I wanted to write a short article on some of the dangers of
rapport building and some things that you need to watch out for. I like to use
the example of democracy in the Middle East. We can’t expect whatever form of
democracy other people choose to be exactly like ours. It’s a foolish notion
and one destined for failure. You have to find a middle ground that takes into
account that countries history, culture and social norms.
When living and working with a different culture, building
rapport, fighting and dying shoulder to shoulder with them, it is easy to
become emotionally involved. It is easy, especially when they are honorable and
likable, to find yourself assimilating with them. As I stated in The
Importance of Rapport, the best advice I
ever received is to never go more than 49% native. My first team sergeant
understood rapport, but also the dangers that could come. It’s a fine line to
walk, as is everything dealing with Foreign Internal Defense (FID) (especially
during combat). Combat creates a bond, a brotherhood that is hard to break.
Many soldiers learn quickly to compartmentalize, and SOF are
experts at it, but from my experience Special Forces are able to do it better
than most.
Compartmentalized
minds have diversified personalities which enable them
to behave differently and appropriately in a variety of situations such that
they can behave like a boss or worker on the job, a parent and/or spouse and/or
grown child at home, a teammate on a sport, etc. To be competent in each area
they are said to be good at “having boundaries” such that one role does not
blur into another.
One of the challenges however of being highly compartmentalized
is that over time, people may lean more and more into those compartments where
they feel most competent, capable and confident. That can cause other
compartments to either atrophy from disuse or in some cases never develop in
the first place. Over time these people can appear to be more like “human
doings” that don’t feel particularly present as people even as they appear
quite competent in a particular function. Think of IT instead of HR.
I don’t know if it is a psychological trait that is looked for,
but I do know that training quickly refines and expands it. The hard training
that is involved starting at selection (and honestly, it never stops) is part
of the mental selection and mental training. The ability to separate the pain
and discomfort, and to push forward in spite of it, is just one way that is
used to find people who have the ability to create those compartments or can already
do it. If a person can’t do this effectively they will either quit or be booted
out at some point during the training.
The reason I say Special Forces are better
at being able to do this is because they are required to have more
compartments. There is the family, deployment, team, group, army, and America.
They also have to be able to fully immerse themselves with whatever local unit,
tribe, sect, they happen to be working or interacting with they are working in
Afghanistan or Iraq. Between combat deployments they are still conducting JCETs
and non-combat FID in multiple foreign countries. Each of these examples has a
different compartment, and each compartment has only what is needed to succeed
in that one situation.
To understand how significant these compartments are, I will use
myself as an example. Whenever I deployed (and there were a lot of them), I got
into the habit of asking my wife and kids to drop me off and leave. I didn’t
want them to wait with me or hang out like a lot of other families did. They
would drop me off at the curb and we would say our goodbyes. I would watch them
drive away, then go in and hang out or bullshit until it was time to load the
plane.
Standing on the curb watching them drive away was the beginning
for me. It was part of the process I developed to help me switch compartments.
After the plane took off, I would take an Ambien and sleep
for about four hours When I woke up the family compartment was locked up tight
and the deployment compartment was open and ready to go. I would only open the
family compartment when it was safe, or when I was on the phone talking to
them. It was never opened fully, but cracked just enough to give me what I
needed to talk to them. As soon as I hung up it was slammed down and locked
back up. It was never opened fully until I walked back into my house.
And as I’m writing this and thinking about it, I have to admit
that the family compartment never really completely opened while I was in.
Knowing I had another deployment coming up, or could be sent somewhere with
very little notice. This forced me to keep a tight hold on it so it could
easily be shut on the next trip.
Some compartments necessitated switching from one to the other
in the blink of an eye; others took time to prepare. In Kosovo, our primary
mission was to act as liaisons between the locals and the U.S. General in
charge of the American sector. We walked around in only a uniform and concealed
pistol and had to be able to go from friendly conversation to sensing a threat
and drawing in an instant. Some people refer to that as “flipping a switch,”
which is a good analogy of going between times of quiet to sudden
violence. 'Flipping a switch', while a good descriptive phrase, doesn’t change
the fact that those situations required two very different compartments. If you
couldn’t switch fast enough, you died.
People who can’t flip that switch either became too trusting or too
friendly with locals, and forget exactly where they are, or they can’t relax
and be in the moment. They would subconsciously perceive everyone as a threat,
which the locals could easily sense. This created a lack of trust, which
prevented the rapport from developing.
The point is that when you can compartmentalize, you are able to
give 100% of your 49% (Naked gun 50/50 chance) to the people that you
train and work with. This allows you to be better able to build that trust
without losing yourself. You can keep the American and the U.S. Soldier
compartment safe and switch when needed.
