Visit our website for other free publication 

downloads

http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/

To rate this publication click here.
The United States Army War College

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

CENTER for

STRATEGIC

LEADERSHIP and

DEVELOPMENT

The United States Army War College educates and develops leaders for service 

at the strategic level while advancing knowledge in the global application 

of Landpower.

The purpose of the United States Army War College is to produce graduates 

who are skilled critical thinkers and complex problem solvers. Concurrently, 

it is our duty to the U.S. Army to also act as a “think factory” for commanders 

and civilian leaders at the strategic level worldwide and routinely engage 

in discourse and debate concerning the role of ground forces in achieving 

national security objectives.

The Strategic Studies Institute publishes national 

security and strategic research and analysis to influence 

policy debate and bridge the gap between military 

and academia.

The Center for Strategic Leadership and Development 

contributes to the education of world class senior 

leaders, develops expert knowledge, and provides 

solutions to strategic Army issues affecting the national 

security community.

The Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute 

provides subject matter expertise, technical review, 

and writing expertise to agencies that develop stability 

operations concepts and doctrines.

The Senior Leader Development and Resiliency program 

supports the United States Army War College’s lines of 

effort to educate strategic leaders and provide well-being 

education and support by developing self-awareness 

through leader feedback and leader resiliency.

The School of Strategic Landpower develops strategic 

leaders by providing a strong foundation of wisdom 

grounded in mastery of the profession of arms, and 

by serving as a crucible for educating future leaders in 

the analysis, evaluation, and refinement of professional 

expertise in war, strategy, operations, national security, 

resource management, and responsible command.

The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center acquires, 

conserves, and exhibits historical materials for use 

to support the U.S. Army, educate an international 

audience, and honor soldiers—past and present.

U.S. Army War College

Senior Leader Development and Resiliency

SLDR
i

STRATEGIC

STUDIES

INSTITUTE

The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) is part of the U.S. Army War 

College and is the strategic-level study agent for issues related 

to national security and military strategy with emphasis on 

geostrategic analysis.

The mission of SSI is to use independent analysis to conduct strategic 

studies that develop policy recommendations on:

• Strategy, planning, and policy for joint and combined 

 employment of military forces;

• Regional strategic appraisals;

• The nature of land warfare;

• Matters affecting the Army’s future;

• The concepts, philosophy, and theory of strategy; and,

• Other issues of importance to the leadership of the Army.

Studies produced by civilian and military analysts concern 

topics having strategic implications for the Army, the Department of 

Defense, and the larger national security community.

In addition to its studies, SSI publishes special reports on topics 

of special or immediate interest. These include edited proceedings 

of conferences and topically-oriented roundtables, expanded trip 

reports, and quick-reaction responses to senior Army leaders.

The Institute provides a valuable analytical capability within the 

Army to address strategic and other issues in support of Army 

participation in national security policy formulation.

Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

CHANGING MINDS IN THE ARMY:

WHY IT IS SO DIFFICULT 

AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Stephen J. Gerras

Leonard Wong

October 2013

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and 

do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the 

Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. 

Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) and 

U.S. Army War College (USAWC) Press publications enjoy full 

academic freedom, provided they do not disclose classified 

information, jeopardize operations security, or misrepresent 

official U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers them to 

offer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the interest of furthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared for 

public release; distribution is unlimited.

*****

This publication is subject to Title 17, United States Code, 

Sections 101 and 105. It is in the public domain and may not be 

copyrighted.
iv

*****

Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should 

be forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. 

Army War College Press, U.S. Army War College, 47 Ashburn 

Drive, Carlisle, PA 17013-5010.

*****

All Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) and U.S. Army War 

College (USAWC) Press publications may be downloaded free 

of charge from the SSI website. Hard copies of this report may 

also be obtained free of charge while supplies last by placing 

an order on the SSI website. SSI publications may be quoted 

or reprinted in part or in full with permission and appropriate 

credit given to the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. 

Army War College Press, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA. 

Contact SSI by visiting our website at the following address: 

www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil.

*****

The Strategic Studies Institute and USAWC Press 

publishes a monthly email newsletter to update the national 

security community on the research of our analysts, recent and 

forthcoming publications, and upcoming conferences sponsored 

by the Institute. Each newsletter also provides a strategic commentary by one of our research analysts. If you are interested in 

receiving this newsletter, please subscribe on the SSI website at 

www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/newsletter.

ISBN 1-58487-597-6
v

FOREWORD

While changing one’s mind is not something we 

normally associate with strategic leadership, Stephen 

Gerras and Leonard Wong point out that it is not only 

a valuable skill at the strategic level, but also a necessary capability in the current security environment of 

complexity and change. Unfortunately, as the authors 

describe, changing one’s mind does not come easy 

for Army senior leaders. Individual and organizational factors emerge that make the ability to change 

one’s mind difficult and elusive. Nevertheless, this 

monograph introduces a concept that all Army senior 

leaders should evaluate both in themselves and the 

Army profession.

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

vii

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

STEPHEN J. GERRAS is a Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the Department of Command, Leadership, 

and Management at the U.S. Army War College. He 

served in the Army for over 25 years, including commanding a light infantry company and a transportation battalion, teaching leadership at West Point, and 

serving as the Chief of Operations and Agreements for 

the Office of Defense Cooperation in Ankara, Turkey. 

Dr. Gerras holds a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy and an M.S. and Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology from Penn State University.

LEONARD WONG is a research professor in the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College. 

He focuses on the human and organizational dimensions of the military. He is a retired lieutenant colonel 

whose career includes teaching leadership at West 

Point and serving as an analyst for the Chief of Staff 

of the Army. Dr. Wong’s research has led him to locations such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, and 

Vietnam. He has testified before Congress, and his 

work has been highlighted in news media such as the 

New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington 

Post, the New Yorker, CNN, NPR, PBS, and 60 Minutes. Dr. Wong is a Professional Engineer and holds a 

B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy and an M.S. and 

Ph.D. from Texas Tech University.

ix

SUMMARY

With the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

the U.S. Army now finds itself in a time of extraordinary fiscal and national security uncertainty. In such 

an environment, it seems naïve, or at least overly optimistic, to assume that all, or even most, of a strategic 

leader’s current assumptions will be just as relevant 

several years into the future. It follows, then, that senior leaders may need to be willing to change their 

minds on important issues. History and organizational studies both demonstrate that changing one’s mind 

is quite difficult, even in the face of overwhelming 

evidence that this change needs to occur. This monograph explains how smart, professional, and incredibly performance-oriented Army senior leaders develop frames of reference and then oftentimes cling to 

their outdated frames in the face of new information. 

The monograph describes the influence of individual-level concepts—personality, cognitive dissonance 

reduction, the hardwiring of the brain, the imprints 

of early career events, and senior leader intuition—

along with group level factors to explain how frames 

of reference are established, exercised, and rewarded. 

