Network
GREG L. ZACHARIAS, Charles River Analytics, Inc.
Staff
CHARLES F. DRAPER, Director, Naval Studies Board
MARTA V. HERNANDEZ, Study Director
RAYMOND S. WIDMAYER, Senior Program Officer
SUSAN G. CAMPBELL, Administrative Coordinator
MARY G. GORDON, Information Officer
NAVAL STUDIES BOARD
MIRIAM E. JOHN, Livermore, California, Chair
DAVID A. WHELAN, The Boeing Company, Vice Chair
TIMOTHY P. COFFEY, McLean, Virginia
CHARLES R. CUSHING, C.R. Cushing & Co., Inc.
JAMES N. EAGLE, Naval Postgraduate School
ANUP GHOSH, George Mason University
JAMES R. GOSLER, Sandia National Laboratories
SUSAN HACKWOOD, California Council on Science and Technology
JAMES L. HERDT, Chelsea, Alabama
BARRY M. HOROWITZ, University of Virginia
JAMES D. HULL, Annapolis, Maryland
TAMARA E. JERNIGAN, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
BERNADETTE JOHNSON, Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
LEON A. JOHNSON, Irving, Texas
CATHERINE M. KELLEHER, University of Maryland and Brown University
JERRY A. KRILL, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University
TERRY P. LEWIS, Raytheon Company
RICHARD S. MULLER, University of California, Berkeley
JOSEPH PEDLOSKY, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
HEIDI C. PERRY, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.
J. PAUL REASON, Washington, D.C.
JOHN E. RHODES, Balboa, California
ALLAN STEINHARDT, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.
TIMOTHY M. SWAGER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Navy Liaison Representatives
RADM ARTHUR J. JOHNSON, USN, Director, Assessment Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, N81
RADM MATTHEW L. KLUNDER, Chief of Naval Research/Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, N091
Marine Corps Liaison Representative
LTGEN RICHARD P. MILLS, USMC, Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command
Staff
CHARLES F. DRAPER, Director
RAYMOND S. WIDMAYER, Senior Program Officer
BILLY M. WILLIAMS, Senior Program Officer (through June 13, 2012)
MARTA V. HERNANDEZ, Associate Program Officer
SUSAN G. CAMPBELL, Administrative Coordinator
MARY G. GORDON, Information Officer
Preface
In 2008, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James T. Conway, outlined the concept for enhanced company operations (ECO).1 In that concept he stated:
Conventional wisdom tells us that the battalion is the smallest tactical formation capable of sustained independent operations; current operations tell us it is the company. Enhanced Company Operations recognizes this operational reality and seeks to promote research, lively debate and, most of all, institutionalized training, manning, and equipping initiatives that will enable the company commander to take it to the next level.
The implementation of this concept demands that small unit leaders at the company, platoon, and squad levels2 make more numerous and more complex decisions than are required of them in conventional warfare. Then Commanding General of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC), LtGen George J. Flynn, recognized this additional demand on small unit leaders and requested that the National Research Council (NRC), under the auspices of its Naval Studies Board (NSB), undertake a comprehensive study on improving the decision making abilities of small unit leaders in conducting ECO. The study that follows is the result of that request.
1 Gen James T. Conway, USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps. 2008. A Concept for Enhanced Company Operations, Department of the Navy, Washington, D.C., August 28.
2 The typical size and organization of these small units are illustrated in Appendix D.
TERMS OF REFERENCE
In a letter dated January 22, 2010, to Dr. Miriam E. John, chair of the NSB, LtGen George J. Flynn, Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, requested that the NRC conduct a comprehensive study on decision making abilities of small unit leaders in conducting ECO.
Accordingly, in August 2010, the NRC, under the auspices of its NSB, established the Committee on Improving the Decision Making Abilities of Small Unit Leaders.3 The study’s terms of reference, formulated by the staff at MCCDC and the Office of Naval Research in consultation with the chair and the director of the NSB, charge the committee to produce one report during a 12-month period. During the 12-month period, the committee met to gather information, deliberate about critical issues, and prepare its report in accordance with NRC procedures. Specifically, the charge to the committee was as follows:
• Examine the operational environment, existing abilities, and gaps (to include data, technology, skill sets, training, measures of effectiveness, etc.) for small unit leaders in conducting ECO in hybrid engagement, complex environments.
• Identify the operational and technical challenges for improving the decision making abilities of small unit leaders in conducting ECO in hybrid engagement, complex environments (including Department of the Navy science and technology efforts that might be leveraged, as well as relevant academic [activities], and other military Services’, defense agencies’, and/or other government activities).
