Outcast conflict
Jason Allan Bogardus, John Dibble and John David Garvin
Jason Allan Bogardus, John
Dibble and John David Garvin
are all based at the Department
of Behavioral Sciences and
Leadership, West Point, West
Point, New York, USA.
Disclaimer. This case is written
solely for educational purposes
and is not intended to represent
successful or unsuccessful
managerial decision making. The
authors may have disguised
names; financial, and other
recognizable information to protect
confidentiality.
PAGE 528 j THE CASE JOURNAL
Outcast conflict (part A)
It was October 2014. Captain (CPT) Jason Bryson was extremely excited. After a chaotic first few
months in charge of the C-Troop “Outcasts,” he had finally managed to gather his entire core
group of leaders for a meeting to discuss the planning and execution of the training program for
the brand new UH-72A Light Utility Helicopter, otherwise known as the “Lakota” (see Exhibit 1 for
pictures). This core group included the most senior and experienced warrant officers in the
Company, as well as the Company First Sergeant. Specifically, the leadership team comprised
Chief Warrant Officer 3 (CW3) Chaz Mann (Course Manager for the Lakota), CW3 Sascha Wells
(Troop Standardization Pilot (SP)), CW3 Chuck Smith (Troop Executive Officer), CW3 Paul Jones
(Platoon Leader), CW3 Nick Webb (Platoon Leader), and First Sergeant (1SG) Rodriguez (Troop
First Sergeant). (See Exhibit 2 for an example organizational chart and Exhibit 3 for a brief
explanation of the military ranks in this case). Bringing in the Lakota to replace the aging OH-58D
“Kiowa” airframe and training his unit to be ready to teach the first class of flight school students
in the Lakota 12 months from now was going to take a lot of coordination and teamwork. Critical
tasks that had to take place before that could happen included physically bringing more Lakota
helicopters to Fort Rucker (approximately 20 were needed) and training approximately 50
instructor pilots (IP) and 10 classroom instructors on the new helicopter while all of these
personnel continued to teach in other flight training programs. They also had to set up
maintenance contracts and repair part supply systems to support the expanding fleet of Lakota
aircraft which required coordination with multiple stakeholders outside of C-Troop. At this point,
CPT Bryson’s resources were extremely limited. He had four Lakota helicopters, six IP, two
classroom instructors and a crew of six mechanics. However, given his initial impressions after
his first few months on the job, CPT Bryson was confident that his team was up for the challenge.
Getting this group together at the same time and in the place had been no easy task. Given the
intense training schedule and multiple shifts running daily, senior leaders were seldom in the
same place at the same time. Since taking charge of C-Troop, Captain Bryson had only met with
his key leaders individually or in smalls groups of 1–3 based on the training cycle and differing
schedules. As the Commander, CPT Bryson knew it was his job to help point the way forward for
his company as they undertook this critical transition, but he also knew it would be unwise to
develop a plan without consulting the over 80 years and 15,000 flight hours of experience
resident in his leadership team. He also felt that while he could certainly speak to his Warrant
Officers and First Sergeant individually to solicit their ideas and feedback, that bringing the team
together in one place would be a more efficient and effective method of planning. He also hoped
it would generate some buy-in from his team.
The C-Troop leaders gathered in the C-Troop conference room, surrounded by artifacts from
their days of flying and training on the Kiowa airframe. CPT Bryson sat at the head of the table
with his First Sergeant to his right, while his stable of expert pilots and trainers were spread
around the rest of the room. CPT Bryson started things off by discussing the Lakota program’s
current status and by celebrating how well things had gone so far. The first 15 min of the meeting
went smoothly. The team, while they did not interact on a regular basis due to differing
schedules, knew each other very well, having worked together for the past three years. Further,
the world of Warrant Officers is usually a tight-knit one, regardless of branch. Those in the
“Wolfpack” as they like to refer to themselves, have a special bond. And nowhere had CPT
Bryson witnessed a bond stronger than among these particular Warrant Officer pilots.
j VOL. 15 NO. 6 2019, pp. 528-544, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1544-9106 DOI 10.1108/TCJ-01-2019-0007
After a few minutes, the group turned their attention to the topic of the design and implementation
of the new Lakota training program. The team was brainstorming and generating some good
ideas about how they could use their limited resources (helicopters and instructors) to
accomplish their mission and be ready to train flight students in 12 months. Naturally, some
suggestions were met with resistance, but CPT Bryson knew these minor disagreements were a
natural part of working in teams. But as the meeting went on, the Commander began to notice a
pattern. While differing viewpoints were expected (and welcomed), CW3 Webb seemed to be
disagreeing with every point made by CW3 Mann. The behavior was not necessarily alarming, but
some of CW3 Webb’s objections were hard to understand – and actually seemed to contradict
points he had made in earlier conversations with CPT Bryson. CPT Bryson did not dwell on this
behavior for long. CW3 Webb did have a strong personality and was very outspoken, but no one
else seemed to be taking notice of the behavior – perhaps it was just the way he always acted in
meetings. CPT Bryson chalked the behavior up as a personal quirk and tried to focus on moving
the discussion forward to ensure they touched on every item on his agenda.
After several more minutes of discussing various issues, CW3 Mann brought up the topic of
conducting training at nearby civilian airfields. He argued that the use of civilian airfields was not
advisable and that all training needed to be conducted on the installation. However, CW3 Webb
objected. This point of discussion was a perennial point of disagreement across many aviation
units, so the fact that two senior leaders did not agree did not really come as a surprise. However,
what came next did. Seemingly without provocation, CW3 Webb turned to CW3 Mann and
yelled, “Who the hell do you think you are? Why do you get to tell me how to conduct my
training?” Never one to back down from a challenge, CW3 Mann stood up and leaned across the
table and replied, “What is your fucking problem with me?”
The rest of the room had gone silent. Gone were the sidebar conversations and periodic
wisecracks. You could have heard a pin drop. The tension was palpable. What felt like several
moments went by and still, no one had spoken. CPT Bryson knew that he needed to do
something, but what should he do?