It concludes by offering recommendations to senior 

leaders on how to structure Army leader development 

systems to create leaders comfortable with changing 

their minds when the environment dictates.

1

CHANGING MINDS IN THE ARMY:

WHY IT IS SO DIFFICULT 

AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the 

military mind is to get an old one out.

 B. H. Liddell Hart

 (Thoughts on War, London: 

Faber & Faber, 1944, p. v.)

In October of 2000, General Eric Shinseki, the U.S. 

Army’s Chief of Staff, delivered a speech announcing some very significant changes for the Army—a 

new readiness reporting system, improvements to 

the beleaguered military medical system, and a proposed increase in the size of the Army to alleviate the 

deployment strain on Soldiers. Somehow, however, 

these initiatives were overshadowed by a seemingly 

innocent policy change announced almost as an afterthought—issuing every Soldier a black beret. 

Howls of protest followed the announcement almost immediately. Members of elite units—the Rangers, Special Forces, and paratroopers—were the first 

to decry their loss of distinctiveness through the egalitarian issue of the beret. Former Rangers marched 

from Fort Benning, GA, to the White House to deliver 

a beret in protest. Because some of the berets would 

be purchased from China (of all countries), Congress 

became involved. Finally, after congressional pressure 

and a nudge from the White House, Defense Secretary 

Donald Rumsfeld put the plan on hold until further 

review. Meanwhile the media and public watched 

in puzzlement over what seemed to be an inordinate 

amount of discussion and dissent over a hat. 

But the hullabaloo over the beret was not about 

fashion. It was about changing minds and how, in the 
2

U.S. Army, changing minds is an incredibly difficult 

feat. It was about the arduous process of changing an 

Army that had for half a century equipped, trained, 

and prepared itself to fight World War III—and did 

it very well. Yet that very success posed an obstacle 

for change in the future. The need for change became 

obvious in 1990 when the only forces that could be deployed quickly against the armored columns of Saddam Hussein were the outgunned paratroopers of the 

82nd Airborne Division. A decade later, the difficulties 

in deploying Task Force Hawk to Kosovo reinforced 

the growing concern that the Army was still working 

with a Cold War mindset in a post-Cold War world. 

General Shinseki put the Army on a dizzying pace 

of transformation that introduced radical changes to 

the doctrine, training, technology, and thinking of the 

Army. The result was an Army that was learning to be 

more agile and versatile yet still struggled to shed the 

vestiges of an Army that had existed mainly to fight 

the Soviet hordes on the plains of Europe. General 

Shinseki had put the Army on the route of acclimatization, the process by which an organism becomes better adapted to exist in an environment different from 

the one to which it was indigenous. Just as some animals shed their winter coats to acclimatize to the onset 

of spring, the Army needed to keep its high intensity 

conflict capability, yet shed some of the assumptions 

and habits of the Cold War in anticipation of peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and 

asymmetrical warfare of the future. 

The black beret was supposed to be part of the 

Army’s process of acclimatization. It was intended to 

be a small change in attitude preparing the Army for 

the larger paradigm shifts of the future. It was fielded 

as a symbol of unity to pull the Army together as it 
3

confronted the challenges in the process of change. 

Instead, it exposed the internal foot dragging, reluctance, and divisiveness that almost always emerges 

when the Army attempts to change minds. An Army 

survey during that period showed that despite the 

Chief of Staff’s efforts to change the thinking of the 

leadership of the Army, 50 percent of battalion and 

brigade commanders reported that they were uncomfortable with the pending changes of transforming the 

Army.1

 In hindsight, it is almost incredulous that—a 

year before the terrorist attacks of September 2001—

half of the soon-to-be strategic leaders of the Army 

were skeptical of shifting from a Cold War force to 

a more agile Army. Encountering difficulty in the 

process of changing minds in the Army, however, is 

something that should be anticipated, planned for, 

and dealt with. Yet, recent history reveals that Army 

strategic leaders continue to struggle with changing 

their minds. 

In 2007, nearly two-thirds of the combat deaths in 

the Iraq insurgency had been caused by improvised 

explosive devices (IEDs)2

—often the result of an attack against the vulnerable Humvee. Despite mounting evidence that mine-resistant ambush protected 

(MRAP) vehicles could reduce IED casualties up to 

80 percent over the Humvee,3

 there were only a little 

over 1,000 MRAPs deployed with the Army 4 years after the first IED in Iraq had exploded.4

 For a variety of 

reasons, senior Army leaders were reluctant to replace 

the 21,000 Humvees in theater with the more costly, 

heavy, cumbersome, and yet more protective MRAPs. 

For example, at an industry conference interview in 

2007, Colonel Jeffrey Helmick, a battalion commander 

during the 2003 Iraq invasion and now the transportation capabilities manager at the Army’s Training and 
4

Doctrine Command, was asked about the future of 

Humvees despite the growing clamor for MRAPs in 

theater. Helmick had recently returned to Iraq and, after noticing that units were installing armor on Humvees in response to IEDs, commented, “Soldiers in the 

motor pool are making a difference when it comes to 

up-armoring.” Helmick added, “The Humvee is not 

going anywhere. It will be with us until 2026, possibly 

until 2030.”5

 It finally took a directive later that year 

from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to end the debate 

and force a one-for-one replacement of an MRAP for 

each up-armored Humvee. Announcing the mandated switch to MRAPs, Gates stated, “For every month 

we delay, scores of young Americans are going to 

die.”6 Colonel Helmick, a gifted leader known for his 

competence and intellect, is just one example of a successful senior officer struggling with the difficulty of 

changing his mind. Changing one’s mind remains a 

critical, and often times elusive, skill for even the best 

Army strategic leaders. 

With the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

the U.S. Army now finds itself in a time of extraordinary fiscal and national security uncertainty. In such 

an environment, it seems naïve, or at least overly optimistic, to assume that all, or even most, of a strategic 

leader’s current assumptions will be just as relevant 

several years into the future. It follows then, that senior 

leaders may need to be willing to change their minds 

on important issues instead of clinging to increasingly 

obsolete ideas and positions. For this monograph, 

changing one’s mind implies a reversal of a previous 

judgment or position on an issue. This monograph 

is not advocating capricious, wishy-washy organizational decisionmaking. Instead, it merely highlights 

the need for Army senior leaders to question their 
5

deep-seated beliefs on critical issues periodically and 

base their decisions on the most current information, 

rather than relying solely on what they have long 

believed to be true. 

