Photo By Sgt. Christopher Gaylord | Tech Sgt. Jordan Applegate, assigned to the Air Mobility Command on McChord Field, and...... read more read more
Subscribe
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. – If you ask Master Sgt. George Hedspeth what the key is to understanding others, he’ll probably tell you that first you have to know yourself.
It sounds like the Confucius-style answer of any typical soul searcher. But in this case, it’s not.
And while few people actually expect to learn that in a class, in Hedspeth’s classroom, the importance of looking inward is perhaps the first thing that’s made absolutely clear.
“The biggest thing about these skills is you’ve got to know where you’re at first before you can explain them to someone else,” says the Franklin, Va., native, of the techniques he teaches others as a master resilience trainer.
It’s the job of master resilience trainers like Hedspeth to assist their commanders by introducing to their ranks cognitive skill sets that can enhance thought processes and improve their soldiers’ outlook on life.
In Hedspeth’s five-day course, called the Resiliency Trainer Assistant Program, new and experienced Army and Air Force leaders alike prepare themselves to serve as aides to the master resilience trainers in battalion-level or higher entities.
One of the first things Hedspeth’s students do is take a 240-question survey that identifies their five most predominant character strengths.
“When they can find that in themselves, they can go out and be very productive,” Hedspeth says. “The main focus is you’ve got to understand yourself first, and once they do that, it gives them the skills to enable others.”
Hedspeth and his fellow instructor, Master Sgt. Rajan Robinson, teach their students how to effectively think, communicate, act and understand others in ways that can apply to nearly any adverse situation.
The lessons, which have come from the University of Pennsylvania and make up the Army’s Comprehensive Fitness Program, are taught under the umbrella of six focus areas, called core competencies: self-awareness, self-regulation, optimism, mental agility, strengths of character and connection.
Through those areas, students gain a better understanding of how to identify thoughts, emotions, behaviors and counterproductive thinking patterns in themselves and in others; how to control their impulses, emotions and behaviors to achieve certain goals; and how to appropriately express their emotions.
And they learn to see the good in events, Hedspeth says, even when it looks as though no good can be found.
They learn how to stay positive, to think flexibly and with an open mind, and to see the importance of relationships and effective communication.
But the skills are not a fix-all fail-safe, Hedspeth warns. Instead, they’re tools leaders must practice using and use often in order to effectively help others.
“We’re not here to teach, ‘okay, everything’s going to be positive,’ because we know it’s not, and we understand that,” he says. “But what we’re teaching them is how to think accurately.”
Perhaps most valuable to both leaders and their troops, Hedspeth says, is having the ability to change the way they perceive events and circumstances.
“We seem to catastrophize about the simplest things in life,” he says, adding that often times a little critical thinking can reveal a positive side to almost any situation.
Hedspeth uses an example involving a deployed soldier, who grew frustrated after failing several times to reach his wife over the phone, not considering the difference in time zones.
If a leader could have asked the soldier, ‘what typically happens back home at 3 p.m.?’ the soldier might have realized his wife wasn’t available to answer the phone, he says, and stopped obsessing over the situation.
“A lot of times these things that we go through happen when we’re under stress,” he adds.
Today is day three of this year’s last class, and Hedspeth’s 20 students are discussing “iceberg” beliefs – deep-seeded beliefs or trends individuals tend to hold close to, even if they’re irrational.
Air Force Master Sgt. Anthony Pence shares with his fellow leaders an iceberg belief of his own.
“When I’m driving and somebody cuts me off, I get mad,” he says to the class. “I want to chase them down and let them know it.”
But at 37, he admits, he’s learned to control off-the-cuff temptations that usually entail negative consequences.
“It sort of comes with age,” says the Dayton, Ohio, native, assigned to the 62nd Comptroller Squadron on McChord Field. “Sometimes it’s just maturing and experiencing, going through those problems and realizing, ‘I could have handled that better.’”
But while some of the skills might be a bit of a refresher for the former Airman Leadership School instructor, he still sees them as invaluable to military units.
“The way we’re put together as a team, we all come from different places, different backgrounds, we have so many differences amongst us,” he says. “So I need to know where I stand on things and then understand how I can better communicate.”
“These types of skills allow us as non-commissioned officers to understand our folks and help them overcome those events, so we can get them back on track as quickly as possible.”
Pence knows that with every team comes a variety of different experiences. And at his age, still rather young but older than most of the other leaders in the room, he has a lot of them to offer.
And in this class, where finding out where you come from is paramount, the value of life experiences is held to high regard.
“That’s what makes this training – their experiences that they’re able to bring to the table and share,” Hedspeth says. “We come to find out in the course that we all have a lot to learn.”
| Date Taken: | 12.08.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 12.08.2011 21:51 |
| Story ID: | 81104 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 145 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Resiliency Trainer Assistant class teaches leaders to look inward, find the positive, by SGT Christopher Gaylord, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
