Fight. Learn. L*E*A*D

Sergeant: "Our mission was to destroy the enemy at objective K-2."

Observer-Controller: "Why was this important? And do you know what your tank's particular role was in all of this?"

Sergeant: "I'm not sure."

Observer-Controller: "Can anyone help?"

A trickle of comments gradually builds into a flood of discussion; it becomes evident that only the lieutenant in charge understood the rationale behind the mission. Individual armored units were not coordinated. Nor had they grasped that their main collective task was to drive an enemy column away from a weak point in the defenses into a zone where they were within range of other friendly tanks and artillery.

The flip chart records key learning points for tomorrow. The soldiers leave with a picture of what they were in the middle of that they could not see. Day after day, these reviews reinforce five key themes: everyone needs to understand the big picture; everyone needs to think all the time; always put yourself in the shoes of an uncooperative opponent; prepare yourself to the point where you are not surprised by surprise; and put aside hierarchy, foster self-criticism, learn to work as a team.

Crucial rules for war-fighting -- and for business. The army's "learn-through-failure" approach offers important lessons for competing in a business environment that grows more perilous and unpredictable every day.

The best learning comes from the most stressful situations.

NTC war games are prolonged and intense. This stress and exhaustion -- not to mention repeated defeat -- unfreezes old patterns of behavior and creates openings for new understandings and behaviors to take root.

"If you face an enemy in training who's much more capable than any enemy you're going to face in live combat, you're going to be successful," Wallace argues. "It's like athletes that overtrain, the guy who runs fifteen miles in preparation for his one-mile run."

Learn about what matters.

A day of tough combat can inspire argument and debate about hundreds of issues. After Action Reviews focus on three: the key tasks that drive success, the conditions under which they must be performed, and the standards of excellence by which they are judged -- for example, hit an enemy tank at night within a range of 4,000 yards, moving at 20 mph over uneven terrain, with an 80% success rate. Without this kind of clarity, the army believes, After Action Reviews have no foundation on which to build.

Use hard data to eliminate subjective debate.

The NTC's laser-based technologies and onboard microprocessors eliminate any disagreements over what really happened on the battlefield. The logic is simple: let the data, not the trainers, point the finger. "We can tell you exactly what happened, because we can show you very definitively with our technology," Wallace says. "That sweeps the table clean. No one can argue about what happened."

Learning requires facilitators who coach rather than lecture.

The most important job of observer-controllers is to make it safe to learn. They never criticize or evaluate individual performance. They encourage the team to teach itself. They reinforce the message that this experience is not about success or failure -- it's about what each person takes away.

Promote a learning mind-set that endures beyond the training exercise.

Long-term success, the army believes, comes from every soldier understanding what drives victory; cultivating relentless discomfort with the status quo; and establishing a standard of uncompromising straight talk that promotes feedback and introspection. That means learning must become a part of everyday life, not a one-time event. As an example, Wallace points to the Gulf War, when learning sessions modeled on After Action Reviews broke out spontaneously.

"After the cease-fire was called," Wallace says, "they held their own After Action Reviews. A platoon leader would get all his boys together and say, 'We've been fighting for a hundred hours. What did we do right, what did we do wrong, and if we have to do it all over again, what will we do differently?' That's an indication of the power of the culture, the power of this process."

Richard Pascale was a faculty member at the Stanford Business School for 20 years, and is now an associate fellow of Oxford University. Based in San Francisco, he is a well-known author, lecturer, and consultant on corporate change and transformation. His article "The False Security of 'Employability'" appeared in the April:May 1996 issue of Fast Company.