Our Services
Professional Civil Staff Rides
A staff ride resembles a business school case study, only it is conducted on-site and examines the most acute leadership challenge -- combat. During the course of one or two days, participants analyze and debate fundamental leadership issues in connection with major battles. In addition to addressing common high-level management issues, staff rides are tailored to a particular organization's concerns and challenges.
Strategic Education & Research International (SERI) offers professionals of all levels leadership training and
executive development services, presented in the context of military strategy and history. The learning experiences
that SERI associates facilitate delve into the foundations of leadership and effective decision-making by examining the
historical reactions to high stress, high stakes situations found in armed conflict.
While staff rides take place on battlefields, they are distinctly different from guided battlefield tours. A staff ride serves as an educational portal into the detailed study of strategic leadership, and requires preparation in the weeks before the event. Each participant comes with a knowledge of the history of the battle, plays the role of one of the main figures in it, and gives a short talk at a key point on the battlefield. Each participant is questioned by his or her colleagues about that individual's view of what transpired and the critical decisions made during the battle. Staff rides are facilitated by an expert moderator, who also serves as a subject matter expert.
What Can Staff Rides Teach?
As a group, participants explore what it means to create and maintain a team. Away from the office, in dramatic outdoor
settings, participants will build a common understanding of what leadership means. They will gain perspective about their
own organization's challenges, and come away with enduring leadership lessons. Collectively the group asks not only "what
happened and why?" but the tougher questions as well: Did this commander make the right decision? How would I have acted in
his place?
Why did one management team succeed and another fail? What limits should loyalty impose on dissent against the
chief's policies? How is a common sense of mission created? How can a senior leader make use of a competent, but overzealous
and headstrong subordinate? Why do some leaders seem able to exploit opportunity, and others not?
Where Do Staff Rides Take Place?
Strategic Education & Research International conducts staff rides at a variety of sites associated with the Civil War and the American Revolution, usually in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and New York. Specific battlefields include Gettysburg , Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Brandywine, Valley Forge, Fort Ticonderoga, and Saratoga. SERI Consultants have also conducted staff rides in Massachusetts and Quebec, Ireland and Israel.
SERI staff rides can be designed for battlefields close to a client's location in many parts of the United States and Canada. Events last one or two days. In the latter case, the evening activity includes a reenactment of a real or notional court-martial or commission of inquiry, usually focused on the problem of responsibility and accountability in complex organizations.