Competence Management of the German Armed Forces

Competence Management of the German Armed Forces – Situations of uncertainty as an

Opportunity for Officers to Develop their Competencies

Rafaela Kraus, Martin Rost & Tanja Kreitenweis

May 7th-11th

IAMPS 2018

Competencies of Officers

May 2018 Rafaela Kraus, Martin Rost & Tanja Kreitenweis 2

Delivering high performance in a variety of work situations and

adapting quickly to the environment

Research Questions

• How do challenging, unsettling situations and career advancement contribute to the development of officers' skills?

• What role does labilization play in the acquisition of competencies by officers?


• Conducting semi-structured interviews in a personal or by telephone

• Duration: ~ 45-60 minutes

• Selection of interviewees according to the expected information quality (Yin, 2013)

✓ Experts for competence-oriented training: 1 Professor, 1 Colonel, 1 Lieutenant Colonel, 1 civilian employee at the Ministry of Defence

✓ Officers as target group for competence-oriented training:1 Colonel, 1 Lieutenant Colonel, 1 Commander1 Major, 1 Captain

• Evaluation of data: inductive content analysis (Mayring, 2010)

Explorative, qualitative Study

Methodology – Conducting Interviews


4

6

Interview Design – What did we ask?


Officers Experts

• Understanding of competencies

• Reception of the Competency model of the German Armed Forces

• Situations of competence development: in general, in deployment, recent experiences

• Competence Management of the German Armed Forces

• Competence Management

• Competency model of the German Armed Forces

• Competence profile of Officers

• Development of officer‘s competencies

• Significance of challenging situations for the competence development of officers

What Does Competence Mean?


Compe-tencies

Qualifi-cations

Knowledge

• Competency ≠ Knowledge (based on information)

• Competency = Information (enriched with values, rules and norms) linked to emotion and motivation

• Competencies enable action under uncertainty → they help to compensate a lack of information in new situations

• Meta-Competency → individuals are able to develop their own competencies in a self-organized manner

• Ability to learn (adaptability)

• Assessment of one’s own competence level (self-awareness)

Competencies according to Heyse and Erpenbeck (2009)

Norms

Rules

Values

Competence Orientation in the Military Context

Operations-oriented Competence Development

International Competency Models


• Focus on intercultural competence

• Development of corresponding trainings (e. g. Brenneman et al., 2016)

• Design of suitable assessments (e. g. Moenning

et al., 2016)

• Measurement of military-cultural competence (e. g. Meyer et al., 2015; Stewart, 2012)

• Development and evaluation of resilience (e. g.

Reivich et al., 2011; Griffith und West, 2013)

• Development of national competency models for special military areas

• China: Competency model for the leadership of Chinese cadets (Tian et al., 2009)

• USA:

• Readiness Estimate and Deployability Index for nurses to ensure their operational readiness (Rivers et al., 2006)

• Performance model for soldiers at the start of their military career (Campbell et al., 1990)

• Great Britain: Competence framework for military surgical teams (Ramasamy et al., 2010)

What Do Officers Understand by Competence?

Having the skills (personal, social and professional) and motivation to cope independently with complex tasks and unforeseen problems.


„The ability that allows me to mentally grasp and evaluate facts that are connected with a task and the willingness to put these findings autonomously into practice “ (Commander)

“An individual possesses the various skills necessary for the performance of

his or her special task.”(Major)

„Solving tasks independently in complex situations, even if

unforeseen problems arise“ (Captain)

„Competencies are a mixture of character and social skills, talents and

expertise.“ (Colonel)

Development of Skills According to Heyse & Erpenbeck

Oppor-tunity toPractice

Labilization

Passing on of

Know-ledge


• Personnel development measures for knowledge transfer

• Examples: courses and trainings

• Trying out what has been learned and integrating it into everyday life

• Example: Job Rotation

• Mastering new, challenging situations• Frequently associated with stress, anxiety and palpitations

Labilization – Psychological Stress Dimensions in Modern Military Operations


Isolation

Ambiguity

Powerless-ness

Alienation Dangers

High Workload

(Bartone 2006)

• sdfsdfdsfdsf

Competence Model of the German Armed Forces


Background Information and Aim of Model

• 5 basic competences, which are operationalized in partial competencies

• Competency to Act as focus of training; it is determined by an individual‘s sum of competencies

• Goals pursued:

• Covering the personnel requirements better and exploiting optimally the potentials of all employees

• Involving all stakeholders in a dialogue

• Supporting executives, personnel managers and managers of training

• Specific professional competencies

Which Competencies Are Particularly Important for Officers?

Rafaela Kraus, Martin Rost & Tanja Kreitenweis 12

• Analyzing and problem solving

• Ability to Organize• Pedagogic skills

• Ability to motivate• Strategic Thinking• Decisiveness

• Empathy• Caring for others• Respect for others• Comradry• Team Spirit• Communication Ability

• Educate yourself• Integrity• Strength of

character

• Humanity• Decency• Flexibility

May 2018

How Do Officers Develop Their Competencies?Form Perceived Competence Development Focus

Study• Mastering complexity

• Quickly analyze, systematize and prioritize issuesAnalytical Thinking

Training

• Interesting content

• Good professional basis

• Valuable exchange with participants

Professional

Knowledge,

Peer Coaching

Practice

• Multifaceted learning field for social competence,

leadership, self-management, analytical thinking,

project management and competency to act

Project management

On-the-job

• Early, gradual introduction to increasingly

demanding management asks

• Development through real challenges in the areas of

social, leadership and personal competency

Leadership

Deployment

• Development of professional and leadership

competencies in stressful situations at an

extreme pace

Professional competencies

and leadership

in extremisMay 2018 Rafaela Kraus, Martin Rost & Tanja Kreitenweis 13

• Competency to act

can hardly be taught

• Unrealistic teaching

situations

• Less efficient

learning than in the

process of work

How Do Officers Describe their Competency Profile?


Self-Co

mp

etency

(as meta-co

mp

etency)

Professional Competencies (generally of decreasing

importance)

Methods Expertise

Social Competency

Leading and Management Competency

TimeAdvancement in the Hierarchy

"I would see a priority here. I would take social competence and self-competence as character competence.

To put it bluntly, if they're both really good, I can handle the rest by training."

Does Deployment Have an Effect?


• Novel situations, many new impressions

• Pressure, external constraints, no possibility of “evasion”

• Persisting stress (long working phases, no relaxation phases)

• Personality development and development of self competency (motivating oneself)

• Development of professional competency (routines)

• Development of leadership skills in extremis (motivating in stressful situations)

• Positive stress

• Large scope of action (you can make a difference)

• Experience of personal growth: affirmation and reinforcement in the leading role

Characteristics Effect Experiencing Deployment

BUT:

• Deployment = objective of training and not as the last station of training

• A high degree of competencies (decency, character) must already exist beforehand!


"Nowhere else is so much demanded of you as in deployment – psychically, stress, everything related to it.

It's like a bricklayer. If you only train a bricklayer theoretically, but he never has to pull up a wall, he is

missing something."

What are the effects of new leadership situations?


Characteristics

• Typical stress factors:

• Greater leadership range / area of responsibility

• Older and more experienced subordinates

• Challenging management tasks (e.g. assessment interviews)

• new leadership situations are generally strenuous, as not all the necessary skills can be taught beforehand

Effect Success Factor

• Development of

• Leadership competency

• Self-competency and

• Social competency

• Development of „real“, outlasting and universally applicable competencies

• Broadening one’s horizon

• Existing professional competence

• On-site support (e. g. by experienced subordinates)


"Take my career as an officer in the general staff, every two to three years you change to the next positon. You always make the leaps at the respective position. You have to swim free."

How are Officers Accompanied in their Competence Development?

Forms Specification

Feedback• Spontaneous intervention and situational feedback given by superiors or experienced

subordinates in problem situations• Supervisors or experienced subordinates as sparring partners and development

assistants

Reflection• Hints for self-reflection• Suggestion for reflection of mistakes and misconduct by superiors and subordinates

Mentoring Formalized Mentoring

Cascade SystemExperienced soldiers take „novices“ by the hand so that they can develop professionally, personally and socially.

