Welcome to Virginia! We are looking forward to meeting you all for the Fredericksburg-Chancellorville staff ride this week sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service!
If you missed any of our past updates to help your preliminary study, they are posted to our archive page. Hopefully our updates helped guide you in evaluating some of the personalities involved in these operations just over 150 years ago. Hopefully you can relate the same personality types to some people in your organizations!
Let's focus your thinking a bit on one element of both personalities and organizations: the capacity for fluidity.
Here's a primer on the concept of fluidity...
Like friction and uncertainty, fluidity is an inherent attribute of operations. Each operation is the temporary result of a unique combination of circumstances, presenting a unique set of problems and requiring an original solution. Nevertheless, no operation can be viewed in isolation. Rather, each operation merges with those that precede and follow it -- shaped by the former and shaping the conditions of the latter -- creating a continuous, fluctuating flow of activity replete with fleeting opportunities and unforeseen events. Since both warfighting and firefighting operations are fluid phenomena, their conduct requires flexibility of thought. Success depends in large part on the ability to adapt -- to proactively shape changing events to our advantage as well as to react quickly to constantly changing conditions.
We look forward to discussing this further on the banks of the Rappahannock River!