C-troop background
C-Troop had historically been responsible for training US Army Aviators in the OH-58D Kiowa
Warrior helicopter. They had performed this mission with distinction since the Army fielded the
Kiowa in 1985. However, the Army had recently decided to retire the aging Kiowa and to add the
UH-72A Lakota. Consequently, in June of 2014, C-Troop was given a new mission to develop
and implement a training program for the Lakota. Over a three-year period, the Lakota would
become the Army’s primary flight training helicopter in which every student would learn with the
first class slated to begin 12 months from now. Needless to say, this mission was critical to Fort
Rucker and the success of Army Aviation as a whole.

Personnel background
To support the mission of creating new training for the Lakota, CPT Bryson’ predecessor and his
battalion commander had hand-selected a core group of former Kiowa IP from C-Troop to get
trained on the new Lakota platform. This qualification included two separate courses: the Aircraft
Qualification Course (AQC) and the Instructor Pilot Transition (IPT). Following a “train the trainer”
model, after completion of both phases of training, these select individuals would begin training
the IP who would eventually be teaching flight school students in the Lakota. All of these
individuals had worked together for more than two years and were the best within their
professional community, but they also all held the same rank (they were all CW3s):
■ CW3 Sascha Wells – Troop SP: his role was to provide oversight and quality control for the
training with the goal of ensuring that all students received a uniform standard of training and
evaluation. He was also responsible for adapting existing unit Standard Operating Procedures
(SOPs) for the new airframe.
■ CW3 Chuck Smith – Troop Executive Officer (XO): CW3 Smith focused on logistics including
coordinating aircraft maintenance, scheduling which aircraft people would fly and other daily
logistical coordination between the Platoon Leaders.

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 ■ CW3 Paul Jones – Flight Leader: the Flight Leaders focused on daily execution of flight training
and management of other IP. To maximize the use of resources, there would always be two
shifts of training flights per day (typically an early morning and afternoon shift) with a Flight
Leader managing each.
■ CW3 Nick Webb – Flight Leader: same duties as CW3 Jones.
The individual duties described above were mostly tied to what these individuals had been doing
within the Kiowa training program prior to its divestiture.
A few months later, CW3 Chaz Mann was added to the core group and assumed the newly
created position of Course Director. Given the fledgling nature of the Lakota program, CW3
Mann’s role as the Course Director was fluid; it was loosely defined and highly ambiguous.

