Josh,

You have a great blog and your experience clearly reflects a company commander that controls a lot of his white space (I saw this consistently in your own flexibility to dictate company training rhythms from reset using P Weeks). Do you have any suggestions how Commanders can thrive in environments where they are more restricted? Have you had any experience where your freedom to maneuver was less?

As an example,

I’ve now been in two organizations where the entire years calendar is dictated to the Company command team at the battalion level (or higher)  for everything aside from a 30-60 day window which all refit, readiness requirements and individual training must be met. These include your typical drivers training, team STX or LFX events (EIB Trainup), Individual marksmanship, CLS training, CoC inventories layouts.. Following this ,Squad through Company LFX/STX , Gunneries and CALFEX are now events that occur in consecutive weeks to  a Battalion and then Brigade level  FCXs. This all culminates in an NTC rotation and then very shortly afterwards a deployment.

This process have proven, at my observation, to be the “path to success” for some of our senior Commanders as it meets the minimum army requirements for certification/validation of training, chews up most of our organizational and leadership energy at the Battalion level to “make it happen”, and then is easily repeated after the next Bn & BDE COCs.

I’m certainly not suggesting my few years of experience is the Army way, but I’m absolutely reaching out to ask how a Commander can thrive in these environments rather than survive.

-Steve