Changing one’s mind is more than an individuallevel challenge. Organizations, including the Army, 

rarely achieve alignment among all interested parties 

or stakeholders. Large organizations contain subgroups and power centers that typically have competing theories on the best way for the organization 

to achieve its primary goal: sustainable competitive 

advantage. As the environment changes and as various stakeholders apply different assumptions and offer disparate strategies for progress, strategic leaders 

will often need to recognize the merit in competing 

theories and then change their minds on key issues to 

make the best decision. Of course, that may require the 

senior leader to let go of preconceived notions such 

as tradition (as in the case of the Army’s headgear) 

or outdated methods (as in the case of the limited effectiveness of up-armoring Humvees against the IED 

threat), if letting go is what the environment dictates. 

Why it is so hard for Army senior leaders to change 

their minds is discussed in the following sections. 

First, the concept of frames of reference is introduced, 

followed by a discussion of how and why neuroscience makes changing one’s mind difficult. The role of 

organizational variables on this process is then examined. Finally, we look at how strategic leaders might 

apply this knowledge to enhance the likelihood that 

as the environment evolves, they are able to actually 

change their minds.
6

THE PROBLEM

To understand why changing one’s mind is difficult, especially for Army strategic leaders, we must 

first consider frames of reference. Frames of reference 

are the complex knowledge structures we develop 

through personal and professional experiences that 

influence—and often limit—the way we approach issues. Our frames of reference provide the set of criteria or stated values that we refer to when we make 

measurements or judgments. Frames of reference are 

deeper than mere viewpoints since they often involve 

ideals or standards. Similarly, frames of reference are 

not as foundational as worldviews since they are more 

malleable and not as absolute. Each of us can possess 

frames of reference for things such as the best way to 

raise children, the manners expected when talking to 

a superior in the workplace, or even the role of airpower in war. Changing one’s mind requires a reevaluation of one’s frames of reference when confronted 

with new information. Unfortunately, shattering or 

unlearning our frames of reference is an action that 

is easy to espouse, yet incredibly difficult to execute.7

When faced with an argument or information that 

conflicts with our existing frames of reference, our 

typical thought processes tend to follow a general 

pattern. First, we reassure ourselves that our frame of 

reference is correct and reasonable. Otherwise, why 

would we hold it? We then shift to telling ourselves 

that if a person presenting an opposing view would 

just make the effort to understand our frame of reference, they would surely align their frame of reference 

with ours. If, however, the person does not change his 

or her mind to align with ours, we write the person 

off as hopelessly biased or terribly close-minded. This 
7

all takes place under the overarching assumption that, 

if we ourselves were presented with evidence that 

our frame of reference was wrong (certainly, a very 

rare occurrence), then we would adjust accordingly. 

Unfortunately, the underlying assumption that each 

of us has the ability to rise above our own limitations 

and see issues from an optimal perspective is, more 

often than not, simply untrue. 

So how do Army senior leaders develop these 

frames of reference, and why are they so hard 

to change once established? The answer lies in a 

person’s innate qualities, combined with a person’s 

accumulated experiences. 

Nature and Nurture. 

To understand how Army officers develop their 

frames of reference, we need to—well—put aside our 

frames of reference about how people come to know 

what they know. The place to start is genetics. Most of 

us assume that our thoughts and our ability to change 

them in light of new data have nothing to do with our 

genetic make-up. Scholars have spent years rebuffing the “Great Man” theories of leadership that claim 

people with certain inborn traits and characteristics 

are destined to become historic leaders. However, 

most leadership scholars now recognize that certain 

hereditary traits and characteristics are indeed related 

to leadership effectiveness.8

 So, a sophisticated understanding of frames of reference development requires 

attention to years of research on the importance of 

inborn traits. Studies on identical twins—especially 

those separated at birth—provide strong evidence 

that genes contribute, somehow, to just about every 

aspect of personality. In the simplest terms, person-
8

ality consists of the typical way a certain person responds to situations.9

 The Five-Factor personality 

model is the most widely accepted model to describe 

human personality. It consists of five empirically derived, independent factors: openness, conscientiousness, 

extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Research 

consistently shows that humans inherit 40 to 50 percent of their personality traits.10

Why does this matter? It brings to light that there 

are factors beyond our control—including the personality factor of openness—that may greatly influence 

how people develop their frames of reference and the 

potential for changing them. Openness is “the recurrent need to enlarge and examine experience.”11 Openness is manifested in a strong intellectual curiosity, 

creativity, and a comfortable relationship with novelty and variety. People scoring high in openness tend 

to be more creative and more aware of their feelings. 

They are more likely to hold unconventional beliefs 

and can work with symbols and abstractions. People 

with low scores on openness tend to have more conventional, traditional interests, preferring familiarity 

over novelty. They tend to be conservative and resistant to change, although they also tend to be more 

productive. Leaders high in openness search for relevant and conflicting perspectives. Not only are they 

imaginative, but they also solicit alternate points of 

view and are comfortable debating with those whose 

perspectives differ from their own. They are generally 

more receptive to change.12 Therefore, the attribute of 

openness will affect the lens through which a person 

builds his or her frames of reference, along with the 

willingness to eventually challenge and potentially 

alter those frames. The link between the personality 

domain of openness and the proclivity to change one’s 

mind is strong. 
9

Officers with higher levels of openness would be 

expected to have more potential to change their minds, 

if needed. An analysis of the openness of the Army’s 

most successful officers, however, reveals an interesting situation. Personality data gathered at the U.S. 

Army War College (USAWC) from lieutenant colonel 

and colonel students show that the most successful officers13 score lower in openness than the general U.S. 

population. Upon reflection, this makes sense. People 

with lower openness scores would probably be more 

inclined to join the Army in the first place. Additionally, since those who are more closed tend to be more 

productive, it is logical that officers viewed as successful by the institution would be even less open. To 

make matters worse, though, those USAWC students 

selected for brigade command score even lower than 

the overall USAWC average.14 This raises an interesting paradox: The leaders recognized and selected by 

the Army to serve at strategic levels—where uncertainty and complexity are the greatest—tend to have 

lower levels of one of the attributes most related to 

success at strategic level.15

Most military officers will not find this paradox 

surprising. Military culture values decisive, can-do 

leaders who do not get distracted in environments 

with unfavorable signal-to-noise ratio. At the tactical 

level, this makes sense. Low openness at the strategic 

level, however, becomes problematic. A strong body 

of research concludes that senior decisionmakers who 

are more open and less rigid in their frames of reference are much more likely to make better judgments.16

A second partially inherited attribute related to this 

topic is cognitive ability (it has a higher inheritability 

percentage than personality variables like openness17). 

