And no, I’m not talking about some terrible foot disease, I’m talking about the Global Assessment Tool, a component of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness. And Soldiers, take heed – you have less than a month to complete the assessment!

Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. visited Fort Jackson, S.C., today, and connecting with Soldiers who are experiencing the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program first-hand was a key part of his visit. Gen. Casey visited the new Master Resilience Training School. The MRT school represents one of the four components of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program (Global Assessment Tool, self- guided training modules, master resilience trainers and resilience training at all Army leadership schools). While visiting, Gen. Casey noted that he considers Fort Jackson to be a center of excellence for Master Resiliency Training.

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness is more than a program – it’s a key step in ensuring our Soldiers (and their family members) take steps to take care of their emotional fitness. Have you taken the GAT yet? Go to www.army.mil/csf and do it today!

Today’s block of instructions consisted of activities that allowed the participants to reinforce their teaching skills. A lesson plan is provided in the course and guidance is provided to enhance the efficacy when delivering the material. The class was broken down in groups once again and we went through activities like quizzing within the groups and the traditional student led classes with constructive feedback. One activity that was very productive was what they called “pass the ball”. In this activity, the group of 6 students will have to teach the same class for a period of 30 minutes. The trick was that once the first student started the class, and 4 minutes had passed, the student will have to pass a tennis ball (symbolic for the lead to teach) and the next student had to pick up right were the previous had stopped. This went on for a period of 30 minutes, changing the instructor every 4 minutes.

It was very interesting to see what teaching styles other leaders were using how they reacted on their feet when they were presented with challenges. This allowed the rest of the leaders to pick up on the instructor’s strengths and techniques of teaching.  Another interesting activity was called “What’s wrong with this picture?” which reminded me of the type of testing that’s used in Air-Assault School.

In the last 5 days, we were shown what right looks like regarding the method of instruction. Today it was time to identify the “Gigs” when an instructor was teaching the class. It was an actual facilitator (not a student) leading the class and using some incorrect terminology and techniques for the students to identify. It was a very enriching day as some of the skills learned could be transfered to our regular training and teaching techniques.

-Sgt. 1st Class Hugo Osorio, U.S. Army

Good afternoon fellow soldiers, I’m Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Wolf, a representative from 6th Recruiting Brigade in Las Vegas, Nevada. I’m a 79R (Recruiter) and my current position is a Master Trainer. I’m currently attending the Master Resilience Training course. This afternoon I will be going over some of the things we have learned over the past 5 days.

Now for the Master Resilience Training course (MRT): The first week was all about learning how to improve ourselves. We learned seven skills that will make us better leaders and stronger Soldiers by building mental toughness. The skills below are the foundation of the MRT course.

ATC: Activating Event, Identify your thoughts and Consequences.

Avoid Thinking Traps: Identify and correct counterproductive patterns in thing through the use of critical questions.

Detect Icebergs: Identify deep beliefs and core values that fuel out of proportion emotion and evaluate the accuracy and usefulness of these beliefs.

Energy Management: Regulate emotions and energy levels to enable critical thinking and optimal performance.

Problem Solving: Accurately identify what caused the problem and identify solutions strategies.

Put it in Perspective: Stop catastrophic thinking.

Real-time Resilience: Shut down counterproductive thinking to enable greater concentration and focus on the task at hand.

We spent several hours in a large classroom being taught each skill. Even though the training that was given outstanding and informative, the size of the room and closeness of the chairs were distracting from the speaker. I didn’t have enough room to take notes. My Velcro was getting stuck with the soldier next to me which pulled my attention away from the speaker.

When we finished with a large group discussion we went to smaller group rooms to reinforce what we learned and do live fire exercises. This was helpful in putting this information into long term memory. The small group time was very constructive and we were able to have one-on-one time with group leaders if we needed it. We also worked with other Soldiers in the class and received feedback on what went right, what went wrong and how we could improve ourselves.

As a Soldier I found myself pondering this week, “Do we really need this training?” We do this type of stuff on a day to day basis as Soldiers. We have counseling/problem solving techniques, and AAR. This information is provided for us in manuals and Field Manuals. I will say yes, we do need this training. The information provided shows us how to build on what we have learned. It makes us more Resilient Soldiers.

Today we identified our character strengths using the questions found at http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu. We discussed the results of the questioner in a large classroom setting.

Of the 24 character strengths we found correlation with our top 5 character strengths.

1. Bravery and Valor – Face adversity despite opposition

2. Capacity to love and be loved – Value relationships

3. Industry, diligence and perseverance – Work hard to finish what we start

4. Fairness, equality and justice – In General we treat others based on performance

5. Judgment, critical thinking and open mindedness – Make solid decisions based on facts

(This differs from samples from civilians which gravitated toward Kindness, Fairness, Authenticity, Gratitude and Open-mindedness).

