Carol McCann

Redefining Command and Control

Human creativity, initiative, resolve, problem solving, leadership, and trust play crucial roles in military operations. For command and control (C2) to be effective in the full range of missions that modern militaries encounter, it is essential that it be human-centred. We have previously argued that C2’s human component has been chronically under-emphasized and under-researched (Pigeau & McCann, 1995). The military has gotten swept away all too easily by the allure of technology (for example, battlefield digitization): as a result, C2has become obscured in conceptualizations of rigid structure and process. We have also argued that existing definitions of command and control have provided little guidance either to the military or to industry for allocating the scarce resources necessary for supporting command (Pigeau & McCann, 1995). To redress this problem, McCann and Pigeau (1996) offered a new definition of C2, one that “emphasizes the critical role of Command [that is, human will] while acknowledging the necessary contribution of Control [that is, technology]” (p. 533). In this chapter, we will explore this new definition’s implications, and we will demonstrate its explanatory power for elucidating C2organizational structures and leadership.

Effects of Sleep Loss on Team Decision Making: Motivational Loss or Motivational Gain?:

Objective: To examine the effects of 30 hr of sleep loss and continuous cognitive work on performance in a distributed team decision-making environment. Background: To date, only a few studies have examined the effect of sleep loss on distributed team performance, and only one other to our knowledge has examined the relationship between sleep loss and social-motivational aspects of teams (Hoeksema-van Orden, Gaillard, & Buunk, 1998). Method: Sixteen teams participated; each comprised 4 members. Three team members made threat assessments on a military surveillance task and then forwarded their judgments electronically to a team leader, who made a final assessment on behalf of the team. Results: Sleep loss had an antagonistic effect on team decision-making accuracy and decision time. However, the performance loss associated with fatigue attributable to sleep loss was mediated by being part of a team, as compared with performing the same task individually — that is, we found evidence of a “motivational gain” effect in these sleepy teams. We compare these results with those of Hoeksema-van Orden et al. (1998), who found clear evidence of a “social loafing” effect in sleepy teams. Conclusion: The divergent results are discussed in the context of the collective effort model (Karau & Williams, 1993) and are attributable in part to a difference between independent and interdependent team tasks. Application: The issues and findings have implications for a wide range of distributed, collaborative work environments, such as military network-enabled operations.

The Human in Command

The impetus for this book is simple: to outline, discuss, and emphasize the uniquely human dimension of military command.

Research Challenges for the Human in Command

As the chapters in this book attest, command is a rich and intricate tapestry of concepts, skills, and behaviour, demanding that military personnel of all ranks invent novel solutions to unique problems, often under extremely stressful environmental, physical, and emotional conditions. Time and again, the authors in this book have intimated (and indeed often stated) that the human alone shoulders the responsibility for achieving the mission: it is the commander’s duty to conceive new tactics, to negotiate with belligerents, to manage resources, to monitor morale, to decide, to motivate, to reflect, to act—in short, to creatively express his or her will in the accomplishment of the mission.3 Although technology—the modern siren that promises Western society speeed,efficiency, and force multillication—can certainly facilitate command, technology can also hinder it. Technology can encourage unrealistic expectations, spawn unforeseen consequences, or simply fail to work. Effective command and control (C2) depends on human command, not technological control.

The effects of formal order and spatial content on reasoning in three dimensions

This study investigates the effects of formal order and spatial content on reasoning in three dimensions in view of the Formal Rules theory and the Mental Models theory of spatial reasoning. Twenty-six subjects solved 144 spatial deductive problems that varied by the formal order of the entities (referential order, referential continuity) and the spatial content (dimension, orientation, and direction). There were two dependant variables: the correct responses and their response times. The number of mental models and the formal derivations underlying the deductions allowed comparison of opposite predictions made by the Formal Rules theory and the Mental Models theory of spatial reasoning. The results overwhelmingly supported the Mental Models theorys predictions. The effects of referentialorder showedthatproblems yielding twopossiblemental models were significantly more difficult than problems based on one mental model, although the former problems involved a shorter formal derivation than the latter. The...

Coalition command and control: a Canadian perspective

Canada has been, and remains, committed to participating in coalition operations to promote peace and stability in the post-Cold War world. However, coalition operations challenge traditional command and control concepts, from both the technological and the human perspectives. In the short term, Canada is working closely with traditional NATO and ABCA allies to ensure that the next generation of automated C2 information systems are able to exchange information effectively through structured messages, gateways and standardized data models. Canada is also conducting R&D, and participating in collaborative experiments, to evolve the next generation of systems to permit richer, more dynamic information sharing, along the lines of the Internet and World Wide Web. However, information technology alone will not solve the problems of coalition operations. Research needs to be undertaken to understand task assignment and information flow among coalition partners at the process or operational level. Research is also required at the human level, where differences between coalition partners in culture, personal values, military expectations, religions, and societal values are proving to be less tractable than differences in message formats and communication protocols.