Professional Development Opportunity: Read with a General by Joe Byerly, From the Green Notebook
Today, I came across a great program offered by Major General Jimmie Jaye Wells at U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM). Over the course of eight weeks, he will be reading and discussing Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last , via the newly created Professional Reading Program Forum. It’s a phenomenal opportunity to read, connect, and discuss the book with MG Wells and other Army leaders.
I’m a huge fan of initiatives like this one. This past summer, Major Nate Finney and I launched a similar eight week online reading program featuring the Memoirs of U.S. Grant. Each week we posted a reading assignment along with a discussion question via Google+, and leaders stationed around the globe shared their insights. The dynamics of mixing professional reading and discussion , not only motivated me to finish the book, but it also provided me with new perspectives throughout the process…
Comments
This does sound like a very interesting program for a lot of different reasons. It used to be that the members of the JCS posted their own "recommended reading lists"… but I'm not sure if this practice has continued.
One word of caution: From a MI CI prospective, wearing the hat of a potential adversary or adversarial intelligence organization, wouldn't participating in these sorts of things rank as an important intelligence gathering tool? Most people, including Generals and Senators and Presidents and such, draw from a fairly narrow range of texts from which they form the basis for their underlying approach to a particular problem or job placed in their laps… For example: If I were to know a particular diplomat and his staff were "Kissinger" disciples, and had consistently shown bias in that direction in their past dealings… even proven misguided with 20/20 hindsight… again and again. Telling that diplomat and his staff what they WANTED to hear, and offering them a basket of meaningless tokens that used to be significant during the Cold War, but are worthless now… well, that's just a hypothetical example.
Still: Could it really hurt senior military leaders if they were to include a 30% "random" selection to their ACTUAL recommended reading lists that DID NOT actually represent the referential or educational basis upon which the Generals fell back upon to make vital National Security decisions? Perhaps this suggestion is heresy to the professional Wonk/suck up set, who're so busy being intellectual groupies they'd study "A Cat in a Hat" if a General in their area recommended it… What I'm actually recommending is active misinformation presented on behalf of all senior US military leaders above a certain rank, including the President. I just don't think it's wise for the US Commander in Chief to announce to our opponents, or potential adversaries, what he's reading that might or might not influence National policy, or aid others in using that information for their own purposes.
Or not. I'm probably just being unnecessarily paranoid.
Best,
A. Scott Crawford