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Attention! Top brass agree new manoeuvre
At the Army's behest, psychologist Lew Hardy is turning centuries of tradition on its head. Paul Hill explains why
The deaths of four young people at Deepcut barracks tarnished for ever the popular image of the Army drill sergeant knocking raw recruits into shape. John Reid, the Defence Secretary, last weekend conceded that concern about the bullying of trainees was in part responsible for a serious fall in army recruitment and that a solution was being sought. That solution may already have arrived in the form of a bluff Yorkshire academic psychologist.
Lew Hardy's is a radical proposition. He wants to end the ethos that has underpinned the military's approach to training for generations.
For the past 15 months, he has worked to this end with the Army at the Infantry Training Centre Catterick as it turns teenagers into soldiers and peacekeepers ready to patrol the streets of Iraq or the villages of Afghanistan. His small team has closely observed the instructors and their effect on the attitude and performance of recruits. He observes that at the heart of the matter is a question about the purpose of basic training: is it to filter out the weakest recruits before they reach the front line? Hardy proposes another approach, one that comes straight out of the academy.
The Army's interest in Hardy, professor of health and human performance at the University of Wales, Bangor, stems from his work on the psychology of sporting performance. As one of the British Olympic Association's senior psychologists, he helped to transform attitudes among athletics coaches that led from the dismay of the Atlanta Games to triumph at Sydney.
On the back of a burgeoning reputation for getting results, Hardy was approached in 1999 to review the Royal Marines' Command Training Centre at Lympstone, near Exeter. At the time, 60 per cent of recruits were dropping out before the end of the 32-week course. "The problem for the Marines was sizeable," Hardy says. "As they lost men through retirement and completion of service, so the number of active marines was getting smaller.
"We concluded that the trainers' philosophy was: 'How do I make sure that no one who doesn't deserve to get through training gets through?'" Hardy says. "We recommended that the philosophy should be: 'How do I get as many people as I can up to the required standard?' It sounds like a trivial change, but in an organisation with the traditions of the military, it is difficult."
Hardy expected some scepticism. "An organisation that confronts major change will have people who are for it, people who are against and people who are sceptical about it," he says. "When I first started to work with the Marines, I had some reservations about how aligned our values would be."
But the Marines took his ideas on board. The results speak for themselves.
After gathering data, Hardy's team recommended that the instructors exhibit three "behaviours" to get the best out of their recruits: provide inspiration by talking positively about the future; get the new soldiers to work together; and recognise and praise good performance. Two years later, the pass rate for Royal Marine recruits had improved by 12 per cent.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=199538§ioncode=26
At the Army's behest, psychologist Lew Hardy is turning centuries of tradition on its head. Paul Hill explains why
The deaths of four young people at Deepcut barracks tarnished for ever the popular image of the Army drill sergeant knocking raw recruits into shape. John Reid, the Defence Secretary, last weekend conceded that concern about the bullying of trainees was in part responsible for a serious fall in army recruitment and that a solution was being sought. That solution may already have arrived in the form of a bluff Yorkshire academic psychologist.
Lew Hardy's is a radical proposition. He wants to end the ethos that has underpinned the military's approach to training for generations.
For the past 15 months, he has worked to this end with the Army at the Infantry Training Centre Catterick as it turns teenagers into soldiers and peacekeepers ready to patrol the streets of Iraq or the villages of Afghanistan. His small team has closely observed the instructors and their effect on the attitude and performance of recruits. He observes that at the heart of the matter is a question about the purpose of basic training: is it to filter out the weakest recruits before they reach the front line? Hardy proposes another approach, one that comes straight out of the academy.
The Army's interest in Hardy, professor of health and human performance at the University of Wales, Bangor, stems from his work on the psychology of sporting performance. As one of the British Olympic Association's senior psychologists, he helped to transform attitudes among athletics coaches that led from the dismay of the Atlanta Games to triumph at Sydney.
On the back of a burgeoning reputation for getting results, Hardy was approached in 1999 to review the Royal Marines' Command Training Centre at Lympstone, near Exeter. At the time, 60 per cent of recruits were dropping out before the end of the 32-week course. "The problem for the Marines was sizeable," Hardy says. "As they lost men through retirement and completion of service, so the number of active marines was getting smaller.
"We concluded that the trainers' philosophy was: 'How do I make sure that no one who doesn't deserve to get through training gets through?'" Hardy says. "We recommended that the philosophy should be: 'How do I get as many people as I can up to the required standard?' It sounds like a trivial change, but in an organisation with the traditions of the military, it is difficult."
Hardy expected some scepticism. "An organisation that confronts major change will have people who are for it, people who are against and people who are sceptical about it," he says. "When I first started to work with the Marines, I had some reservations about how aligned our values would be."
But the Marines took his ideas on board. The results speak for themselves.
After gathering data, Hardy's team recommended that the instructors exhibit three "behaviours" to get the best out of their recruits: provide inspiration by talking positively about the future; get the new soldiers to work together; and recognise and praise good performance. Two years later, the pass rate for Royal Marine recruits had improved by 12 per cent.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=199538§ioncode=26