If the Army suffers somewhat from a lack of openness, 
10

at least the officer corps should benefit from the relatively higher levels of cognitive ability in a profession 

that requires a bachelor’s, and often master’s, degree 

of its senior officers. Indeed, a quick analysis of demographic information clearly shows that Army officers 

possess above average intelligence. Oddly enough, 

the relationship between having smarts and having 

the propensity to change one’s mind is counterintuitive. In his highly regarded book, The Righteous Mind, 

Jonathan Haidt asserts that intelligence quotient (IQ) 

is the biggest predictor of how well people argue, but 

only in terms of how well they support their own position. Research shows that smart people are no better than those with less intelligence at finding reasons 

that support the other side of an argument.18 The result is that the more intelligent a person is, the better he or she is at rationalizing his or her already held 

beliefs. Smart people tend to excel at buttressing their 

own cases but often fail at exploring the issue fully 

to appreciate other perspectives and perhaps change 

their minds. Of course, this is not to imply that the 

solution to this paradoxical situation is to dumb down 

the officer corps. Instead, we need to recognize and 

appreciate that inherited personality factors, such as 

openness and cognitive ability, influence or constrain 

the ability of strategic leaders to change their minds. 

This assertion highlights and raises the question: How 

do frames of reference develop in the first place?

Imprinting.

Our frames of reference develop throughout our 

lives. For most officers, the frames of reference concerning the military that developed prior to entry 

into the military usually come through discussions 
11

with relatives and friends; movies, social media, and 

TV shows; and K-12 education. Arguably, the most 

important developmental period for frames of reference—the time in which military officers acquire the 

most significant and long-lasting military-related 

frames of reference—is during their first assignment. 

The term “imprinting” has been around for decades. Konrad Lorenz used the term to describe filial 

imprinting in which newborn goslings attach to the 

first object they encounter.19 Lorenz found that during the process of filial imprinting, there is a critical 

period for learning that is irreversible once something 

has been imprinted upon. Because Lorenz was the 

first thing the newly hatched geese saw, the goslings 

imprinted on Lorenz and followed him everywhere he 

went.20 Career imprinting is a derivative concept and is:

A form of learning that encompasses the professional 

impression left on individuals by an organization. Filial imprinting is involuntary and permanent; in contrast, humans can reflect on an organizational career 

imprint, recognize its influence on their behavior, and 

decide if and how to change their behavior.21

That, at least, is the theory. In reality, career imprints 

are often harder to change than the theory suggests. 

Three factors appear to strengthen the imprinting of an officer’s first assignment. First, a strong organizational culture and robust socialization practices

in which insiders transmit basic norms and values 

will increase the imprinting in the first assignment. 

Second, stretch opportunities—jobs that really challenge the newly commissioned officer, especially in 

combat—strengthen the imprint because the officer 

is often not able to reach back to pre-commissioning 

or officer entry courses to derive a logic of action. In-
12

stead, stretch opportunities force the junior officer to 

operate from a blank slate. Finally, demonstrated success in the initial job instills a sense in the officer that the 

frames of reference assimilated in the first assignment 

are valuable. As most strategic leaders are multiple 

below-the-zone selectees for higher rank, it could be 

argued that there is a tendency for senior leaders to 

reflect back on their initial assignments and conclude 

that they were “lucky to learn the right way” early in 

their career.22 Because individuals are more susceptible to career imprints when they are young—although 

powerful imprints can occur at any point in a career—

imprints experienced at the company grade level can 

be expected to be deeper and longer lasting.23

When officers reach the senior ranks, they often try 

to recreate aspects of their early careers by employing these frames of reference. The imprints are difficult to change, perhaps not to the level of the goslings, 

but they can hold considerable influence on decisions 

made later in military careers. This helps explain why 

some officers who spent their early years fighting the 

Soviet-styled Krasnovian army at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, CA, would be so hesitant to 

embrace a shift from the staying power of heavy forces to the agility of the lighter objective force or why an 

Army senior officer whose first assignment was in a 

battalion in Germany would insist that forward basing is preferable to frequent rotations of expeditionary 

forces home-based in the continental United States. 

The influence of career imprints is not absolute. But 

as officers approach novel situations at the strategic 

level, they must be cognizant of the tendency to revert 

to imprinted (and possibly outdated) frames of reference established early in their careers. 
13

Expertise and Intuition.

The preceding discussion might lead one to infer 

that frames of reference—the sum of our personal and 

professional experiences—are a bad thing. This is not 

the case. In a complex world in which information 

inundates leaders, frames of reference are the foundation of successful decisionmaking. No Army strategic leader would be successful without relying on 

expertise accumulated across a career. There is, however, an important caveat concerning that expertise. 

As Julia Sloan argues in her book, Learning to Think 

Strategically: 

Expertise is both a charm and a curse. It lets us quickly 

categorize a situation as typical. It lets us know where 

to focus our attention and what to ignore. But sometimes we can become so complacent about what we 

think we know that we are caught off guard when the 

unexpected happens. This is the flip side of expertise; 

it can blind us and give us a false sense of knowing. 

Expertise enables us to ignore cues and options we 

don’t think are worth attending to.24

Expertise is invaluable unless the context evolves 

quickly and dramatically. Unfortunately, today’s environment is, as the military’s Capstone Concept for 

Joint Operations (CCJO) describes it, “an increasingly 

complex, uncertain, competitive, rapidly changing, 

and transparent operating environment.”25 In such 

a context, the CCJO asserts that successful organizations must have leaders “emphasizing trust, force of 

will, intuitive judgment, and creativity, among other 

traits.”26 Intuitive judgment, a near-synonym with 

the Clausewitzian operational term, coup d’oeil,

27

highlights the importance of instinct and divination in the decisionmaking of military commanders. 
14

Napoleon Bonaparte, Erwin Rommel, and Robert E. 

Lee have long served as exemplars of the use of 

intuitive judgment. 

Here, however, is the surely unpopular rub: consistent research shows that intuition is overrated. 

Intuition is invaluable at the tactical and operational 

levels. At the strategic level, where patterns and consistency are not as common, intuition loses its power. 

We tend to forget that Napoleon had his Waterloo, 

Rommel was routed at the Second Battle of El Alamein, and the Civil War’s conclusion began with Lee’s 

defeat at Gettysburg. As Nobel laureate Dan Kahneman asserts, “Remember this rule: intuition cannot be 

trusted in the absence of stable regularities in the environment.”28 Countering the military’s fixation with 

intuition, he argues: 

The confidence that people have in their intuitions is 

not a reliable guide to their validity. In other words, 

do not trust anyone—including yourself—to tell you 

how much you should trust their judgment.29

Haidt adds: 

Gut feelings are sometimes better guides than reasoning for making consumer choices and interpersonal 

judgments, but they are often disastrous as a basis for 

public policy, science, and law.30

 Army senior leaders must be willing to examine 

and adapt their entrenched beliefs, given the rapid 

rate of change in the strategic environment. Although 

intuition and expertise are critical to leaders—when 

faced with volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous issues—senior decisionmakers must appreciate 
15

the limitations of applying expertise and intuition 

since it will often lead to close-mindedness and a tendency to dismiss dissonant information too quickly. 

