Page 4 - The Cormorant 2018

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Commandant’s Foreword
AVM Chris Luck
DEAR CORMORANTS,
Let me start by congratulating you on completing what should have been a demanding academic year. You should
have felt challenged, whether by intellectual content, deliverables or deadlines; if there was no degree of discomfort then
there was no growth and we have failed you. You should have been given new cognitive skills and knowledge to further elevate your sights to the operational – strategic level, which is now the space within which you must deliver for Defence and your organisations. Some of you may have taken the path of least resistance and still achieved the minimum standard needed, but most of you made the effort
to stretch yourselves, expand your knowledge
and understanding, and therefore maximised your learning outcomes in preparation for the challenges ahead; that is why you were sent here. You will
also have taken the opportunity to network and cement bonds, national and international, with colleagues who will share your future in the Defence and Security arenas. I also hope that you took advantage of the year away from the demands of operational and staff tours to catch up on personal and family goals and outside interests, and to have decompressed; fun is not a dirty word!
As I and many presenters and commentators have stated, the world within which you will be expected
“
to perform is one of persistent conflict, novelty, surprise and lethality. Technology, and creativity in using it (an entrepreneurial spirit), will either bolster or diminish our historical advantages and must be embraced transformationally, not incrementally; we need to break out of the straight jacket (comfort blanket) of traditional structures, processes and regulations if we are to genuinely be adaptive and agile to what is happening in the strategic space; we need to get creative. You will need to operate, think and act in that space and take responsibility for challenging, proposing and bringing policy
and strategy to life. Those that you lead and have responsibility for will look to you for guidance, priorities and assurance. There will be many that
you will need to influence and persuade, through clarity of analysis and purpose, if you are to meet the challenging goals given to you. You will need to apply your brains and to build diverse and inclusive teams to harness all perspectives and generate genuinely novel options to the many problems you’ll face.
As you continue to your next challenge, we at the Defence Academy and JSCSC will continue to use your course feedback to decide on how we can make both the intellectual and lived-experience as effective as possible. This will be mapped against the bigger challenges facing Defence education as we seek to maximise value from the time afforded to you. There will be fundamental changes both in residential time, learning methods (methodological and digital) and content to meet the demands of the rapidly changing 21st Century context and the expectation
of Generation Z and beyond; there’s no escaping
the fact that the iPhone did not exist when I did staff college, and it too will appear quaint to those coming soon; this is equally true of Defence writ large. As
we decide and begin to make structural changes we will remain cautious to not throw away what is good. Putting a value on what we do and must protect
will continue to prove difficult; it is easy to add and difficult to revise – Occam’s razor is at times too blunt. As we cautiously move forward in this area, your continuing views on what is and is not important for ACSC-level education is crucial. I invite you to submit comment, especially after you have had a chance to reflect back on your year – do not wait for an invitation – and I would welcome volunteers willing to sit on Working Groups or Judgement panels to help shape the future ACSC. This is your opportunity to protect and enhance what is your College and legacy, and if not that, then please remain connected through the Cormorant Club.
I wish you all rewarding and fulfilling careers and that you achieve your personal goals. However, my main wish is that our collective security, national and international, is enhanced through your leadership and thinking developed here at Shrivenham.
Commandant
‘Unity is Strength’
You should have
felt challenged, whether by content,
deliverables or deadlines. ◆◆◆