Leader: Mark Herman, Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton
Episode: 4
Run Time: 3:43
Release Date: 12/31/2008
In Episode IV of our In the Flow podcast series on leadership and success, Booz Allen Vice President Mark Herman introduces the fundamental elements of modern wargaming and describes the ways it can make better, smarter, and more decisive leaders.
Wargaming affords the participants an opportunity to experience the future in a risk-free environment, and to find answers to questions that had not previously been on their radar screens. In a wargame, teams are playing different points of view in parallel, thus creating affronts to your strategy that can and do happen. These real-life strategic disparities provide insights to future possibilities that participants would not otherwise get. As a leader, your ability to foresee potential outcomes and variables along the way can only strengthen your decision-making capability.
What makes great leaders? Herman argues it’s their ability to energize and focus their team through stressful and often ambiguous situations. Smart leaders embrace the opportunity to hear different views and debate different options. In other words, wargames are the perfect leadership tool. They get launched when the right path isn’t clear and the stress is high. They also—by design—encourage debate and critical thinking about alternative paths.
Allowing oneself to look into the future is paramount to successful leadership.
Mark Herman - Vice President |
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Mark Herman is a vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, specializing in the research, design, and staging of wargames for the government and private sector. A buff of ancient military history, he is the author and developer of almost fifty commercial wargames and mapped out his first wargame on the Battle of Balaclava at the age of 12.