FORT SILL, Okla. (May 21, 2015) -- A group of air defense artillery instructors were removed from their schoolhouse environment and were schooled themselves on how to be more resilient.
The third iteration of the 30th ADA Brigade's Cadre Resiliency Program took place May 4-15 at Lake Elmer Thomas Recreation Area and the Graham Resiliency Training Campus here.
"Drill sergeants and Advanced Individual Training platoon sergeants are required to have a cycle break between training to allow them to recharge their batteries," said Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Ackee, 30th ADA Operations noncommissioned officer. "What 30th ADA command wanted to do was expand that to the AIT instructors as well because they're right there putting in the 15-hour workdays with the Soldiers and trying to keep themselves where they want to be at their best performance."
Master Sgt. Scott Askew, 30th ADA Operations NCO in charge, said the program is similar to the Drill Sergeant Trail Break and AIT Platoon Sergeant programs.
"We have made significant strides in turning this program into more than just time off, with integration of the Performance Triad and the next level in resiliency training from a traveling Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2) team from Fort Hood."
During the two-week time period the instructors focused on self improvement and how to manage stress.
Ackee said the course added to the Master Resilience Training that all Soldiers are required to take when they first arrive at the installation.
"This is my first time ever sitting through it. I'll tell you it's phenomenal. We want to give our instructors and platoon sergeants better tools to be able to go back and pass down to the Soldiers ways of becoming more resilient, ways of staying in as we say to, 'finish the fight.' We want them to learn ways to be more productive and really strengthen the bond with their family members, peers and subordinates," said Ackee.
Army Community Services arranged most of the classes for the Soldiers such as Healthy Family Characteristics, True Colors, which teaches different personality types, and spiritual wellness.
The CSF2 team focused on mental imagery, breathing techniques and figuring out what motivates others.
"We want to change the question from how do you motivate others? To: how do you set-up an environment where people motivate themselves? One way of doing that is setting up an autonomy-driven environment where you give people choice and give them a rationale on why they're doing something," said Marc Stevens, Master Resilience Trainer performance expert.
He said an example of motivating beyond the typical carrot or stick method would be to tell a child the reason behind cleaning their room is because the family values cleanliness, "not because you're going to get some reward for it. And that will sustain behavior over a longer period of time rather than giving them money for doing chores. You take the money away you take away the clean room," said Stevens.
Ackee said the class focused on what the Soldiers do in the military, but also incorporated how to build better family connections with a marriage retreat.
"That's our support system. If your home life is in shambles it makes it that much harder to come to work and be productive and want to put for that effort. It's well known that when you come to TRADOC because of the stress, you have those emotional issues you're dealing with maybe from home, or from work, they'll compile and they'll become physical issues and you're not as healthy as you would be."
Erik Leslie, MRT performance expert, said while they teach ways of dealing with stress, they also teach proactive methods to perform at higher levels.
"It's more like sports psychology. Traditional psychology looks at a person who may problems, may have mental disorders, and says 'I'm going to diagnose you.' We're going to take you from negative seven back to zero, back to baseline. We look at hey you're at zero or at negative one, or one, and we're going to get you to positive seven. We're going to make you a better individual, a more functioning part of the team and a lot of the times we make high performing teams."
Ackee said the program was a success and something that would've helped him when he was a platoon sergeant.
"I remember putting in those 15-16 hour work days six days a week and it was exhausting. And it got to the point where it became exhausting physically. And I would've loved to be a part of a program like this."
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