Our groups’ weakest character strengths are

Forgiveness and mercy – Go figure

Social Intelligence – Lack awareness of motives and feelings of others

Many of you who are reading our BLOGs are thinking that resilience training mirrors the CGSC (Command and General Staff College) curriculum. Techniques that we are learning such as “avoiding thinking traps”, “detecting icebergs” are similar in concept and application as “belief windows and “mental models” taught to us in week 2 and 3 of ILE. The difference is that the CGSC curriculum uses the 16 personality types defined by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the UPENN curriculum uses 24 character strengths outline by the Global Assessment Tool (GAT).

I recommend anyone following our BLOG go to http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx and take the VIA Survey of Character Strengths. The questioner only takes 20 minutes and will help the reader follow our daily updates.

…..later in the day we broke down into small groups and conducted a series of exercises to use our character strengths (CS) as well as the CS of others to solve complex problems…….

My group found that the CS exercises went smoother if members understood or knew the personality type. The understanding of your character strength combined with an understanding of personality types let to more efficient conflict resolution and problem solving.

General observation – I did not think a room full of NCOs would buy into resiliency training. I was wrong. I have found that the class is engaged and eager to learn the process. I think there is value in adding it in diluted form into the CGSC early curriculum. I would not dilute our current curriculum to make room for resiliency training but some how combined the two.

-MAJ Andrew Lanier, Student, Command and General Staff College

Soldiers attending this week’s Master Resiliency Training continue to send in their thoughts, and we’d love to hear your feedback. What do you think of the program? What questions do you have? Drop us a line in the comments section.

Maj. Damon Delarosa, Student, Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth Kan.

We continued to press on today in MRT. The focus of the day was on building character strengths. In order to prepare for today’s class, all students had to take the University of Pennsylvania’s VIA Survey of Character Strengths which rank orders 24 character strengths. I think the results of that survey surprised many people; I know I was surprised with my results. Two character strengths that I believed would be in my top five, leadership and courage, were in the bottom third of my strengths. After further analysis I realized my top five character strengths define my leadership and make me a better leader.

As a result of my analysis, I also realized that some definitions used in the MRT course, and specifically on the VIA survey, are not exactly the same as the ones we use in the Army. Therefore, these differences in definitions may cause some confusion and frustration with soldiers involved in the program. As long as facilitators are aware of these definition differences and incorporate that into their classes, it will minimize confusion.

After four days of class I believe this initial MRT class has a lot of the right people in the audience. Most of the attendees in this course are from TRADOC as drill sergeants, AIT platoon sergeants, and chaplain assistants. However, I am concerned that there is a lack of tactical/operational level leadership here that can bring these skills back to deploying/deployed units. I would argue that these soldiers should be a priority. The leaders here can certainly impact entry level soldiers, but once these soldiers get to their units they will not have leadership that understands the program/resiliency concept. For me, this raises the question of will these tools be forgotten and lost if they are not cultivated and grown?

This raises an interesting topic that several of us have been discussing: how do we implement the resiliency program at the organizational level? Since the results of an individual’s survey are supposed to be confidential, the resiliency program is being billed as an individual responsibility and as an individual self-improvement program. In order to ensure maximum impact on soldiers, will this program evolve into quarterly training or mandatory resiliency stand down days? As a future S3, I have the ability to influence battalion/brigade training, but how do I do that without mandating/dictating that soldiers participate in this program? The unfortunate truth is that if soldiers are given an option of doing resiliency modules on the computer or playing Halo, they will most likely choose Halo. I am sad to say that this program will probably not achieve the desired results if it is left to the individual to do on their own without regular facilitation.

Another update from one of the Soldiers participating in this week’s Master Resiliency Training at the University of Pennsylvania. A key component of the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program, Master Resiliency Trainers are individuals with upcoming deployments and leadership assignments, who are learning new skills and tools to lead their Soldiers and care for their overall wellness.

Major James Hayes, Student, Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth Kan.

Day 2-3 Reflections:

We spent the last two days establishing a base for understanding resiliency while focusing the techniques on ourselves. The belief is that we must be able to personally use the resiliency steps on ourselves before we can be expected to return to our units as effective trainers.

Overall, I believe the resiliency techniques being taught are useful, but there is a great amount of information that must be practiced to maintain the effectiveness. Comments from NCOs around me remain mostly positive with most of the concerns involving their application of the techniques in a training environment. As with any battle drill or SOP, it must be practiced to be internalized. We are still in the early phases of the course with more to follow on teaching techniques and expect take home materials to be covered next week.

I believe the program has enormous potential, but I continue to see a major challenge getting buy-in from commanders at various levels. Based on my understanding at this time, there is no formal Army policy requiring, regulating, or mandating the implementation of the resiliency program at the unit level although I know that portions are being taught in Army schools at various levels. The most basic way to integrate the program is during counseling, which provides yet another avenue to better know our Soldiers. If the program receives the sufficient level of emphasis, I foresee tremendous benefit for our Soldiers as we compliment our physical fitness with mental strength and agility.