Peer Exchange Regular Peer coaching (individual initiatives of superiors)

Onboarding Detailed and adequately timed onboarding by the predecessor


!


“I have also learned a lot from non-commissioned officers who had this very distinctive social and character competence. It's not

always the superior who trains you.”

Summary of Results


New leadership situations and deployment are experienced as labilizing.

Self-, leadership and social competencies are developing particularly quickly and sustainably in emotionally unstable situations.

Support and assistance of experienced subordinates and superiors makes a significant contribution to competency development in unstable situations.

Take Away

• More intensive research on competency development (in deployment) necessary.

• Simulations cannot replace „real“ labilizingsituations.

• Since guidance and support contribute significantly to competence development in labilizing and career advancement situations, it is necessary to examine how this could be systematized.



Bibliography

Bartone, Paul T. (2006): Resilience under military operational stress: Can leaders influence hardiness? In: Military psychology 18 (S), S.131.

Brenneman, Meghan W.; Klafehn, Jennifer; Burrus, Jeremy; Roberts, Richard D.; Kochert, Jonathan (2016): Assessing Cross-Cultural Competence: A Working Framework and Prototype Measures for Use in Military Contexts. In: Jessica Wildman und Griffith, Richard, Armon, Brigitte (Hg.): Critical Issues in Cross Cultural Management. Wiesbaden: Springer, S. 103–131.

Campbell, John P.; McHenry, Jeffrey J.; Wise, Lauress L. (1990): Modeling Job Performance in a Population of Jobs. In: Personnel Psychology 43 (2), S. 313–575.

Griffith, James; West, Courtney (2013): Master Resilience Training and Its Relationship to Individual Well-Being and Stress Buffering Among Army National Guard Soldiers. In: Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research 40 (2), S. 140–155.

Heyse, Volker; Erpenbeck, John (2009): Kompetenztraining. Informations- und Trainingsprogramme. Stuttgart: Schaeffer-Poeschel Verlag.

Mayring, Philipp (2010): Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. In: Günter Mey und Katja Mruck (Hg.): Handbuch Qualitative Forschung in der Psychologie. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, S. 601–613.

Meyer, Eric G.; Hall-Clark, Brittany N.; Hamaoka, Derrick; Peterson, Alan L. (2015): Assessment of Military Cultural Competence: A Pilot Study. In: Academic psychiatry : the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry 39 (4), S. 382–388.


Bibliography

Moenning, Anne; Turnbull, Benton; Abel, Daniel; Meyer, Christine; Hale, Merritt; Guerlain, Stephanie; Brown, Donald (Hg.) (2016): Developing avatars to improve cultural competence in US soldiers: IEEE.

Ramasamy, Arul; Hinsley, David E.; Edwards, Daffyd S.; Stewart, Michael P. M.; Midwinter, Mark; Parker, Paul J. (2010): Skillsets and competencies for the modern military surgeon: lessons from UK military operations in Southern Afghanistan. In: Injury 41 (5), S. 453–459.

Reivich, Karen J.; Seligman, Martin E. P.; McBride, Sharon (2011): Master resilience training in the US Army. In: American Psychologist 66 (1), S. 25.

Rivers, Felecia M.; Wertenberger, Dana H.; Lindgren, Katherine (2006): US Army Professional Filler System nursing personnel: do they possess competency needed for deployment? In: Military medicine 171 (2), S. 142–149.

Stewart, Amanda Tomei (2012): Developing military cultural competence in civilian clinicians: Working with returning US military populations with combat-related PTSD: California Institute of Integral Studies.

Tian, Jian-quan; Miao, Danmin; Xu, Yongyong; Yang, Yebing (2009): The leadership competency modeling of military academy cadets. In: Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal 37 (4), S. 525–537.

Yin, Robert K. (2013): Case study research: Design and methods: SAGE Publications.


Documents

Competence Management of the German Armed Forces