Recent research on senior Army leaders (i.e., general 

officers) shows a strong inclination to trust intuition 

over empirical evidence when making complex decisions.31 Unfortunately, relying on memory retrieval 

is often risky since it can be an untrustworthy lower 

order cognitive process.32

HOW FRAMES OF REFERENCE FORM

An understanding of the formation of neural networks is central to appreciate why established beliefs 

and judgments are so difficult to change. At its most 

basic level, the brain might appear like an immense 

compilation of on-and-off switches. Given a stimulus, 

the 100 billion neurons in the brain either fire or do 

not. The connections between neurons, however, are 

not fixed. Instead, they are strengthened or weakened 

by the pattern of stimuli.33 Scientists do not yet understand how neurons collectively create thought, but the 

artificial intelligence (AI) community has done some 

work that might help in this understanding. The AI 

community has developed artificial neural networks 

based on mathematical algorithms initially devoid of 

specific values (much like a newly commissioned officer’s portfolio of frames of reference when it comes to 

military issues). AI programmers only write the equations; receipt of incoming information determines 

whether connections are formed, as well as their associated strength. The AI community labels this virtual 

space where these connections are formed, strengthened, and weakened as the hidden layer.34 Robert 

Burton, in On Being Certain, applies the concept of the 

hidden layer to our thinking. He states:
16

It is in the hidden layer that all elements of biology (from genetic predispositions to neurotransmitter 

variations and fluctuations) and all past experience, 

whether remembered or long forgotten, affect the processing of incoming information.35

Any two individuals, therefore, will respond differently to the same stimulus or problem. For each individual, as one connection changes, so do all the others. 

Burton suggests that Amazon.com is an appropriate metaphor to describe this phenomenon of how 

frames of reference form.36 The first time a person uses 

Amazon.com, the website does not suggest additional 

books that the person might enjoy. It cannot; it has 

no data on the person. Yet each time that individual 

searches the site, clicks on a book to review, opens its 

virtual cover to look inside, or makes a purchase, Amazon’s mathematical algorithms begin to work. The 

algorithms search for patterns, continuously making 

connections and, eventually and somewhat eerily, result in amazingly accurate book suggestions. If a Web 

shopper marks a book as a gift, the purchase is noted 

but does not get weighted as much as if the book were 

bought for the shopper. If a customer tends to enjoy a 

certain author, Amazon makes note of that and offers 

the work of similar authors for purchase. The Amazon 

system has basically formed the equivalent of a neural network for each customer, and no two networks 

are alike because no two people conduct the exact 

same searches. 

If, during a 3-year time span, a person only searches for military history books, Amazon will list military history books in the suggestions section for that 

person. The more military history books that person 

buys, the more this genre is weighted. If, after 3 years, 
17

however, that person decides to peruse 19th century 

impressionists and searches for relevant books, the 

book suggestions would still recommend military history. It would take a number of Renoir book searches 

and purchases to eventually re-weight the neural 

link equivalents in Amazon. Neuroscientists contend 

this description is not unlike human brain processes, 

which also tend to rely on established patterns. As 

interneuronal connections increase, they become 

more difficult to overcome.37 One reason why it is so 

hard to change our minds is that we are trapped by 

our patterned experiences. Routines, imprints, and 

perspectives developed early in an officer’s career 

are like multiple years of military history book purchases; it will take significant exposure to and valuing 

of other perspectives to alter our frames of reference. 

Burton asserts: 

In order to pursue long-range thoughts, we must derive sufficient reward from a line of reasoning to keep 

at the idea, yet remain flexible and willing to abandon 

the idea once there is contrary evidence. But if the process takes time and a repeated sense of reward develops, the neural connections binding the thought with 

the sensation of being correct will gradually strengthen. Once established, such connections are difficult to 

undo. Anyone who’s played golf knows how difficult 

it is to get rid of a slice or a hook. The worst part is that 

the bad swing that creates the slice actually feels more 

correct than the better swing that would eliminate it.38

How might this play out in a military career? 

Imagine a senior Army officer whose career began 

with repetitive assignments in divisional units. Much 

like 3 years of buying military history books, this officer established a neural network during important 

imprinting years in which the Army was most effec-
18

tive with a division-centric approach. With the shift 

toward the decentralized brigade combat team as 

the Iraq and later the Afghanistan wars progressed, 

the senior officer recognizes that the changed operating environment should have reframed his opinion, 

but his gut tells him that there will be problems with 

abandoning the notion of deploying a full division. He 

lets data from 25 years ago outweigh current experience. He sticks with his intuition and does not change 

his mind.

Where does this discussion put us? Senior Army 

officers have typically self-selected to be part of the 

profession of arms because a military career aligns 

with their self concept. They show up at the pre-commissioning source probably a little less open-minded 

than ideal (at least for the strategic level), but they are 

smart and incredibly performance-oriented, and they 

routinely possess strong moral values. Senior leaders 

go through basic officer education programs and then, 

because of the novelty and challenge of a first assignment, have career-lasting imprints stamped into their 

brains. They adjust these imprints incrementally as 

they go through their careers, but the lack of openness, 

the application of intellect to rationalize already-held 

beliefs, and the neurology of the brain make it increasingly difficult to update their frames of reference as 

they progress through the ranks. By the time many officers reach the senior levels, their confidence in their 

own judgments has been established, exercised, and 

rewarded. As a result, they tend to put more faith in 

their own intuition than empirical evidence presented 

to them. 
19

Confirmation Bias. 

There is one more relevant piece of this dilemma. 

It focuses on cognitive dissonance and confirmation 

bias. It is an illusion to believe decisionmakers treat 

information and diverse opinions equally. Individuals 

pay particular attention to information that supports 

their beliefs and either ignore or discount the value 

of evidence that contradicts their beliefs. When senior 

Army officers encounter information that is contrary to 

their beliefs or opinions, they face a condition known 

as cognitive dissonance, or the state of tension arising 

from holding two cognitions that are psychologically 

inconsistent.39 Researchers using images from MRI 

scans found that when subjects were confronted with 

dissonant information, they often used the reasoning 

areas of their brain not to analyze new data or information, but rather to develop a narrative that preserves 

their initial frames of reference. Once the narrative 

is created, the emotional areas of the brain happily 

light up.40 The researchers concluded that individuals, 

when faced with dissonant information, use their reasoning skills to “twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until 

they get the conclusions they want.”41 The resulting 

release of positive neurotransmitters gives strong reinforcement for justification of their existing perspective. Confirmation bias emerges as information is interpreted in a way to confirm old preconceptions and 

dismiss new contradictory evidence. 

Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, Commander in 

Chief of the Pacific Fleet in December 1941, thought 

the main threat to the Pacific Fleet was from sabotage, 

not a Japanese attack. He therefore did not heed orders 

in late November 1941 to initiate a defensive deployment of the fleet. Despite secret cryptographic intelli-
20

gence, repeated warnings from Washington, and even 

the sinking of a submarine near the entrance to Pearl 

Harbor 1 hour before the attack, Kimmel was resistant 

to changing his mind and ordering immediate preparations for a Japanese assault. Rather, he rationalized 

each piece of dissonant information in a way that allowed him to maintain his initial perspective.42

Much like Admiral Kimmel, we tend to spend 

much of our lives looking to confirm our already held 

beliefs as opposed to consistently searching for dissonant information or conflicting cues that challenge 

our perspectives. This confirmation bias is yet another 

reason why once our minds are made up, it is very 

difficult to change. When we are faced with contrary 

information, our tendency is to mentally work hard 

to discount the information so that we can confirm 

our previously held views. Not surprisingly, when a 

recent sample of senior Army leaders was asked for 

an example of when their intuition was wrong, none 

could offer a single example.43

Organizational Culture. 

We have discussed how the nature and nurture 

of leaders may constrain their ability to change their 

frames of reference and hence, inhibit changing their 

minds even when signals or dissonant information 

may suggest otherwise. Not all obstacles to leaders 

changing their way of thinking, however, are at the 

individual level. Organizational level factors can also 

contribute to the hindrance of corrective action to the 

faulty thinking processes of senior leaders. For example, the recent spate of senior officer misconduct and 

ethics violations has reinforced that even the highest 

ranks are susceptible to ethical transgressions. Yet one 
21

would assume that at least one person in the omnipresent coterie of well-informed, well-intentioned personal staffs that typically surround senior leaders would 

speak up and bring the leader back on the straight 

and narrow path. Unfortunately, even if subordinates 

clearly recognize that a senior leader needs to make a 

course correction, the culture of the organization may 

often hinder subordinates from bringing up a contrarian point of view. In other words, one of the factors 

that may contribute to a senior leader seeing a flawed 

perception of reality is an organizational culture that 

discourages subordinate dissent or disagreement. 

Culture has many dimensions, but two empirically 

supported relevant dimensions of organizational culture are power distance and assertiveness.

44 Power distance reflects the degree to which members of a collective accept unequal distributions of power. It is 

implicit in hierarchical organizations, and more so in 

the military. Organizational cultures that support low 

power distance expect and encourage power relationships that are more advisory or democratic. In a low 

power distance culture, organizational members relate 

to each another more as equals rather than superiors 

and subordinates. Subordinates are more comfortable 

with, and expect to contribute to, the decisionmaking 

process of superiors. In high power distance cultures, 

subordinates accept power relationships that are more 

absolute and autocratic. Superiors have power simply 

by where they are situated in the hierarchy. While high 

power distance cultures provide a stable distribution 

of power that brings order in uncertain and chaotic 

environments, they also tend to suppress subordinates from questioning, disagreeing, or raising alternative points of view. Thus, although the high power 

distance culture common in the military contributes 
22

to combat effectiveness in adverse and complex situations, it also has the potential to squash conflict and 

disallow dissent. It is the prevalence of this culture 

in the Army that prompted Defense Secretary Robert 

Gates to state in a West Point speech that, “If, as an officer, you don’t tell blunt truths—or create an environment where candor is encouraged—then you’ve done 

yourself and the institution a disservice.”45

The organizational culture dimension of assertiveness captures “the degree to which individuals are 

assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in their 

relationships with others.”46 Organizations high on 

the assertiveness dimension value direct, tough, 

and unambiguous communication from everyone 

in the organization. Low assertiveness cultures tend 

to value cooperation, warm relationships, and loyal 

subordinates. Clearly correlated with power distance, 

assertiveness expectations vary across the Army but 

tend to be lower on the scale. For example, in a recent 

Center for Army Leadership study of over of 16,800 

leaders who were surveyed across the Army, only 

about half thought that their unit or organization encouraged the frank or free flow discussion of ideas.47

Similarly, a study conducted on the Army profession 

found that only about a quarter of the survey respondents believed that the Army encourages candid opinions. Additionally, many junior officers believed that 

they would be punished if they offered senior leaders 

opinions judged as “too candid.”48 Although high levels of assertiveness are espoused in the Army, in practice, neither the subordinate nor the leader typically 

expects direct, tough pushback to a leader’s thoughts 

or ideas. 

There are no ideal levels of cultural dimensions like 

power distance and assertiveness; rather, the strength 

of the dimension should align with the context. We 
23

maintain that in the military context, power distance 

tends to be too high and assertiveness expectations 

too low. In the case of senior officer misconduct and 

ethical lapses, a low power distance culture in which 

assertiveness was expected, or demanded, might have 

led to subordinates pointing out inconsistencies with 

senior leader behavior before it crossed the line. Unfortunately, in a high power distance culture at the 

strategic level (which arguably has been the military 

norm throughout history) in which assertiveness is 

more an espoused than practiced value, strategic leaders are unlikely to be presented mental models and assumptions that diverge from their entrenched frames 

of reference. In other words, we need to realize that at 

the strategic level, it is very difficult to overcome the 

military cultural tendencies that discourage dissent 

and inhibit candor. 

WHAT TO DO?

The preceding paragraphs might lead one to think 

that the Army should despairingly conclude that its 

senior leaders are incapable of changing their minds. 

Thankfully, despite a plethora of individual and organizational obstacles and hindrances, changing one’s 

mind is not impossible. Creating an Army that facilitates that ability, however, will take a series of deliberate, long-term actions. 

At the individual officer level, the Army must continue its emphasis on self-awareness. This begins with 

leaders taking attitudinal and personality assessments 

and continues as leaders become alert to how, as individuals, they process information. Introspection alone, 

however, is not sufficient since we tend to confirm our 

self-justifying beliefs and conclude that our positions 
24

and self-concept are legitimate and reasoned. Selfawareness should be enhanced by providing officers 

with data from subordinates and peers that provide a 

more external and behaviorally focused perspective. 

The Army currently has a variety of 360° feedback 

instruments available to provide leaders the opinions of others. Ideally, an item on the 360° instrument 

should ask, “How receptive is this officer to changing 

his or her mind?” Regardless, a critical requirement 

for the effective use of any 360° instrument is for the 

subordinates and peers providing the evaluation to be 

identified by a method that does not include the targeted officer influencing the selection process. Finally, 

qualified feedback providers should interpret and 

communicate the 360° feedback to the targeted officer. 

An emphasis on continuous assessment and experimentation is another avenue to improve the ability for senior leaders to change their minds. Despite 

the documented limitations of intuition in complex 

contexts, senior leaders continue to pay an overabundance of homage to intuition. Leaders at the strategic 

level need to develop the habit of developing testable 

hypotheses and then implementing small experiments, or perhaps relatively unbiased assessments of 

historical data, to confirm or refute their hypotheses. 

