10th Mountain Soldiers Train Across Terrain

Photo By Master Sgt. Nathan Hutchison | Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division are scattered all over the world. Not only are they dealing with the geographic dispersal of a brigade permanently located at Fort Polk, La while the remainder of the division is at Fort Drum, N.Y., but they also have Soldiers either deployed or on temporary assignment to Kuwait, Qatar, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan.  

AFGHANISTAN

05.24.2016

Story by Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Hutchison 

10th Mountain Division

Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division are scattered all over the world. Not only are they dealing with the geographic dispersal of a brigade permanently located at Fort Polk, La while the remainder of the division is at Fort Drum, N.Y., but they also have Soldiers either deployed or on temporary assignment to Kuwait, Qatar, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan.
No matter the size or location of the organization, leaders within have to find creative ways to train and guide their subordinates to a common goal.
Headquarters, Headquarters Battalion used visual teleconferencing to traverse the gap and bring noncommissioned officers, warrant officers and officers from four different countries together for team building professional development.
Maj. Douglas P. Herman, HHBN Executive Officer at Fort Drum and Maj. Edward M. Custer, HHBN Executive Officer at Bagram Airfield, along with Lt. Col. Cedric D. Gaskin, HHBN Commander, planned and coordinated the class, which disected team building into four categories: Forming, storming, norming and performing.
The categories each had subcategories, and as Herman guided the four groups through the class different people took opportunities to give feedback and develop the discussion.
“For a team to be successful, all teammates must feel equally vested,” said Col. Mark O’Donnell, U.S. Forces Afghanistan-Support and 10th Mountain Division Chief of Staff. “No one team member is better than the other, just different. Different people have different responsibilities, but everyone is important.”
As the class continued categories and subcategories started to connect and intertwine. As one person would talk about high morale, another would connect procedures and skills.
“Team members need to know they are valued,” Custer said. “Not everyone gets to make the decision, but each person should feel they have the opportunity to be heard. There has to be a willingness to put things in perspective for each member of the team- we aren’t going to do it your way, but these are the reasons why.”
As Custer made this statement, it easily led the group into another topic- disagreements.
“Do good teams have disagreements?” Herman asked. “Good teams work through disagreements; bad teams direct conflicts to personal feelings.”
Custer was also able to connect conflicts and disagreements with other categories, stating that established conflict resolution procedures are important.
“I think what the group walked away learning was that everyone brings value to a team,” O’Donnell said. “Great leaders find a way to find a role for everybody in the team and so everybody realizes they can contribute and their individual role in the overall team is important.”
And in the end more than 40 Soldiers- leaders- situated in four different countries contributed and grew as a team through the training.
“We as leaders can’t be selfish. We don’t operate as individuals, we operate as a team,” said Gabriel Santos-Colon, HHBN operations noncommissioned officer. “When one succeeds, we all succeed because everything we do in the military is a team effort. We have to learn how to share successes, learn how to share failures, and learn from each other regardless of rank.”

• Date Taken: 05.24.2016
• Date Posted: 06.06.2016 10:16
• Story ID: 200088
• Location: AF