• Survey and determine how the various approaches to decision making found in the literature (e.g., rational actor, heuristic, expert, norm-based, sense-making, naturalistic/recognition primed decision making) can be used to screen and improve the decision making abilities of small unit leaders in conducting ECO in hybrid engagement, complex environments, as well as to understand the decision making calculus and indicators of adversaries.
• Recommend operational and technical approaches—combined and separate—for improving the decision making abilities of small unit leaders in conducting ECO in hybrid engagement, complex environments (including any acquisition and experimentation efforts that can be undertaken by the Marine Corps and/or by other stakeholders aimed specifically at improving the decision making of small unit leaders).
THE COMMITTEE’S APPROACH
For the purposes of this report, the committee chose to examine, in part, the operational environment for small unit leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan so as to gain a better understanding of the scope of decisions required by these leaders vis-à-vis the term “ECO in hybrid engagement, complex environments” used throughout the terms of reference.
3 Biographies of the committee members are provided in Appendix A.
The committee was first convened in August 2010. It held numerous meetings and conducted site visits over a period of 6 months, both to gather input from the relevant communities and to discuss its findings and recommendations.4 The meetings consisted of a combination of presentations from outside experts and discussion among the committee members.
In some areas, the committee was limited in its deliberations by both the time available and the nature of the expertise required. Specifically, the committee did not investigate in detail the small unit leader selection process in the Marine Corps, believing that it did not have the expertise to do so, not to mention that such an investigation would involve a separate, comprehensive study in itself. In addition, the defense industry has a number of initiatives underway for developing and marketing various training systems, tactical decision games, and decision aids that were not accessible to the committee; here the committee chose not to recommend any specific technology or device for adoption.
The committee hosted a panel of small unit leaders from the Basic School to hear their recent operational experiences and their ideas on how to improve the preparation of small unit leaders to make decisions. In this regard, the committee recognized a need for additional input from experienced small unit leaders, and so it solicited the cooperation of MCCDC in arranging a series of interviews with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan in order to develop a better understanding of the environment and the scope of decisions required of these leaders. A few members of the committee skilled in conducting such interviews used an interview protocol to conduct the interviews.5 The committee recognizes that the interviews were not a systematic sample of the population of small unit leaders but rather that the information related by the interviewees could be used as a way to make the committee aware of the operational environment and the scope of decisions required of small unit leaders in general.
The committee also visited Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, to observe a Joint Capability Technology Demonstration known as the Future Immersive Training Environment, or FITE. This experiment involved the Infantry Immersion Trainer, a facility designed to help Marine Corps infantry squads prepare for deployment to Afghanistan.
The committee had a report-drafting meeting in early 2011 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies, at which it prepared the body of the report and the recommendations. The months between the committee’s last meeting and the publication of the report were spent preparing the draft manuscript, gathering additional information, reviewing and responding to the external review comments, editing the report, and conducting the security review needed to produce an unclassified report.
4 A summary of the committee meetings and site visits is presented in Appendix B.
5 The interview protocol is summarized in Appendix E.
The committee co-chairs would like to thank the staff of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and the staff of the Naval Studies Board for their enthusiastic cooperation, and the members of the committee for their time, dedication, and wisdom.
Robert L. Popp, Co-Chair
Michael J. Williams, Co-Chair
Committee on Improving the
Decision Making Abilities of
Small Unit Leaders
Acknowledgment of Reviewers
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Richard J. Genik III, Wayne State University School of Medicine,
John R. Gersh, Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory,
Steven M. Jones, MITRE Corporation,
Edward H. Kaplan, Yale School of Management,
Douglas L. Medin, Northwestern University,
Marc Raibert, Boston Dynamics,
Ann E. Speed, Sandia National Laboratories, and
Paul K. Van Riper, LtGen, USMC (Ret.), Williamsburg, Va.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Harry W. Jenkins, Jr., MajGen, USMC (Ret.), Gainesville, Va., and Maxine L. Savitz, Los Angeles, Calif. Appointed by the National
Research Council, they were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
Contents
1 INTRODUCTION: THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
1.2 Distributed Operations, Enhanced Company Operations, and the Marine Small Unit
1.3 Challenges for Marine Small Units and Their Leaders
1.4 Organization of the Report
2 CHALLENGES OF THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT FOR THE SMALL UNIT LEADER: OBSERVATIONS AND FINDINGS
3 SCIENTIFIC BASIS AND ENGINEERING APPROACHES FOR IMPROVING SMALL UNIT DECISION MAKING