There will always be an “art” to the practice of leadership—even at the strategic level. But senior leaders 

should also recognize the value and the substance of 

the “science” of strategic leadership. 

The next recommendation is one that, in the past 

several years, has been brought up so many times in 

task force reports, speeches, and opinion pieces that 

its true meaning has been lost many iterations ago: 

Army officers need to be broadened. Broadening occurs when dissonance is forced on Army officers. It 

happens when there is a clash of frames of reference 
25

and developing leaders realize that the world’s thinking does not always align with theirs. A good broadening experience does not necessarily result in officers 

changing their minds. Instead, a worthwhile broadening experience results in officers assessing their own 

frames of reference and then being forced to step back 

to examine the existence and merit of the frames of 

reference of other people. 

The best broadening experiences immerse an aspiring leader in an environment where the comfortable hierarchy of the Army is removed, frames of 

reference are questioned, and assumptions are tested. 

It could be in a top-tier graduate school where the officer’s study group partner is a communist, many of the 

professors are anarchists, and just about all the neighbors are pacifists. Or it could be an intergovernmental 

agency internship where meetings seem to drone on 

endlessly, and consensus, not decisiveness, is the most 

admired quality. A quick metric for determining if an 

experience can be deemed broadening is this: If the environment permits “Hooah!” as a legitimate response, 

then it is probably not a useful broadening experience. 

As officers rise in rank to assume senior strategic 

positions, they need to develop a group of trustworthy advisors that will tactfully challenge their positions and viewpoints. As Tavris and Aronson assert:

We need a few trusted naysayers in our lives, critics 

who are willing to puncture our protective bubble of 

self-justifications and yank us back to reality if we veer 

too far off. This is especially important for people in 

positions of power.49

Of course, assembling a “Red Team” capable of providing different perspectives and conducting alternative analyses is the undemanding part of this recom-
26

mendation. Actually getting the group to challenge 

the senior leader’s frames of references is the more 

difficult, yet more vital action. 

Two aspects will affect an advisory group’s ability 

to speak unvarnished truth to a senior leader. First, as 

mentioned earlier, a high power distance relationship 

in the organizational culture will discourage subordinates from critiquing or criticizing a senior leader’s 

decisionmaking process. In order for a group of subordinates to feel comfortable with challenging a senior 

leader, a culture of trust must be established between 

the group and the senior leader. A culture of trust is 

instituted not by senior leader proclamations, edicts, 

or pronouncements, but rather by the observed actions of the senior leader. How a senior leader encourages, reacts to, and rewards dissent or disagreement 

will determine the power distance relationship of the 

organization’s culture. 

A second factor influencing a group’s ability to provide candor focuses on the in-group of advisors who 

have special access to the senior leader. C. S. Lewis describes such a group as the “Inner Ring” and suggests 

that membership often becomes an unspoken badge 

of cachet and prestige. Lewis describes the siren song 

of desire to belong to the Inner Ring:

Often the desire conceals itself so well that we hardly 

recognize the pleasures of fruition. Men tell not only 

their wives but themselves that it is a hardship to stay 

late at the office or the school on some bit of important 

extra work which they have been let in for because 

they and So-and-so and the two others are the only 

people left in the place who really know how things 

are run. But it is not quite true. It is a terrible bore, of 

course. . . . A terrible bore, ah, but how much more 

terrible if you were left out!50
27

Candid feedback from an advisory group will be 

difficult to obtain if group membership, instead of 

honest feedback, becomes the primary motivation of 

group members. Thus, advisory group members must 

guard against the influence of the powerful, yet often 

unstated, human desire to be in the Inner Ring. Likewise, senior leaders should not be so naïve to discount 

the possibility that their advisors, despite all their entreaties to do otherwise, are merely telling them what 

they want to hear. 

Finally, the journey to developing Army strategic 

leaders who can change their minds when confronted 

with new situations begins long before officers reach 

the senior ranks. Haidt asserts that the most effective 

way for people to develop their ability to change their 

minds is by interacting with different people and entertaining diverse ideas.51 For junior officers who are 

(rightfully) immersed in the fairly homogeneous and 

rather insulated culture of the tactical Army, there 

may be very little time to interact with people holding 

different opinions. But junior officers can develop the 

habits of good critical thinking by analyzing what they 

read in the newspaper, trying to understand the reasoning of contrary opinion pieces, or even maintaining a hobby unrelated to the daily duties of a junior 

officer. Hopefully, the Army will afford mid-career 

officers the opportunity of a broadening experience, 

but these officers should also deliberately and gradually take steps to expand their sphere of interaction to 

include those who may not see the world exactly as 

they do. This could range from membership in the local Rotary Club to signing up for automated newsletters from a diverse group of think tanks. At the senior 

level, officers should routinely physically and mentally be engaging people and ideas from unfamiliar and 
28

divergent perspectives. In other words, an officer’s 

career should gradually grow to include increasing 

amounts of intentional exposure to people and ideas 

outside his or her entrenched frame of reference. We 

make these recommendations knowing that the Army 

is low on the openness scale; therefore, it will require 

mindful, deliberate effort to include these suggestions 

into Army leader development. 

During a discussion with software designers in October 2012, Amazon chief executive officer Jeff Bezos 

declared that “People who were right a lot of the time 

were people who often changed their minds.”52 Bezos 

went on to offer that consistency of thought is not a 

particularly positive trait; even asserting that “It’s perfectly healthy—encouraged, even—to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.”53 In an era 

where decisionmakers are routinely and soundly criticized for “flip-flopping,” it appears that consistency 

of thought is often viewed as a required leadership 

virtue. In large hierarchical organizations such as the 

Army, consistency of thought is the norm and not the 

exception. No leader wants to appear as vacillating or 

be accused of hemming and hawing on key issues. Yet 

history abounds with negative examples of leaders 

failing to change their minds despite new evidence or 

fresh information. 

Much of knowing when to change your mind is an 

art, not a science. When does a virtue like persistence 

turn into obstinacy, which is usually considered a 

vice? At what point does a theater commander change 

the plan in the face of continued poor performance? 

How does an Army strategic leader know when the 

fiscal environment has changed enough to require 

reprogramming resources? These questions are difficult to answer, but what we suggest in the preceding 
29

paragraphs is that for an Army operating in an environment of intense uncertainty and profound ambiguity, changing one’s mind may not only be a distinct 

possibility, but also a pressing necessity.

ENDNOTES 

1. Army Transformation Survey, Ft. Belvoir, VA: U.S. Army 

Research Institute for Behavioral and Social Sciences, December 

5, 2000. 

2. Rick Atkinson, “‘The Single Most Effective Weapon 

Against Our Deployed Forces,” Washington Post, September 30, 

2007, available from www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/

article/2007/09/29/AR2007092900750.html.

