WORKFORCE
providing command guidance, sometimes as young captains and even lieutenants.
Te entirety of Field Manual (FM) 6-0 and Army Doctrine Publi- cation (ADP) 6-0, both titled “Mission Command,” were written expressly to help leaders exercise command and control over often distributed forces to accomplish missions. In the article “Under- standing Mission Command,” James D. Sharpe, Col. USA (Ret.) and Tomas E. Creviston, Lt. Col. USA (Ret.), revisited this and emphasized, “Te doctrinal terms decentralized execution, decen- tralization, and empowering agile and adaptive leadership, all imply the same thing—distributed leadership.”
ADP 6-0 “Mission Command” applies a framework that empow- ers subordinate decision-making and decentralized execution appropriate to the situation that is completely applicable to current methods of working in distributed teams. It was designed for unpredictable and ambiguous environments, and relies on trained, experienced, trusted teams being able to operate inde- pendently on a shared understanding of the commander’s intent.
Te principles of mission command are:
• Create competence. • Establish mutual trust. • Ensure shared understanding. • Provide clear intent. • Issue mission orders. • Prioritize and incentivize disciplined initiative. • Accept risk.
Commanders who read and apply these principles know how to lead in a distributed environment, whether it’s in a forward combat environment or spread over multiple locations while state- side. One could argue that it also provides principles that should apply to an in-person environment, but in-person environments don’t force the issues of trust, competence and disciplined initia- tive the way remote and distributed work does.
Distributed work is not for everyone. Not all work can be taken completely online, not all people possess the communication skills, understanding of intent, and disciplined initiative needed to work on a distributed team, and not all commanders possess the traits and behaviors needed to enable this kind of work.
Distributed teams often reveal these failings. Te good news is that they can be corrected with performance management, mentorship and training.
LOCATION INDEPENDENT SOLUTIONS FOR LOCATION DEPENDENT PROBLEMS John O’Duinn, a renowned expert on distributed teams and distributed work, does not categorize jobs by “remote” or “in-person.” Instead, he focuses on the ties to a location, catego- rizing jobs as “location-dependent” or “location-independent.” Tis method of classifying jobs places less focus on the individual receiving the treatment and more emphasis on the nature of work, and how much that work should be done tied to a particular loca- tion. Some jobs are tied to particular locations, e.g., jobs involving specialty equipment and machinery such as service depots. Some jobs are tied to the location of the team and the services provided. However, only about 40 percent of Army active-duty positions are at the brigade combat team level and below. A large portion of the Army operates in staff positions working digitally, and those jobs can to a great degree be separated from full-time presence at a given location, even if periodic in-person work and travel are required.
Location-independent work and distributed teams also support the retention of individual talent.
Matching these jobs to competent, disciplined, motivated and communicative individuals has the potential to alleviate a large number of location-based challenges that service members face, many of which drive them to exit service:
• The Married Army Couples Program (MACP). MACP was established in 1983 and provides Soldiers the opportunity to be stationed together while fulfill- ing the Army’s mission. About 22,000 active component Soldiers are currently enrolled in the program. If both service members are assigned to a duty location supporting the service member whose position is more
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