“Seek not merely the eloquence of words. Seek the
eloquence of ideas.”
Esteban Garcia
Workgroup 4 members completely covered all four walls of a
Lincoln Hall classroom at the National Defense University with
their great ideas during the 2015 Peace and Stability Operations
Training and Education Workshop (PSOTEW), April 14-16,
2015. These ideas significantly advanced our thinking on the
workgroup theme, “Facilitating Cross-Sector Support to Economic Stabilization in Post-Conflict and Fragile States.” Our
challenge now is to transform these ideas into action, specifically in the form of viable frameworks used by strategic leaders
to inform their analysis, decision-making, and facilitation of
cross-sector collaborations.
Many thanks to all who enabled the success of Workgroup 4,
starting with the group members themselves, my co-facilitator
COL Melinda Mate’, and PKSOI intern/scribe Katrina Gehman! Special thanks to PKSOI’s COL John Kolessar, Marcy
Robey, John Winegardner, and Chris Browne for making the
PSOTEW workshop run so smoothly.
Workgroup 4 included representatives of all sectors, including
joint professional military education and civilian academic
communities such as the Center for Complex Operations,
Civil-Military Centre of Excellence, Princeton, Georgetown,
George Mason, and Eastern Mennonite Universities, as well as
private sector consultants, the U.S. Department of State, 350th
Civil Affairs Command, 354th Civil Affairs Brigade, Global
Witness, Protect the People, and others.
Workgroup 4 read-aheads are accessible at http://pksoi.army.
mil/conferences/psotew/readaheads.cfm and include excellent
products written by Transparency International, Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School graduate students, the U.S.
Agency for International Development, U.S. Institute of Peace,
the World Bank, and others. Presentations by Workgroup 4
members informed the facilitated discussions, including those
of Rick Fernandez on “Partnering with Social Impact Actors to
Wage Peace and Respond to Disasters” and Miki Noguchi on
the “Cyclic Phases of Economic Development.”
The organizing question that Workgroup 4 focused upon was,
“How to best facilitate cross-sector (government, non-government/humanitarian, business, and civil society) support for
economic stabilization in post-conflict and fragile states.’’ This
prompted detailed discussions of how to …
• Identify appropriate strategic leader skill sets, mindsets, and
approaches
• Achieve "unity of understanding, purpose, and action"
amongst cross-sector participants
• Assess the climate for economic stabilization, including challenges and assets
• Assess the climate for cross-sector collaboration, including
stakeholder analysis
• Determine appropriate roles, missions, organizational structures and collaborative processes
• Identify best practices and historical examples of successful
relevant cross-sector collaborations
• Integrate these discussions into an update of the Unified Action Handbook series and other doctrinal/practitioner publications
The following summary merely scratches the surface of the
many great ideas expressed by Workgroup 4 members. The
discussion highlighted the need for strategic leaders who are
“humble, empathetic, and personable operators and full spectrum communicators (strategic to tactical) with high emotional
intelligence.” Working in the challenging cross-sector space, the
mindset of these strategic leaders should be that of “collaboration facilitators, conveners, brokers, and enablers” rather than
commanders who issue orders to a hierarchical organization.
Achieving unity of purpose and action amongst cross-sector
participants in this arena requires a shared understanding of the
climate for economic stabilization, [