Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 38

of trust not only promotes a unit’s commitment to the mission but also enables esprit de corps and personal commitment of soldiers and leaders to each other. Dialogue is that important—it should be institutionalized to the greatest extent possible. The disengagement effected by headphones and computer games should be limited. Clear Commander’s Intent Commanders should tell subordinates what to do, not how to do it. Harkening back to Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, a unit commander should be sufficiently prepared to conduct his operation confidently, anticipate events, and act fully and boldly to accomplish his mission without further orders. If an unanticipated situation arises, committed unit commanders should understand the purpose of the operation well enough to act decisively, confident that they are doing what their superior commander would order were he present.16 This idea is echoed in the Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 6-0, Mission Command: Commanders articulate the overall reason for the operation so forces understand why it is being conducted. They use the commander’s intent to explain the broader purpose of the operation beyond that of the mission statement. Doing this allows subordinate commanders and soldiers to gain insight into what is expected of them, what constraints apply, and most importantly, why the mission is being conducted.17 With operations now moving with such great speed and complexity, partly due to leaps in technology and mechanization, they can be planned only up to the point of execution. However, it is through the mission command principles of shared understanding and trust that the commander’s intent can be expressed so that it yields the greatest effect by enabling initiative. The commander develops a statement of the commander’s intent through critical and creative thinking. Dialogue between commanders and their staffs and soldiers to create shared understanding 36 supports this process. One approach the Army uses to facilitate creative and critical thinking is the Army design methodology, or ADM. As defined in ADP 5-0, The Operations Process, the ADM is a methodology for applying critical and creative thinking to understand, visualize, and describe unfamiliar problems and approaches to solving them. Army design methodology is an iterative process of understanding and problem framing that uses elements of operational art to conceive and construct an operational approach to solve identified problems. Commanders and their staffs use Army design methodology to assist them with the conceptual aspects of planning.18 A descriptive planning process, the ADM lends itself to dialogue that helps flesh out emerging tasks and objectives. Yet, creative and critical thinking are January-February 2015  MILITARY REVIEW