Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 53

STAFF TRAINING tactical triggers. During a platoon live-fire exercise, the battalion integrated each warfighting function to conduct a combined-arms breach on terrain that replicated the Donbass region. The staff continued to successfully plan and issue mission orders during the command-post exercise and company situational training exercises, applying the knowledge gained during the foundational portions of the training. By the end of the rotation, the Ukrainian staff was capable of following the Army operations process in a manner that would give them some degree of NATO interoperability. They demonstrated remarkable progress in using the MDMP to produce mission orders, conduct effective combined-arms rehearsals, and apply mission command during a tactical exercise in field conditions. An important factor to this successful training was using a variety of teaching techniques to keep the training audience engaged. The learning coaches attempted to limit lectures by supplementing classroom instruction with practical exercises, real-world vignettes, live-fire exercises, situational training exercises, terrain walks, and a command-post exercise. Andragogy was integrated into the action-learning model to create a learning environment optimized for the adult training audience. Mission Success Although the action-learning coaches were unable to change the Ukrainian Army’s centralized post-Soviet mentality at the operational or strategic level, action learning as a catalyst for change was successful at the tactical level. Action learning could be applied by national-level military advisers at the brigade level and above. This approach could accelerate change by delivering the training opportunity on a wider scale while garnering senior-level support. Coupling the bottom-up training of Ukrainian rotational battalions at JMTG–U with embedded action-learning coaches at the operational level would maximize the effectiveness of the methodology. Action learning could support building warfighting function integration and staff capabilities while promoting mission-command principles. In Ukraine, the scope of training should be expanded to higher echelons to persuade senior leaders to achieve enduring, transformative change. This case study suggests that action learning and the andragogy model can assist in changing cultural norms in the Ukrainian army, and possibly with other forces in Eastern Europe, while rapidly producing modernized and NATO-interoperable formations. Notes 1. Name withheld, Ukrainian airborne battalion deputy commander in discussion with the authors, through an interpreter, in Yavoriv, Ukraine, March 2016. Discussions with Ukrainian officers were conducted in confidentiality, and all names are withheld. 2. Name withheld, Ukrainian airborne battalion commander in discussion with the authors, Yavoriv, Ukraine, March 2016. 3. Army Techniques Publication 5-0.1, Army Design Methodology (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office [GPO], 2015). 4. Reg Revans, ABC of Action Learning (Surrey, England: Gower Publishing Limited, 2011); Michael J. Marquardt, Optimizing the Power of Action Learning: Real-Time Strategies for Developing Leaders, Building Teams, and Transforming Organizations (Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2011). 5. Michael J. Marquardt, “Harnessing the Power of Action Learning,” National Science Foundation, T&D [Training and Development] 8, no. 6 ( June 2004): 26–32, accessed 15 August 2016, https://www.nsf.gov/attachments/134059/public/PowerofActionLearning.pdf; Mary Stacey, “Action Learning: Addressing Today’s Business Challenges While Developing Leaders for Tomorrow,” Fresh Perspectives on Leadership Development (Toronto: Context Management Consulting, Inc., 2007). MILITARY REVIEW  November-December 2016 6. Michael J. Marquardt, Optimizing the Power of Action Learning. 7. Malcolm Knowles, The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy (New York: Association Press, 1970). 8. See New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, Wiley Periodicals, Inc., accessed 7 September 2016, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291536-0717. 9. Barry Boehm, Spiral Development: Experience, Principles, and Refinements, ed. Wilfred J. Hansen, Spiral Development Workshop Special Report, CMU/SEI-2000-SR-008, (Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie-Mellon Software Engineering Institute, July 2000). 10. Name withheld, Ukrainian airborne battalion chief of staff, in discussion with the authors, Yavoriv, Ukraine, March 2016. 11. Name withheld, Ukrainian airborne battalion deputy commander in discussion with the authors, Yavoriv, Ukraine, March 2016. 12. For the commander’s role in the operations process, see Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 5-0, The Operations Process (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 2012). For the principles of mission command, see ADRP 6-0, Mission Command (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 2012). 51