TL;DR: We designed and tested the first scenario-based training program for "thinking in time," a complex cognitive skill. U.S. Army officers rated it highly, and the results split by rank: it boosted junior officers' confidence while humbling senior leaders, who came away seeing how complex the skill really is.
The Strategic Gap: Knowing vs. Teaching
Good leadership depends on timing. Leaders connect the past, present, and future to make sound decisions, a skill the historians Richard Neustadt and Ernest May famously called "thinking in time." It's central to strategic thinking. Leaders who use it tend to avoid a specific mistake: misreading the present because the past feels similar.
Despite its importance, this skill is almost never formally taught. The U.S. Army, an organization that runs on strategic planning, had no "deliberate and scalable development program" to cultivate it. Leaders were expected to just acquire this skill through experience.
The goal was to move "thinking in time" from an abstract ideal to a concrete, trainable skill.
Building the Framework from Scratch
Before building a training program, we had to define what "thinking in time" actually is. The project began with a lengthy analysis phase:
- A literature review on strategic thinking, applied history, and cognitive biases.
- In-depth interviews with 25 Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), including Army senior leaders, historians, strategists, and futurists.
This research resulted in a clear, consensus definition:
Thinking in Time: A cognitive reasoning skill by which the dimension of time (past, present, and future) is used to support the decision-making process.
We broke this abstract skill down into seven concrete, trainable facets:
- Historical Perspective-Taking: Understanding past actions from the perspective of those who lived them.
- Experiential Reflection: Using your own relevant personal experiences to fill information gaps.
- Historical Reasoning: Comparing current problems to past analogies to find similarities and differences.
- Framing Causal Chains: Hypothesizing the sequences of actions and reactions that led to the present.
- Trend Analysis: Recognizing underlying patterns and examining them to predict future outcomes.
- Foreknowledge: Integrating known, "safe-to-assume" future events (like budgets or troop movements) into planning.
- Forecasting: Envisioning multiple likely futures to compare their likelihood and achieve a desired end state.
More importantly, we built a conceptual model of time: a visual framework (see figure above) that organizes these facets alongside cognitive biases and planning horizons. This model is the foundation of the whole training intervention.
The Intervention: A "Flight Simulator" for Strategic Thought
Using the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (ADDIE) model, we designed, developed, and tested a four-module interactive multimedia instruction (IMI) tool geared toward mid-career officers. This "course" was designed to be a practical tool, not a history lecture.
It anchors the concepts in realistic scenarios:
- Module 1: Introduction
- Introduces the core definition and the new conceptual framework.
- Module 2: The Past
- Scenario: The 20-year U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
- Focus: Using techniques like historical reasoning and identifying causal chains to understand a complex past.
- Module 3: The Present
- Scenario: A notional crisis involving China, Mexican cartels, and border security.
- Focus: Applying a five-step thinking-in-time process to frame a current, ambiguous problem:
- Develop Historical Estimate (Understand)
- Visualize End State and Conduct Historical Reconnaissance
- Describe Historically Sound Actions/Approaches
- Conduct Historical and Heuristic Wargaming and Retrospective Test
- Decide, Direct, and Assess
- Module 4: The Future
- Scenario: A critical institutional challenge: The Army's recruiting shortfall and its impact on the future force.
- Focus: Using the seven facets of thinking in time to anticipate and shape the future.
Key Findings: The "Humbling Effect"
The four-module program was tested with 80 Army officers, from lieutenants to a brigadier general, and the results were revealing.
Finding 1: The Program Was Highly Successful (by Self-Report)
Participants' reactions were overwhelmingly positive. The intervention gave them concrete tools and a new appreciation for the skill:
- 73% agreed they "gained more tools and skills for deliberate planning".
- 76% agreed the program "enhanced their understanding of the dimension of time" in decision-making.
- 91% found the new conceptual framework a "useful tool for comprehending and visualizing" the skill after completing Module 1.
- 75% agreed the scenarios were effective at illustrating the concepts.
Finding 2: The "Humbling Effect" on Senior Leaders
The most interesting result came from comparing junior and senior officers. Participants were asked to rate their understanding of "thinking in time" before and after the training.
- Junior Officers (Company Grade): Their confidence rocketed. The percentage of junior officers who felt confident in their ability jumped by 31 percentage points after the training. The program gave them a new cognitive toolset they didn't have before.
- Senior Officers (Field/General Grade): Their confidence decreased slightly (from 69% to 64%).
For senior leaders who were probably already (over)confident in their strategic ability, the training had a humbling effect. It showed them how complex the skill really is, walked them through the cognitive biases involved, and traded unearned confidence for a more realistic read on the problem. So the training seems to work at every level, just for different reasons.
Why This Matters for Leaders
The program has been tested with 80 officers and is ready to use. For junior leaders, it builds a concrete mental model they didn't have before. For senior leaders, it trades false confidence for a clearer picture of how complex the skill actually is.
We recommend running this training early in a leader's career and reinforcing it periodically, so the force builds a cohort of leaders who can use the past to make better decisions under uncertainty.
Full Citation
Stothart, C., Young, R. G., Burbelo, G. A., Cobb, M. G., Normand, S. L., DeLoia, M. A., Ejiogu, K. C., & Woody, B. (2024). Thinking-in-time: A scenario-based developmental method for Army officers (ARI-SS SR 2024-31). U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences.