Podcast with Brigadier James Cook OBE – Innovation and Defence’s Language of Change

The series is sponsored by The Army Innovation Team. The Army Innovation team is leading on the Army BattleLab project which sits within the wider Defence BattleLab infrastructure. On the run up to the opening of this facility later this year, there will be a series of events which seek to engage with industry, academia and wider stake holders.  To sign up to these events, and to receive the project newsletter, please email the team at [email protected].

[00:00:00] This podcast series is sponsored by the British Army Innovation Team. This team is set up to encourage and facilitate innovation across the Army and supports wider Defence initiatives too.  One of their, projects, The Army BattleLab, is due to open this year in the South West of England. If you would like further information about this project why not get in touch directly with the team via the show notes?

[00:00:24] Welcome to this Wavell Room podcast series, which focuses on Defence’s language of change. This series seeks to explore some of the key ideas about change. What does it actually mean to innovate? Are we less adaptive and agile than in the past? What does it mean to empower? And most importantly, why is any of this different from what has gone before?

[00:00:44]This series aims to understand what we mean by some of those Defence buzzwords we keep hearing over and over again. Over the next few weeks, look forward to hearing from a whole host of different people from the military, the academic world, industry, and also the sporting world to [00:01:00] understand their views on this language of change, which has dominated military conversations for decades.

[00:01:05]On this week’s podcast we welcome Brigadier James Cook, who currently heads up the Army’s Programme Castle, which is responsible for exploring the future of talent management. With over 20 years experience in the Army, Brigadier James has commanded up to unit level, held several roles in the Army’s Personnel Centre and worked in the Army’s Concepts Team.

[00:01:27] He is currently the Vice Chairman of the Army Rugby Union. And was awarded an OBE for his services to Army sport.

[00:01:33]Brigadier James has also recently completed his PhD, which explored the British Army’s transformation during the First World War.

[00:01:41] Frosty: [00:01:41] Brigadier James. Welcome. And we’re going to start with the same question that we ask all of our guests Defence is a wash with buzzwords. If you had to advocate for one buzzword, what would it be and why?

[00:01:54] Brigadier Cook: [00:01:54] So it’s a great opening question. Isn’t it. And I think I’m going to plough in with the biggest of them all transformation. [00:02:00] And I think. We use transformation so carelessly in the Army and wider defence, but it’s such a good word. And I just have concerns. We don’t really understand what it is. I have a lot of time for transformation when we define it.

[00:02:13] So I look at transformation as a change across the moral, conceptual, and physical components of fighting power. If you change those three in a thing, then you’ve absolutely transformed something. And if you don’t, you haven’t and we mustn’t confuse transformation with change, you know, academia and my own research goes further.

[00:02:31] If you change a concept. That’s actually adoption or something. If you change something that’s physical, you know, a new tank that’s probably modernisation. If you change this culture, that’s the, you know, the moral component is reflection of its culture, but it’s only if you change it’s moral, conceptual and physical that you actually make transformation.

[00:02:51]So it’s a great word when we use it properly. And I think a lot of time defence use it when that, what we actually mean is change. But if you actually [00:03:00] understand what transformation is and do it completely across more conceptual physical, then that’s when you make a real difference. And we might discuss later about how you make a real difference and when it does and doesn’t go you know right or wrong when it goes right when you do all three components of fighting power and it goes wrong when you only do one, like you just buy a new bit of kit, but you don’t think about the moral component or how you’re going to employ it. So I can’t claim that as my own grand idea, but that’s where my research has taken me in academia.

[00:03:26] And some really brilliant people like Stuart Griffin from the Defence Academy has written on it brilliantly. And you can read that on the defence in depth webpage. I know, but I think that’s the word we really need to jump on transformation and just, just remind ourselves what it really means.

[00:03:40]Frosty: [00:03:40] In that case Sir. So when my mind is racing now, I’m trying to think what was the last trans when was the  last time the British Army had a transformation. So all three components of fighting power?

[00:03:50]Brigadier Cook: [00:03:50] Well I think it would, I think the obvious one is back when the CGS was a General Bagnall in 89, when he said we’re going to fight in a Armoured formation, rather than a [00:04:00] mechanise, we’re going to deliver a whole new set of equipment that some of which is still in existence  today, and also there was to a degree, a moral reset in values and standards, pay and  reward and intellectual approach. So, so I’ll be the first to admit it’s really hard to deliver an overarching transformation.

[00:04:17] And it depends on which level you look at, but Bagnall absolutely did it. And that’s a few years ago, but I’d say we might be about to do it again. It doesn’t happen very often. You know, the Americans did it post Vietnam, you know, 1973 the American Army was in difficult place by the time they deliver it and, and battle in the eighties, it’s the preeminent army in the world.

[00:04:37] You know its the hegemon it really is. So they did it then, and that was very much a moral, conceptual, physical. So it doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it really matters. If you dial that down a level, you can get transformation in programmes, such as Castle. You can get them in individual things and innovation teams can deliver parts of.

[00:04:55] That true transformation. Yeah. It’s a big thing.

[00:04:57]Frosty: [00:04:57] Yeah, absolutely huge. And I guess, I [00:05:00] mean, you hinted there that you think we might be on. On the edge of needing to do that, is that because is that to do with the program that you’re part of, or is that to do with the emerging domains that we have now?

[00:05:13] Is that, what, what makes you, what makes you think we’re, we’re approaching a need for transformational change?

[00:05:18] Brigadier Cook: [00:05:18] Well, I think the need has been there for some time.  I think what Castle is doing will give us the moral component change about how we look after our people, how we articulate they’re important to us.

[00:05:31] I think there is some very good work in terms of some new technology coming on. And I think the bit that will really make it work is there’s a new way of fighting. A new conceptual thought about integrating our teams about being more dispersed, et cetera. Now, again, that’s not my expertise and not why I’m here today, but those three things together, all of a sudden you start looking at and going when we look back that will be an inflection point and a change.

[00:05:55] You know, the American Joint Chiefs have been talking about it the American. Chief of Army has said it obviously CGS has [00:06:00] said it. The Chief of Defence has said it. I think where we struggle with transformation is we think it’ll be there tomorrow. It’s the next day? No, no, no. It takes time, but we will look back in 10 years time going.

[00:06:09] Do you know what? Beginning of the, you know, the twenties that’s when it was happening.

[00:06:13] Frosty: [00:06:14] Yeah. I mean, I suppose if we go back and look at the Bagnall changes you talked about earlier, they they took a long time to come in. Right? All such a change, such transformation, I should say.

[00:06:23] Brigadier Cook: [00:06:23] And that’s, that’s a really good point.

[00:06:24] Isn’t it? Cause we might come onto it later about people want to overnight, you can’t get it overnight, but you can, you can see it happening over a distinct period of 5 to 10 years. And you say Bagnall was only a CGS for four and a half years. or say, I think, but by the time his ref reforms come through, we were a very different army.

[00:06:42]Frosty: [00:06:42] So you talked  about Castle during our intro and just in the conversation so far. So do you want to expand on that? W what is it and why is what it’s trying to do important?

[00:06:51]Brigadier Cook: [00:06:51] Fundamentally Castle is re-imagining army careers, and it’s transforming them. They’re about maximizing everybody’s talent, not just the talented and [00:07:00] if I had to give you some headlines, it’s about giving our people greater choice.

[00:07:03] And at the same time, giving people great choice, giving the army more flexibility, but that doesn’t mean people get ultimate choice. They just get more choices, but also if we understand our army better and what is good at individually, and then employ it at what it’s good at, we can actually get more flexibility for the army as well.

[00:07:22] So it’s more choice for the people, more flexibility for the army. And in many respects matching our careers to a 21st century demands. That that’s it. I, if I may expand on it a bit is a lot of our people systems sort of born in the 1960s seventies for good reason because the army in many respects hasn’t changed.

[00:07:42] But if you think of the transformation we’ve just discussed coming, we we’ve got to give a career talent management system that now gives far more credit to people’s families. Spousal employment, child’s education, parental care. Mental health in a way that 20th century approaches just didn’t have to and they were [00:08:00] right at the time, but now we just need more consideration there.

[00:08:02] We all know that majority of our serving personnel, their significant other has a good career. So we’ve just got to make ourselves assist that we’re happy with where that career can be equally as important, and people can make informed choices rather than having choices forced upon them in which case it’s not.

[00:08:18] Frosty: [00:08:18] It sounds like some of these things are going to be quite difficult to deliver. Informed choice, but also meeting the, you know, the needs of the army. There’s there’s going to be a tension there. Isn’t there.

[00:08:27]Brigadier Cook: [00:08:27] I think there’s always going to be a tension there’s always going to be.

[00:08:30] Cause we get into the MS branding principle of the need of the Army come first and you a close second. And this is that that won’t change. But the gap between the needs of the army and you a close second is going to get smaller and smaller I guess in  ’95 when  I joined. It was quite a big gap and now it’s closed significantly, I think we’re going to close that gap almost imperceptibly close, but the needs of the  army will still come first.

[00:08:55] But then we get into that lovely discussion of, you know, many of our senior officers have said that you’re not [00:09:00] in the Army. You are the Army. And it doesn’t take much intellectual understanding. Well, if we are in the Army, then our needs come first and we get in a circular argument. Well, no, the needs when we need to send you somewhere that has to happen.

[00:09:10] But if we get it right. We can get really close to both sides of the argument here, having the outcomes they want. And, and yes, it’s difficult, but it’s absolutely possible because we have got a thing called the army talent framework, which is going to find every appointment in the army and tell you what it is and what you need to do to be good at it.

[00:09:29] And a skills you need. And at the same time, we’re going to give everybody in the army Regular and Reservea skills passport that says, this is what you can do. And this is how well you can do it. And if you do that, it’s pretty obvious. You can start matching them up and you can match something in terms of well in actual fact I need someone who can do blah, blah, blah.

[00:09:45] And I’ve got this person who can do that. That’s a really good fit. And that makes career and talent management so much easier because all of a sudden, you’ve got a metric. All of a sudden, you’ve got some facts and figures and you can do some really clever things. You can deliberately align people. Who’ve got the perfect knowledge, skills, experience, behaviours to a [00:10:00] job.

[00:10:00] Or you can deliberately misalign someone. Who’s got a lot of it, but not all, but, you know, but by giving them they’ll develop it. And therefore they’ll get even better. So, absolutely the challenge is vast and, and hence why Programme Castle we’ve been here a couple of years. I’ve got to come more years to go, but if you start quantifying what we do and other parts of programme, it becomes a lot easier.

[00:10:21] It will never be a perfect system, but the Army talent framework, which we’ve been going for nine months now, and I’ve got another couple of years ago, and we’ve now got an industry partnering to come and help us with. We’ve never done that before ever. And when it’s finished, we will have the ability to quantify things in a way that a simple algorithm will help us make a huge difference to talent management.

[00:10:43]Frosty: [00:10:43] So John Boyd famously said people, minds and technology in that order do you think the Army gets the balance right?

[00:10:51] And how does your current team seek to address this balance?

[00:10:54]Brigadier Cook: [00:10:54] So I think John Boyd was spot on. I can’t give such a good answer. So the easy part is, [00:11:00] is we are addressing it by continuously talking to the Field Army. We’ve done over 3000 interviews and I think we’ve done over 40 focus groups. And we did a survey last summer, which got seven and a half thousand respondents, mostly junior soldiers.

[00:11:15] So a lot of what Castle is doing is not to senior officer ideas. This is. What do the people want? And then we have to work out how we can realise it. So that’s how we’re going about it. And what that’s leading us to is it’s all about the people. It’s all about people. I think it’s hard to split the people in the minds personally, but it’s people, people, people if we get our talent management system, right, if we get the length of time in each appointment and we get the professional education right if we address how we train people and then we broadly up everybody’s intellect in the Armed Forces  from the most junior soldier to the most senior officer.

[00:11:51] We’ll be a better Army for it. And at the same time, we don’t forget about mental capacity, mental health, supporting the family that supports you. [00:12:00] Then actually, if we focus on our people, we undoubtedly will continue to be a world leading army as we are now, and lets, let’s not forget. It’s, it’s our people that count.

[00:12:11] It’s our people who give us intellectual edge, the other nations would like to have, we spend more than the vast majority of nations in terms of attracting you, recruiting you, training you, educating you and keeping you. And even though it’s not a perfect system, my goodness we invest. And if you want a real example of how we invest and the intellectual curiosity.

[00:12:32] Well, how about those brilliant people who run things like the Wavell Room? Or the Army Leader or who contribute to books. Yeah. This shows our intellectual edge and the curiosity and the Sergeant Majors do the same things. So I think Boyd was right, but he was right at the beginning. It’s people.

[00:12:50]Frosty: [00:12:50] An excellent, smooth, smooth compliment there.

[00:12:52] Thanks very much

[00:12:53] Brigadier Cook: [00:12:53] I hope you like that,

[00:12:56] but I mean, I really mean that.

[00:12:58] Frosty: [00:12:58] Well, thank you. But do you think we [00:13:00] get that balance of investment right across our people? So we’ve certainly had people write on the Wavell Room that you know, an awful lot of the investment is focused too much on the Officer Corps.

[00:13:08]In your opinion, is that correct? Is it focused too much on the Officer Corps? And is there more that we could do to focus on everybody?

[00:13:15] Brigadier Cook: [00:13:15] So I’m going to have to cop out because I don’t know how you quantify the effort that the leadership training we give to our NCO. Is still more than the vast majority of other Western armies and certainly our adversaries our officer education is, is excellent as a, as, as good as it gets in any army.

[00:13:34] Maybe the American army could challenge us. I can say, and this is promising jam tomorrow is that we are in the midst of a review of how we educate our people. And it is focused at our NCOs. That is where we’re saying we can do more. We can do better and we can up our intellectual game. And we’re, and we’re doing it for a couple of reasons, firstly, because who doesn’t want to be educated and be better at what they do because it’s good in the service now, but it’s also good for when you leave the armed [00:14:00] forces and we all leave at some stage.

[00:14:01]And it’s also a really good way of rewarding people to say, look, we really value what you do. Here’s more education you know, our terms of service and all pay and pensions are really good, but we’re not changing. We’re not changing that, but to give people access to higher education throughout your career, and it not be bounded by rank.

[00:14:18] That’s the direction Castle’s traveling in and I think that’s going to be popular and I think it’s going to be affordable and credible. And I think we have a cohort of soldier scholars and not necessarily just soldier scholars, but inquisitive soldiers who really want to take the next step. I have been reading a BA Hons thesis from an AGC corporal who happens to be Foreign and Commonwealth intake and I’m blown away by the intellect in it. And that’s just the one I was reading this weekend. So we’ve got, we’ve got plenty. We can do a lot more. And I think we might just see a bit more focus on NCOs in the future, because I think there’s an [00:15:00] opportunity there.

[00:15:00]Frosty: [00:15:00] Sounds like, you know, I think we already have you’ve identified it. We, we, we, we have a gap between the, the quality of our senior NCOs and junior NCOs and that of our peers. And so I think there’s opportunity there to expand that even further.

[00:15:13] Brigadier Cook: [00:15:13] Yeah. Yeah. I think there is. I think we tend to focus our NCOs on leadership skills and technical training.

[00:15:22] And we’d understand why we’d do that. I think there’s another bit, which is just general intelligence and intellect. That would just mean, and this is the same for no matter what rank you are. If, if we, if we try and help you with your intellectual development, you’ll understand context better, you’ll understand risk better.

[00:15:39] You’ll you understand how just things fit together better? Which just means that then your leadership and your training mean more. So it’s a really good foundation. I can see a gentle nudge away from training people to do things towards educating people for the wider world in the next five, 10 years, because that’s where society is going.

[00:16:00] [00:16:00] And it’s not that we’re following, but we should reflect. And I think that will make for even smarter soldiers and, and probably officers as well.

[00:16:06]Frosty: [00:16:06] There’s a lot of change coming. So that moves me onto my next question. It feels, and potentially looks like the Army is struggling to change at the moment. There are numerous change programmes ongoing, and it has been said in the past that the army is addicted to change. Is this a bad thing? And what more could we do to start discussing change in a more positive light?

[00:16:26]Brigadier Cook: [00:16:26] I think sometimes we guilty what you’re saying, asking the really blunt question of, do you like change and people’s natural reaction is to crossrun them – no, but then when they step back and think about it, it’s like, well, yeah, it’s not as bad as standing still and being left behind.

[00:16:38] We we know the world is continuously changing around us, so we can’t standstill in terms of narrative. And I think, for instance, explaining what transformation is in terms of adaption, modernisation, and cultural change might help. We’re pretty clumsy and we use different words when they mean different things.

[00:16:56] But I don’t think we have to convince many people the need [00:17:00] to change because our adversaries are changing and the pressure on us is changing. Therefore, we’ve got to react. If you don’t react to change,  and all of a sudden you start losing games, even though you’ve got more talent, you’ve got to stay ahead.

[00:17:12]And I think we shouldn’t be frightened of the rate of change either. It’s a good thing.

[00:17:16]Frosty: [00:17:16] Absolutely what’s interesting Sir and this links into my next question, but we, we change in conflict all of the time. In fact, if we didn’t change, we would die. We’d lose. And those, those ball games are far more serious when we’re, when we’re on operations.

[00:17:30]So noting your PhD research is this something that you’ve, you’ve come across before that we are much better at adapting in conflict than out of conflict.

[00:17:41] Brigadier Cook: [00:17:41] So it feels like that, but again, it’s, it’s hard to actually quantify it, but the significant difference in conflict is the motivation.

[00:17:50] Isn’t it? So, so my own research looked at an army transforming, and I use the Western Front of the First World War. You know, the motivation in those days for national survival. [00:18:00] And the good of the country was more significant than it’s ever been before. So we through resource at it in a way we could never imagine in terms of blood and treasure.

[00:18:11] Now, of course, the context today is very different and modern warfare would never have that degree of sacrifice because governments and people couldn’t take it, but it was a very different time. But it’s about motivation. I think there’s a often misused example of the evolution of the tank in the First World War.

[00:18:28] That it’s the most brilliant innovation story. Well, it is, but all the wrong, the wrong reasons. The reason the tank is a good example is because when the Admiralty set up the landship committee with the army and it was of course, a majority of  engineers and maritime engineers who were on that committee, they were given effectively a blank sheet of paper.

[00:18:46] And whatever resource they liked in order to innovate and in order to change. But what’s really interesting, of course, is the problem there was set to is we need to cross bulky ground full of barbed wire. I need [00:19:00] you to make a track laying system so we can move infantry across open ground. That was the requirement.

[00:19:05] And hence you have this sort of, I’m going to lay a track down and people are going to walk on it, similar to what the Royal Engineers might do today in difficult terrain it was only then they then realised well to do that. I can’t lay a whole track. I need to put tracks on either side and it’ll smooth the ground down, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:19:19] And then we have this lovely conference of circumstance that then. British Navy had just not had their dreadnuought order fulfilled, but had already purchased some six pounder guns. And it’s an Admiralty board doing this. And you can see in the minutes from the cabinet office of this sort of dawning realisation of we’re making this land ship, that’s going to crush wire.

[00:19:38] We’ve got all these spare six pound enabled guns. Let’s put them on the side of the tank. And all of a sudden the tank goes from being a mobility platform, which is all it was ever designed to be, to being a fire and mobility platform. And the innovation comes from actually it’s the firing bit that’s really useful, not just the mobility bit.

[00:19:57] And that comes brilliantly when it gets in the hands [00:20:00] of the user, not the designer. The design is almost guilty of putting the guns on because we had those spare let’s chuck them on. Then no one had to pay for it sort of thing then how we employ it. So there’s this very hackneyed story about innovation and adaptation.

[00:20:14]And to be honest, it’s about the motivation, because we could do that because we said have as much money as you like, and you haven’t got ultimate time, but you’ve got a couple of years to crack it. But we also had that, you know, we are losing lives and we need to change and it should be a technology that helps us, but here’s the real kicker. There was a technology came in, what really made it win with a concept of how they’re going to use it and how they integrated it with aircraft how they integrated it with artillery. And it was a concept of how they fought on the Western Front, that changed fundamentally from what had looked pretty, even Napoleonic on the Western Front in 1916, which by 1918.

[00:20:49] And Cambrai, for instance, in 1917, looks like combined arms warfare. It was the new idea, the new way of warfare, the concept that actually led to success, but it needs these sort of clunky little [00:21:00] innovation stories to happen. And it needs the Royal Navy to have some spare six pounder guns to put them on the side of this mobility platform, all of a sudden breeds a new thing.

[00:21:08] So a long answer to a very good question. We shouldn’t be frightened of change. We shouldn’t rush it. But it’s all about the motivation and how much resource you’re going to put at it. But the contrary to that of course is, is you can’t innovate yourself out of a problem unless you have a lot of resource.

[00:21:24]And if we have been guilty recently of misaligning innovation, it’s thinking it’s a cheaper way of doing things. History and industry shows us it’s not a cheap way of doing things. It’s a good way, but it’s not cheap.

[00:21:39] Frosty: [00:21:39] Yeah. Well, I mean, as you identified as a huge amount of investment that went into, into, into that particular innovation, we just talked about, and I, I guess that, you know, that the staff officer in me is thinking, well, that’s just the, the defence lines of development, essentially, that you’ve got to make sure that your innovation crosses all of those.

[00:21:56] Otherwise it’s not going to go anywhere.

[00:21:58]Brigadier Cook: [00:21:58] Yeah, you have, you [00:22:00] have to go across the DLoDs but the bit that should lead the bit that you should do first is how are we going to do a different thing? How are we going to fight a new way? You’ve got to have a concept of warfare. Once you’ve got a concept of warfare, actually, what you can do is go right.

[00:22:13] What do we got? How are we going to use it? Well, let’s use it like this. And then eventually you say, well, you know, we could buy some new things, but you’ve got to have your concept upfront, not your equipment upfront. I’m not saying we’re guilty of doing that, but sometimes we might have done have an understanding of how you’re going to fight.

[00:22:28] And also why, because the enemy your adersaries doing this thing have that and adapt, and that reflects on Castle as well. What do we need from our people? What is the size of the producing force? Where can we get them from what will excite them and retain them? Right. Let’s have a talent management system. That reflects that, and actually compliments that we have this ridiculous euphemism that the millennial and to a degree Generation Z want portfolio careers that bounce through, well, some do, but a lot who joined institutions like the army don’t they want some sort of, you know, they want regular employment.

[00:22:59] They want a [00:23:00] career. But we can give them a bit of both because we can actually say, but we’re going to move you from this part of the army to that part. And we’ll promote you and give you more responibility we can give you that portfolio career within the army. So if we understand that and what drives and  motivates people, we can.

[00:23:12] And if they want proof, you know, continuous professional development, we can add that in there as well and excite them. And we can communicate to them digitally in a way that’s intuitive to them. And all of a sudden we’re producing a career and talent plan. That looks really good for  people born since 2000.

[00:23:26]Frosty: [00:23:26] We talked earlier about pace and as wanting transformation overnight, and the army has, you could say that the army is addicted to doing things at pace. We have innovation teams, the defence has accelerators. We want to do things quickly. Maybe because we’re all impatient people.

[00:23:43] How does the pace of change align to what you’re doing in your current role in the Castle team?

[00:23:47]Brigadier Cook: [00:23:47] So I think it’s really insightful question. And to me, it’s about getting the pace, right. It’s neither too fast or too slow, and it’s changing quick enough to satisfy that we are changing so you can see it, [00:24:00] but slow enough that you can keep, take people with you.  In career and talent management one of the travesties of life is that most people don’t engage with their own careers. They just let them happen. So not only are we going to make change, but we’ve got to get people to engage with their careers. You know, if I asked your listeners, what is the JSP that defines all talent management? I wonder how many of them know is seven, five, seven.

[00:24:22] If I asked them where where they would get the doctrine or the practice and precedent for when they’re qualified for promotion and how quickly they promote. I wonder if they’d know where to look on the army personnel webpage. So, so it’s about information at a pace that everybody will happily take and we’re digitalising that, and we’re going to put a lot of this on your mobile phone this summer, and a lot of information where if you want to download our app through the My Career My Army  series, it’ll be there for you.

[00:24:48] Instant access. You can get your, you’ll be able to get your report on your mobile phone, all your reports and job opportunities, and when boards run and jobs lists, and that will be there this summer. But in order to do [00:25:00] that, we have to do it at the right pace. Now, Castle was blessed with a fantastic engagement and communications team.

[00:25:06]Headed up by a brilliant  civil servant. And it’s about that steady flow of information. So people buy into it and see the change. But I’m not suggesting it’s easy because to some people it’ll look too fast and to other  people it’ll look a bit slow. And I can’t tell you we’re getting it right.

[00:25:22] I think we’re getting it right, but it’s about that, but I don’t want to be suckered by going faster than we should, because if you go too fast, people either won’t keep up or they’re fall off or we’ll overtake them. And rushing change is probably one of the easiest ways to get it wrong because all of a sudden we’ve done stuff and people haven’t followed the logic and don’t like it.

[00:25:44] And if they don’t like it, they won’t do it.

[00:25:45]Frosty: [00:25:45] So momentum rather than speed.

[00:25:48] Brigadier Cook: [00:25:48] Absolutely. That’s the answer I should have given momentum rather than speed, but you’re quite right. You’re quite right. Rushing this achieves very little and we don’t have to rush it. We just have to get it right, [00:26:00] because we won’t have a second chance to get it right.

[00:26:02] It’s too important to get wrong. First time. And Castle is very lucky. We were blessed with a very strong programmatic approach, which most people would make them feel slightly queasy. But this means that we have a board of two-star members and non-executives who, you know, check our work. What we do goes to the principal personnel officer, who is the Deputy Chief of General Staff.

[00:26:22] That’s how important what we do is, and that’s how seriously it’s taken. So if it goes through those checks and balances, we know with learning the right thing and you can’t rush that, but I really liked your point. It’s about  momentum.

[00:26:35]Frosty: [00:26:35] Momentum is a, is a great great little buzzword to move us onto the next question.

[00:26:40] We’re talking about how defence articulates change and anyone who’s been  on any staff course will know that we love a buzz word and we opened asking you about buzzwords, but when it comes to the language challenge for Programme Castle, have you had any, had any challenges in articulating your work?

[00:26:57] Especially as it sounds like you’ve got people from. All [00:27:00] sorts of different backgrounds working on the programme, you might be talking to each other in different languages. No, not actual languages, but business language versus military language.

[00:27:09] Brigadier Cook: [00:27:09] So Castle is blessed with a brilliantly whole force team.

[00:27:12]Some very talented, civil servants, regular reserve FTRS and a new commercial contractor. And what’s so good about that. It is cognitively diverse. It’s also quite diverse in gender. But it could be, it could be even more diverse. The language we use has a business acumen to it because we are trying to be programmatically true.

[00:27:33] And again, I know that’s not really sounded exciting, but when you’re delivering so much, you’ve got to keep it straight. So all languages, one of P3M and that’s the right thing to do when you’re trying to make such a huge transformation, I should sort of caveat this. I was about to say, if Castle will no when Castle delivers its transformation will change and it will be transformational, it will be the biggest cultural impact on the army for many, many years.

[00:27:59] Hence it [00:28:00] has to have this really deep rooted P3M approach. You know, we will do some significant things with our colleagues in the Army Personnel Centre, which will fundamentally challenge how we think about our careers and manage them. And in that respect, You’ve got to keep it clear. And a business approach makes sense when you’ve got so many stakeholders and of course we’re beholden on the centre, the Ministery of Defence  specifically Chief of Defence People and his team to support, articulate, and, and run some of our pro projects.

[00:28:29] So it has to talk into his team and they use a very strong programmatic approach. So that’s our language. And if I was going to put one more caveat on it, it’s clear and simple language, but at the moment, it’s not too much of a challenge that’s coming quite well. And for those in the team like myself  who were not P3M conversant, it’s not difficult.

[00:28:50] It’s just a way of doing things that actually, I think a lot the army could really benefit from

[00:28:55] Frosty: [00:28:55] But genuinely useful following that system.

[00:28:58] Brigadier Cook: [00:28:58] Genuinely useful. [00:29:00] So when I heard I was coming to Programme Castle and I was delighted, of course, I then had this worry bead aboutright P3M P3M, what does that stand for?

[00:29:07] But it’s not difficult, but it’s a, it is a reference system and a way of working. That means you don’t trip yourself up. You don’t write checks. You can’t cash. For instance, we’re often being asked to accelerate. Ironically parts of our Programme take them first. Well under a P3M approach. The first thing you do is fine.

[00:29:24] Have we got the resource? And if we have, what are we going to decelerate? Whereas I think without that, you might go, yeah, we’ll do that now. We’ll do it. Now we’re running, we’re running. And then of course, what you get is you can’t do it all and something suffers. So that’s our language. And I would commend it to any part of any organisation if they want to keep themselves true to their actual purpose.

[00:29:43]Frosty: [00:29:43] Some of these, thesechanges you’re talking about might have some quite emotive outputs. And so on the Wavell Room, for example, we have we regularly run an article about changing the rank structure in the army and simplifying it. Re removing a few levels of ranks because the author believes that they’re not really [00:30:00] necessary and they make things too complicated and that always gets an emotive response.

[00:30:05] So some of the change and that’s just what we call stuff. Right. So there’s going to be some significant changes that some people might find quite difficult to deal with. How how’s Programme Castle going to get into withstand that.

[00:30:18]Brigadier Cook: [00:30:18] By steady and gentle communication by taking a cohort with us I mean, we speak to many units.

[00:30:26] and you know, most of the presentations I give, I will speak for no more than a third of the time. Cause I really want the questions to understand what the cohort’s thinking about. And ironically it sometimes, because it’s hard to see the whole entirety of Castle people latch on to tiny things.

[00:30:41] People latch on to 360 reporting. We want 360 reporting we want to make, and you can’t look at this in  stage. And you’ve got to look at the whole piece. 360 reporting is, is a wonderful idea that is broadly undeliverable. For instance, you may ask me to expand on that later. So in terms of taking us forward and convincing people, it’s [00:31:00] those gentle steps that everybody understands and why it’s important for them.

[00:31:03] We should also of course understand that Castle is looking after a soldier. Once they have joined and come out of phase two, training up to our senior generals, that’s a broad cohort in terms of age experience and what we need from them. And it’s hard to focus on them all. We, we don’t focus on them all. We focus specifically on two places for soldiers.

[00:31:22] We focus at Corporals as they turn to sergeants. And for officers, we focus at captains as they turned to majors, those parts of our careers, because I think that’s the place where we can really identify talent and we know what it is. And it’s also where we bleed a lot of talent. Naturally people leave because they’ve done their 10, 12 years, but that’s the place we really want to make sure we’re looking for to make sure we’re satisfying giving those, those cohorts, everything we possibly can as a reason to stay in, to motivate them.

[00:31:46] Notwithstanding that the structure means we need some people to leave, but we want to make sure we’re holding onto the people that are going to do the best for our soldiers.

[00:31:53]Frosty: [00:31:53] So you did, you, you did mention reports and 360 reporting. That’s an interesting one, the 360. I mean, for [00:32:00] me personally, I think it’s a, it’s a good personal development tool, but not necessarily something that you can use to structure, career postings off of.

[00:32:08]But everybody has an opinion on reports. Yeah, how were they going to change or are they going to change?

[00:32:16] Brigadier Cook: [00:32:16] So my caveat is reports. Aren’t really part of castle. So the. Way we’re reported on. And our performance this year is very much part of the Military Secretary’s business, the Army Personnel Centre and whilst we’re engaged, that’s not a focus for us.

[00:32:30]I think the reporting system is as good as we can make it and whilst people. Give it a good kicking most weeks. No one’s yet come to us with a way of, they can make it better. I would say it’s very expensive in time and resource. But in terms of way of codifying actions, it’s pretty good. The greatest travesty with our reporting system.

[00:32:46] And this might be a headline for you is that people genuinely don’t engage with it. I’ve written pieces before you’ll see them on the Army Leader about how to engage with your report each year, which tells you the 12 steps to ensure you get a report that reflects your talent and your [00:33:00] potential. And. It was when it was first published, it was seen as sort of almost, you know, by the Messiah.

[00:33:05] It wasn’t, it was, it was a very simple approach to career management. And yet people still don’t either agree with it, which is fine or do it. And hence they get problems in here when they get reports that it just doesn’t reflect on me to which I would say as a career manager of four years of well, did you engage?

[00:33:19]There’s a lovely of euphemism of, you know, my, my boss doesn’t know me. Okay. Well, did you put yourself in front of them? Did you do something to address that if you did, and they don’t know you when that’s something, but if you didn’t then that’s you, it’s your report. It’s your career. You should do something.

[00:33:35]So the biggest change we need to make for reporting is for people to engage with it. And to understand what’s good and what’s not good and how to be recognised and to understand that people who, who in the chain of command above them really don’t by presenteeism is not a thing. Being at a desk for long hours, doesn’t achieve that.

[00:33:50] It’s not, what’s important to your commanders. It’s about output and the quality of that output, for instance. And I don’t think I’ve met a senior leader who doesn’t think that. But in terms of [00:34:00] reporting itself I mentioned earlier about 360 you know, 360 is a tool I get hit on Twitter with all the time about, we must stomp out toxic leaders and we can only do it with 360, well there’s a couple of things wrong with that statement, firstly.

[00:34:13] Most people’s definition of a toxic leader, isn’t toxic at all. It’s just a bad leader. And there are some there all by definition, very few toxic leaders in society let alone in the Army. And of course the great euphemism, the great expression is, is if a toxic leader is someone who really doesn’t care.

[00:34:29] If you gave them a 360 report  about their behavior, they really wouldn’t care. So,why do you think that’s going to solve it? I hope that’s you giggling because it’s the truth, isn’t it? Yeah. Telling someone with no emotional intelligence, they have no emotion intelligence just doesn’t get you anywhere

[00:34:45] the other thing about 360 reporting is that of course is unless. You put some governance behind it. People can write some really dumb things. And the reason we have so much governance behind the reporting system moment is because there’s something you quite rightly can’t say about people [00:35:00] because they’re derogatory, inflammatory or just illegal.

[00:35:03] So unless you  put that governance around it. It’s really hard to make it useful and not spiteful. Now you’re probably aware that 180 reporting is being  launched later this month and you’ll see it published and it will be out there endorsed tri service and a really good step into this business, but it’s an opportunity to see how it works and it is not particularly governed on purpose, but let’s see how it flies.

[00:35:26]But when we come back to the essence of your question about the reporting system is. Castle’s not particularly touching that Castle is actually addressing, giving you more information to help your own career management with a project called individual aptitude testing. And individual apptitude testing will be a series of assessments online later this year that are absolutely voluntary.

[00:35:45] And you and I, or anyone listening to this can go online at that stage and take some assessments about them and only they get the results. So if they don’t take an internet assessment later this year, What’s really clever about it is you can then compare your results with anybody else [00:36:00] in the Army. You wish to not by name, but by rank or by gender or by cap badge..

[00:36:04] So if you’re a young corporal, who’s a supplier in the Royal Logistic Corps listening to this and you go, right. Let me see. You can take that internet test and then compare yourself against every other Corporal in the RLC . All right. Where do I sit in in terms of intellect? And if it says you sit in the top 2%, it’s like, wow  that’s good.

[00:36:17] If it says you’re in the bottom  2%. It’s like right? Context, but what will also happen is eventually that will lead to ways of helping you with that, where it gets really good for the reporting system is that once we build this up, you’ll be able to take assessments for intellect, emotional intelligence, mental, agility, empathy, et cetera.

[00:36:34] And imagine that slightly scruffier slightly, you know, the person you, you glanced by who works in the stores, in your battalion, who takes on those assessments, which supports our reporting system. And it comes out saying this individual has huge emotional intelligence, and empathy, and real mental agility equals you should be an instructor at Pirbright.

[00:36:55] And all of a sudden there’s some evidence that individual can take to the chain of command and go look, you know, I’m in the top 5% of [00:37:00] these things. This means I’ll be a great instructor. And the chain of command might look at that person and go, but your S you know, scruffy, and we don’t really know much about you and that we’ve never looked at you.

[00:37:09] And all of a sudden there’s an evidence and goes. But across my cohort of 4,000 people, I’m in the top 5%. And that’s how we help the reporting system by putting some objective analysis into talent management that doesn’t go into report. It’s still individual to manage, but all of a sudden, you and I can start seeing where we sit into a spectrum of talent and then reacting to it.

[00:37:29] And it can say you’re really good at detail. You’re really good at understanding this complexity. You really shouldn’t be a programmer in capability development or in innovation, or you’re rubbish at detail, but your great ideas go into the strategic space, et cetera, et cetera. And I think the way we help talent management and career management is not by addressing the reporting system, but it’s about making sure individuals know exactly what they’re good at, and then they can make really good career decisions with more information.

[00:38:01] [00:38:00] But it’s an interesting one. So parts of that sounds similar to a kind of a Myers, is it Myers Briggs? So

[00:38:08] Myers-Briggs is Myers-Briggs looks at personality types and it’s something we are looking into a similar space, the problem with Myers-Briggs and it’s very good is it takes a lot of debriefing to get the most from it.

[00:38:20] And if you do a Myers Briggs personality apart from it taking 40 minutes, you have time to do what you then need is 90 minutes of an occupational psychologist to explain it to you, to get the best from it and without it, it’s a bit dumb, but with it, it’s very empowering, but we’re not going to be giving 90 minute occupational psychologist debriefs to a hundred thousand people in the Army.

[00:38:39] What we can do is give you enough information to go. This is where I sit in these things. And these add up to this, I mean, imagine being a Lance Corporal in an infantry battalion who takes a series of assessments and they go look, you know, you would probably be really good as a Special Forces Communicator, or you would be really good you know, in, in a planning role or you would be.

[00:38:58] Yeah, maybe you’d be [00:39:00] really good at what you do. Or as an officer, who’s sort of reaching out that gap, that jump between captain and major, is it saying, look, all of these traits means the pers career field is for you or ops is for you . And all of a sudden, I think we get a little bit of a validity and a little bit of confidence in knowing these are good decisions.

[00:39:15]I should just stress. We have no intention of making that information available to anybody, bar from the  individual what they then choose to do it. That’s up to them because it can be really empowering.

[00:39:24]Frosty: [00:39:24] Yeah, it definitely sounds like it could be a useful I guess quick barometer to see where you are, maybe to see whether you want to attend or attempt something.

[00:39:33] I can, I can definitely see utility of that. I can see the people would worry that that would then somehow end up in the chain of command and decisions would be made on them. And only equally people trying to game it and then show it to their reporting officers and by, well, look, I scored really high on this test, so you’ve got to put me forward for that job.

[00:39:53] Brigadier Cook: [00:39:53] So I, I think I can reassure you that firstly is the way it is designed. It is. Th, you know, the individual logs on as [00:40:00] themselves takes, assessed and gets their results. Those results don’t go anywhere. There’s no algorithm or system to, to, to keep them or send them this. Yeah. Well, we keep a record of who took what when, but that’s just so that we can there’s veracity and people can go.

[00:40:12] No, actually really did take it. Secondly, the, the assessments are abstract. Which is really important. So it’s not a reflection of prejudice of privilege or upbringing. These are how your mind works. So a lot of this is about shapes and numbers and letter games. It’s not about knowing things it is  about assessing your mind.

[00:40:31] So actually it doesn’t matter how you’re educated or your family background. If you’ve got a good brain, this will find out. So that should give you confidence. And then. It really is down to individual to use the information or not. Now the obvious conclusion is, is if, if, if a hundred people take an intelligence test, well, 50 then by definition are in the bottom half, but that’s okay because intelligence, you know, you don’t have to be the top to have a really good career.

[00:40:57] If you’re at the bottom of 10 different tests. [00:41:00] Well, then that’s something, but you’re going to be good at something. Because you wouldn’t be in the army if you weren’t And there are also leads, which are important to, to training opportunities and education. This will all lead to you should now go and do this.

[00:41:10] You’d be really good at this or in actual fact . You’re scored brilliantly here, and you’ve done this in your  career. How about access to higher education paid for in the future by the Armed Forces? So it’s also not just assessment of you but it is how it develops you. Now. We’re not there. And we haven’t got that part of the pro the project fixed yet, but that’s what, in my mind, it will lead to allowing you to intellectually up your game.

[00:41:30] And whilst we’re not going to touch pay and  reward in Programme Castle because it’s just too difficult. And I don’t think we need to, what we will be looking at is using the aptitude assessments to say you are a really good candidate for some higher education, and the Army would like to resource that for you because you’ll be better for it.

[00:41:45] And the Army will be better for you having done it.

[00:41:48]Frosty: [00:41:48] So, sir I think we’ll bring this, bring this interview to conclusion. I’ve got one more question for you. So it’s 10 years in the future. You just retired as a Chief of the Defence Staff, and you’re looking back, looking [00:42:00] back at your time in the Army and what, what does, what does good look like for talent management in 10 years time?

[00:42:08] Brigadier Cook: [00:42:08] So the first bit easy actually is digitalised. So it doesn’t matter where you are, what you’re doing. You can pick up your smartphone and you can look at yourself and your, your talent passport, you can see your skills, you can see the jobs and it’s available to you. Now. All that information is there today, but it’s quite opaque to us.

[00:42:25] It’s definitely opaque to junior soldiers. So that’s the first thing is digitalised. And we’re doing that. The career management portal is doing it. You’ll start to be able to download it from this summer. It’ll be in the app store and you’ll start to get that. That’s the first thing. Secondly, I think that Castle have delivered that flexibility and choice where people get the careers they want and it’s not.

[00:42:44] It’s not, you know we’re no longer directed places. It’s about, you’ve made a choice. Now we’ll never get to nirvana of  everyone gets what they want, but we’ll get more choice and that’s going to be good because in outside of the Armed Forces in society, you don’t get ultimate flexible. You can’t just rock up and go.

[00:42:58] I’m going to manage McDonald’s [00:43:00] tomorrow. I’m going to go into, you know, you, you still got to compete. So I think that’s going to be there. I think that’s also going to lead us to a happier cohort of people who are more satisfied because they know their choices align with their families and the people they rely upon and people they care for, and that will help retain them.

[00:43:18] I think we’re going to have in 10 years time upped the broad intellect of the army by this education focus. That means everybody, no matter what rank you are, as well as training you for the job you need to do, how to change that wheel how to service that vehicle. We’re also going to give you an education lift, which means that when you return into society, you’ll be better for it.

[00:43:40] And society will  be better for it. I think that will also help us attract. Broader from society because there would be even more opportunity. I think we’ll do a lot better work to support the, the smaller the minorities in the army. Now in terms of the cohorts are just as, not as big as they should be, because we’ll make pal policies that are just easier to live with.

[00:43:58]I think particularly [00:44:00] female talent, because we’ll make timing of courses  is far more individual, as opposed to you will do it at this stage or that so people can manage their careers and their families or whoever. Of course, that’s not gender specific, whoever looking after the family. And I suppose lastly, And this is the real wish is

[00:44:17] people will be able to engage with their careers and they’ll want to engage with the careers and they’ll  get a career they want and they deserve not everybody deserves, not deserves. Not everybody gets the same career because not everybody is as talented. But we’ll be able to  every last drop of talent out of everybody, because they’ll know how the system works they’ll be able to access it, and they’ll have a career that if they’re lucky it will be as good as yours and I, because we’re having a great time.

[00:44:43] I think I certainly love what I do. I’m particularly lucky to be in this. I’m also lucky to be married to a far more talented  officer who keeps me relatively grounded. In the successful way that allowed them to have a great time in the Armed Forces, support their families and really helps them in society.

[00:44:59] Frosty: [00:44:59] Sir,  [00:45:00] thank you very much for your time

[00:45:02] Brigadier Cook: [00:45:02] Frosty. That was great fun. Thank you.

[00:45:04]This podcast series is sponsored by the British Army Innovation Team. This team is set up to encourage and facilitate innovation across the Army and supports wider Defence initiatives too.  One of their, projects, The Army BattleLab, is due to open this year in the South West of England. If you would like further information about this project, why not get in touch directly with the team via the show notes?

[00:45:28] Remember to subscribe to the Wavell room through whoever your podcast provider is and comment and give us a rating too.