Foundations of Effective Staff Rides

Staff riding is a versatile PME tool that enables leaders and stewards at all levels to further the professional development of their peers and subordinates. It offers an opportunity to expose students to the complex problems of campaigns, operations and battles. Depending on the needs of the group, the staff ride can meet a number of objectives. Specifically, staff rides can be used to study the application of the principles of warfare, operational art and the planning and execution of missions. They can provide environments in which to examine combined-arms operations or even the employment of a single corps or branch. Staff rides can also be further tailored to focus on specific topics such as command, logistics, the application of doctrine, the employment of tactics or technologies, unit cohesion, the psychology of battle, the impact of weather or terrain, or even the role of non-military organizations and actors in the battlespace. Last but not least, the staff ride provides an excellent opportunity to simply kindle further interest in the history and heritage of one’s profession, regiment, corps and army.

With this in mind, the foundations of effective staff riding consist of the following:

• Clearly identify the problem to be studied. Not all campaigns, operations, battles and events will provide a suitable “laboratory” in which to examine the problem, and subjects or locales should not be selected based simply on expediency or proximity.
• The primary leader and/or guide(s) must have the appropriate level of knowledge of the campaign, operation or battle. In other words, in the best-case scenario they are a true subject-matter expert. At the very least, the primary leader or guide must have a solid base of knowledge which can be improved upon with each iteration of the selected staff ride. This is important not only to ensure that students’ questions are properly answered, but also to ensure that errors in analysis are corrected before they lead to misinformed conclusions.
• The students must be prepared to engage fully in all aspects of the staff ride. The key to successful engagement is ensuring that students have the maximum amount of time possible to complete their preliminary study of the event. Students must not be permitted to begin a physical or virtual staff ride without a working knowledge of the topic, the problem set, and its parameters, nor should they be allowed to remain passive observers during the main study portion or afterwards. Only through informed collective discussion, analysis and debate will the students benefit fully from the staff ride. Depending on the total size of the group, this may be achieved most effectively by breaking into smaller sub-groups.
• The leader/guide must complete the staff ride by integrating the preliminary study and the physical or virtual staff ride and drawing out observations, insights and lessons. Failing to do so will negate the value of preliminary study and simply turn the physical/virtual staff ride into a battlefield tour. If carefully integrated, the follow-on activities of the staff ride will encourage critical thought and analysis as well as generate a greater understanding of the problem being studied. This in turn leads to the accomplishment of several other staff ride objectives outlined above.