(the Army Training and Leader Development Panel Report NCO, 2002) Stated as three factors that serve to ensure the competence of NCOs in the U.S. Army are the following three factors:

(1) Situational Awareness - formulation of an awareness of key elements relevant to the situation -- 'who', 'what', 'when' and 'where';

(2) Formation of an understanding or 'meaning-making' in a specific context upon the basis of experiential knowledge, training, education and cognition which includes the (a) Formulation of hypotheses and making of inferences as well as generalizations concerning future events; and (b) Formulation of a sense of the implications for various courses of action; and (3) Decision-making upon the basis of:

(a) Generation of alternate responses and applied actions for controlling the situation;

(b) Identification of the objectives, constraints and factors that influence each alternative's feasibility and desirability; and (c) Conduction of an assessment of the alternatives. (the Army Training and Leader Development Panel Report NCO, 2002)

The work of Jelinek and Litterer (1995) identified three elements that are cognition-based and which contribute to the ability of the organization to effectively respond to crisis and ambiguity. Those three elements are stated as:

(1) Shared management: every individual in the organization from the top to the bottom is responsible for overall performance of the system;

(2) Mindful alertness to anomalies: Data takes on meaning only within context and subordinates therefore should remain alert to patterns, anomalies, and change and push this information upward in the organization;

(3) Ambiguity absorption: the organizational design should pinpoint who is responsible for dealing with ambiguity in the organization, the manner in which data is matched up with those providing context and interpretation and the attentional resources within the organization as well as where a need for shared interpretation exists. (as cited in Leedom, 2001)

Stated as four types of organizational responses are those of:

(1) Non-adaptive;

(2) Emergent adaptive;

(3) Operative adaptive;...

(Leedom, 2001)
In the non-adaptive response the technical support system, organizational flexibility and cultural openness are low while the emergent adaptive organization ranks low in terms of its technical support system and medium in the areas of organizational flexibility and cultural openness. The operative adaptive system ranks medium in all three categories while the auto-adaptive organization ranks high in all areas including the technical support system, organizational flexibility, and cultural openness. (Leedom, 2001)

Summary and Conclusion

Three primary factors that assist and enable the NCO in self-development are and organizational effectiveness are those of: (1) shared management; (2) mindful alertness to ambiguities; and (3) ambiguity absorption. Three organizational factors that assist the NCO and organization towards these ends are those of the: (1) technical support system; (2) flexibility of the organization; and (3) cultural openness.

Bibliography

Brickner, M.S. & Lipshitz, R. (2004) Pilot Study: System Model of Situation Awareness: "Sensemaking" and Decision Making in Command and Control. AFRL-HE-WP-TR-2004-071. Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio: U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.

Cohen, M.S., Freeman, J.T. & Wolf S. (1996) Meta-recognition in time stressed decision making: Recognizing, critiquing, and correcting. Human Factors, 38(2):206-219.

Klein, G., Moon, B. And Hoffman, R.F. (2006a). Making sense of sensemaking I: alternative perspectives. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(4), 70-73.

Klein, G., Moon, B. And Hoffman, R.F. (2006b). Making sense of sensemaking Ii: a macrocognitive model. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(5), 88-92

Leedom, D.K. (2001). Final Report: Sensemaking Symposium. (Technical Report prepared under contract for Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications & Intelligence). Vienna, VA: Evidence-Based Research. Inc. http://www.dodccrp.org/files/sensemaking_final_report.pdf

The Army Training and Leader Development Panel Report (NCO) (2002) Final Report. Online available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/1824864/U.S.-Army-NCO-STUDY-REPORT