3. Tom Vanden Brook, “Marines, Others Clamor for New 

Armored Trucks,” USA TODAY, June 28, 2007, available from 

usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-03-27-mrapmilitary_N.htm.

4. Ibid. 

5. Sandra I. Erwin, “Army Predicts Long Life for Humvees,” National Defense, July 2007, available from www.national

defensemagazine.org/archive/2007/July/Pages/ArmyPredicts2572.aspx.

6. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Pentagon press conference, Washington, DC, June 29, 2007. 

7. Julia Sloan, Learning to Think Strategically, New York: Elsevier, 2006, p. 92.

8. Shelley A. Kirkpatrick and Edwin A. Locke, “Leadership: 

Do Traits Matter?” Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 5, No. 

2, 1991, pp. 48-60.

9. Frank J. Landy and Jeffrey M. Conte, “Teams in Organizations,” Work in the 21st Century, 2nd Ed., Malden, MA: Blackwell 

Publishing, 2007, p. 100.
30

10. Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., and John C. Loehlin, “Genes, 

Evolution, and Personality,” Behavior Genetics, Vol. 31, No. 3, May 

2001, p. 253.

11. R. R. McCrae, and P. T. Costa, Jr., “Conceptions and Correlates of Openness to Experience,” R. Hogan, J. A. Johnson, and 

S. R. Briggs, eds., Handbook of Personality Psychology, New York: 

Academic Press, 1997, p. 167. 

12. D. Scott DeRue, Susan J. Ashford, and Christopher G. 

Myers, “Learning Agility: In Search of Conceptual Clarity and 

Theoretical Grounding,” Industrial and Organizational Psychology Perspectives on Science and Practice, Vol. 5, Issue 3, September 

2012, p. 267.

13. Attendance at a senior service college is a nearly universal 

wicket for promotion to colonel. For Army Competitive Category officers, about 80 percent of all colonels have attended senior 

service college. 

14. This observation has been communicated by several 

USAWC commandants in open briefings and validated with the 

Army Physical Fitness Research Institute, the collectors of personality trends in Army officers.

15. Lisa A. Dragoni et al., “Developing Executive Leaders: The 

Relative Contribution of Cognitive Ability, Personality, and the 

Accumulation of Work Experience in Predicting Strategic Thinking Competency,” Personnel Psychology, Vol. 64, 2011, pp. 829-864.

16. Philip E. Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment, Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 21.

17. Bartels et al., “The Five Factor Model of Personality and 

Intelligence: A Twin Study on the Relationship Between the Two 

Constructs,” Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 53, 2012, 

pp. 368-373.

18. Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are 

Divided by Politics and Religion, New York: Pantheon, 2012, p. 81. 
31

19. Konrad Lorenz, “Der Kumpan in der Umwelt des Vogels” 

(“The Companion in the Bird’s Environment”), Jounral Für Ornighologie, Vol. 83, Issue 3, July, 1935, pp. 289-413.

20. The geese later became sexually attracted to Lorenz as 

adults, but while that reinforces the power of filial imprinting, it 

does distract somewhat from the intent of this paper.

21. Monica Higgins, Career Imprints, San Francisco, CA: Jossey 

Bass, 2005, p. 333.

22. Ibid., p. 54.

23. Ibid., p. 85.

24. Sloan, p. 158.

25. Chairman, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Capstone Concept for 

Joint Operations: Joint Force 2020 (CCJO), Washington, DC: CJCS, 

September 10, 2012, p. 15.

26. Ibid., p. 4.

27. Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter 

Paret, eds. and trans., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 

1984, p. 102.

28. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, New York: 

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011, p. 241.

29. Ibid., p. 239.

30. Haidt, p. 90. 

31. Glenn K. Cunningham, “A Phenomenological Study of the 

use of Intuition among Senior Military Commanders,” Ph.D. diss., 

Capella University, 2012, p. 160.

32. See Kahneman, p. 11, for a description on intuition. See 

Thomas Kida, Don’t Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006, 

pp. 201-213, on the fidelity of memory retrieval.
33. Robert A. Burton, On Being Certain, New York: St. Martin’s 

Griffin, 2008, p. 42.

34. See Ibid., p. 44, for a thorough discussion of AI, hidden 

layer, and neural networks.

35. Ibid., p. 45.

36. Ibid., p. 46.

37. Ibid., p. 52.

38. Ibid., p. 96.

39. Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made, But 

Not by Me, New York: Harcourt, 2007, p. 13.

40. Ibid., p. 19.

41. Jonah Lehrer, How We Decide, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009, p. 205.

42. Kimmel’s decisionmaking prior to the Japanese attack is 

a contextual issue that has received much hindsight. It is fair to 

say that he had an initial fact pattern that the Japanese were planning to attack southeast Asia, not Hawaii. He then interpreted information with a predisposition to believe his initial fact pattern. 

See Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two-Ocean War, Boston, MA: Little, 

Brown and Company, 1963, pp. 49-52.

43. Cunningham, p. 177.

44. See Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International 

Differences in Work-Related Values, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1980; 

and Robert J. House, Paul J. Hanges, Mansour Javidan, Peter W. 

Dorfman, and Vipin Gupta, Culture, Leadership, and Organizations, 

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004, for a discussion about power distance and assertiveness as cultural dimensions.

45. Robert Gates, “Text of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ 

speech at West Point,” Stars and Stripes, April 22, 2008, available 

from www.stripes.com/news/text-of-secretary-of-defense-robert-gatesspeech-at-west-point-1.77986. 

32
33

46. House et al., p. 30. 

47. Special Report 2012-1, CAL Annual Survey of Army Leadership, Fort Leavenworth, KS: Center for Army Leadership, 

May 2012.

48. The Army Profession Annual Report, Fort Knox, KY: U.S. 

Army Training and Doctrine Command, April 2, 2012.

49. Tavris and Aronson, p. 66.

50. C. S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring,” Memorial Lecture at Kings 

College, University of London, 1944, available from www.lewissociety.org/innerring.php.

51. Haidt, p. 68. 

52. Anthony W. Kosner, “Jeff Bezos on How to Change Your 

Mind,” Forbes.com, October 19, 2012, available from www.forbes.

com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/10/19/jeff-bezos-on-people-who-areright-a-lot-vs-wrong-a-lot-has-he-got-it-right/.

53. Jason Fried, “Some advice from Jeff Bezos,” 37 Signals, October 19, 2012, available from 37signals.com/svn/posts/3289-someadvice-from-jeff-bezos.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Anthony A. Cucolo III

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

and

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE PRESS

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Steven K. Metz

Authors

Dr. Stephen J. Gerras

Dr. Leonard Wong

Editor for Production

Dr. James G. Pierce

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil