Fort Leonard Wood recently hosted an Executive Resilience and Performance course at the Digital Training Facility for leadership and their spouses.
As part of the Army's Ready and Resilient Campaign to reduce risk in the force, the four-hour course was designed to inform Fort Leonard Wood's leadership about the CSF2 (Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness) program while providing guidance on both resilience and performance enhancement skills.
A Mobile Training Team out of Fort Stewart, Ga., consisting of John Gaddy, Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness Training Center manager, and Randye Williams, master resilience trainer and performance enhancement specialist, were the instructors.
"The mission of CSF2 is to increase the physical and psychological well-being of our community, which is Soldiers, DA civilians and our Family members, in addition to increasing the level of resilience and increasing performance across our Army," Gaddy said.
Williams added that the course is mostly dialogue or a conversation versus the typical power point slide shows.
"I would not say that I am teaching as much as we're talking and (doing) exercises," Williams said. "We'll talk about the results and their perceptions about themselves before the exercise, and then after they've done the exercise."
She added that she will ask participants if and what they would do differently using the new skills they had learned.
Now that it has been mandated that Soldiers learn 12 resilience skills during a year, one of the goals of the executive course is to help develop a common language across the Army between leadership and the Soldiers.
"Part of the purpose of the exec course is to come out and give senior leadership those terms they can be comfortable using when conversing, with the same terms that the Soldiers are receiving in those 12 skills," Gaddy said.
According to Sgt. 1st Class Jason Robinson, Fort Leonard Wood's CSF2 Program manager, the four-hour course was chosen in order to fit into commanders' busy schedules.
"The course is targeted for company, battalion, brigade and above command teams and staffs, as well as GS-12s in supervisor positions and the spouses of the targeted audience," Robinson said. "Different units have varying OPTEMPOs (operational tempos) and cannot always be away to attend the full eight or 16-hour course."
It wasn't just commanders who walked away with new skills and realizations; the spouses in attendance also learned skills to help them better relate to their partners and to military life in general.
"One very interesting point that was made concerned the culture that younger members of our military community, in particular, grew up in: the 'everyone gets a trophy' culture. While the intentions of recognizing everyone equally may have been admirable, that approach has caused many to never develop life skills to cope with, and more importantly, benefit from failure and loss," said Whitney Howell, military spouse.
"It reminded me of a lesson found in nature. A butterfly strains to escape its cocoon, and that struggle creates strength. Take away the struggle, and the resulting weakness makes flight impossible," Howell said.
She added, "If folks in our military Family have weak 'resilience' muscles, they won't get off of the ground, either. Considering the full spectrum of difficulty, loss, and pain that we in the military community face, helping each other develop the life skills of eesiliency should be a priority, and an ongoing pursuit."
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