Sua Sponte

The basketball coaching legend, John Wooden, once said, "Not everyone is equipped to be a leader, but in a sense, everyone is a leader to someone..."  I want to stay with the theme from my last blog post on leadership training and the U.S. military.  The 75th Army Ranger Regiment is a light airborne infantry special forces regiment (a typical U.S. Army regiment consists of 3-4 battalions, which are in turn composed of 3-4 companies) and is the subject of the book Sua Sponte: The Forging of a Modern American Ranger by the author, Dick Couch. Couch's title comes from the 75th Regiment's motto, Sua Sponte, which is Latin for "of their own accord." 

"Sua Sponte" refers to the fact that Army Rangers will take action on their own initiative and without formal permission, direction, or approval from a higher authority.  In other words, paraphrasing Coach Wooden, every Army ranger is a leader.  As a matter of fact, Army Ranger School is frequently described as one of the finest leadership training courses in the world. 

It's important to note, as it is confusing, that the training required (and described by Couch in his book on the Rangers) to become a member of the 75th Army Ranger Regiment is, in fact, different and completely distinct from Army Ranger School.  Soldiers (importantly - usually men, but the first two female soldiers graduated from Ranger School in 2017) go through Ranger School to wear the coveted Ranger tab, but soldiers go through RASP (Ranger Assessment and Selection Program) to become members of the 75th Army Ranger Regiment and wear the coveted Ranger scroll.  If that's not confusing enough, virtually all members of the 75th Army Ranger Regiment eventually go through Ranger School.  But I digress...

What makes Ranger training so special?  I think (or so I am told) it all comes down to the philosophy that every Ranger is a leader.  It's the High Reliability Organization principle of "Deference to Expertise" on steroids!  Call it "Sua Sponte" or "commander's intent" (U.S. military) or even "auftragstaktik" (from the German Wehrmarcht) - it's all about pushing decisionmaking authority as far as possible to the front line.  Rangers are so effective for the simple reason that they take action on their own initiative, without waiting for orders or direction from above.  They evaluate the situation, and based upon their training, respond appropriately. 

One of the bedrock foundational principles of High Reliability Organizations is that frontline experts will take action based upon their evaluation and assessment of the situation at hand.  Waiting for direction from a leader who does not have firsthand knowledge of all the details about what is happening takes valuable (and unnecessary) time.  Importantly, just like the U.S. Army Rangers (and the other special forces units we discussed), the principle of "deference to expertise" works in High Reliability Organizations because of the amount of time spent on training.  High Reliability Organizations use things like simulation to practice and drill over and over and over again.

Those of us in health care can learn a lot from these High Reliability Organizations and the 75th Army Ranger Regiment.  As the title of my previous post says, "If you want to be the best, you have to train like the best."  Similarly, if you want to be a High Reliability Organization, you have to train like a U.S. Army Ranger.

Sua Sponte.  Or if you prefer Coach Wooden, "everyone is a leader."