Timeline
■ April 2014: CW3s Wells, Smith, Jones and Webb complete the Lakota AQC in Arizona;
however, they still needed to complete the IPT phase scheduled for September before they
could teach at Fort Rucker. At this time, Fort Rucker does not have any Lakota training
courses available to train them.
■ June 2014: CW3 Mann is added to the team for the Lakota program. Because he had been a
late addition to the team and had not already gotten qualified with the others in Arizona, he
was able to attend training as part of the first Lakota training class at Fort Rucker that started in
June. This first class ran on a new model that combined both training phases that the other
Warrant Officers needed to complete separately. As a result, when CW3 Mann finished the
training in July, he became the first fully qualified Lakota instructor in the group despite being
the last to join the team.
■ August 2014: CPT Bryson assumes command of C-Troop after the first Lakota class was well
underway. CPT Bryson was not qualified in the Lakota nor had he ever been qualified as an IP
before. Consequently, he leaned heavily on input from his very experienced Warrant Officers
and Department of the Army Civilian pilots.
■ September 2014: CW3s Wells, Smith, Jones and Webb complete the Lakota Instructor Pilot
Course (IPS) in Arizona. They were now fully qualified to train flight students in the Lakota at
Fort Rucker.
During August and September, CPT Bryson most often sought out the advice of CW3 Mann, who
was the only fully qualified Lakota IP at this point. Consequently, CW3 Mann became CPT
Bryson’ go-to source for information. As mentioned above, he had participated in the first Lakota
class at Fort Rucker, so he not only had deep first-hand knowledge of the Lakota program, but he
had also become the de facto face of the program and a key source of information for others
outside of C-Troop seeking information on the Lakota.

Outcast conflict (Part B)

Further investigation
Later, once the initial conflict had been addressed, CPT Bryson and CW3 Webb were speaking
alone. CW3 Webb said “I can’t keep working here with CW3 Mann. I don’t trust him, and I refuse
to work with him.”
CPT Bryson decided to conduct a deeper investigation to try to figure out how to resolve this
conflict between CW3 Mann and CW3 Webb going forward. In his discussions with his other
Warrant Officers, CPT Bryson learned the following. Within the IP community, becoming a SP was
one of the best ways to distinguish oneself and attain the best possible evaluations, leading to
promotion. When C-Troop was still training the Kiowa, there was only one path for IP to take the
next step in their professional development and become an SP. An IP had to serve
as the Platoon Leader for the IPC. There was only one slot for this highly competitive position,
and the Troop Commander personally chose an individual to fill that job. CPT Huck, who had
served as Troop Commander over two years ago, had served with CW3 Mann in Alaska and Iraq,

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and the two shared a close personal friendship. Their friendship was common knowledge, and it
had caused quite a stir when CPT Huck chose CW3 Mann for the IPC Platoon Leader slot over
CW3 Webb. CW3 Webb had been in C-Troop longer, was renowned for his technical expertise as
a pilot and instructor and had been promised the position by a previous commander. CW3 Webb
blamed CW3 Mann for CPT Huck’s choice and had held a grudge ever since. He believed that
CW3 Mann got everything handed to him and was the constant recipient of special treatment.
Given this information and everything else he knows about the two men, CPT Bryson wondered
to himself “How am I supposed to fix this? What in the world am I going to do?”

Conflict resolution constraints

Your biggest constraint is that you cannot get rid of anyone. The team you have in place are the
only people available as the unit will not receive any new personnel for the next six months. If you
try to fire someone or move someone to a different organization, then you will not be able to meet
your mission.

Outcast conflict (epilogue)

After the initial conflict described in Part A, CPT Bryson stopped the meeting and asked everyone
but CW3 Mann and CW3 Webb to leave the room so that he could have a conversation with the
two of them. CPT Bryson told them to calm down and asked the two of them “What’s really going
on here? I know that you can’t be this upset over something so small.” CW3 Webb quickly
became angry again and stated that he was tired of CW3 Mann telling him what to do. CPT
Bryson tried to calm him down, but the conversation got almost nowhere. In the end, CPT Bryson
decided to put the two of them on separate shifts while he did some further investigation and
decided how to handle this conflict going forward.
Through the course of his investigation, CPT Bryson discovered the information given in Part B,
and he decided to have a counseling session with CW3 Webb to try to address the core issues
and resolve the conflict. Given that these events had transpired under a previous commander,
CPT Bryson did his best to convince CW3 Webb to let them go and start fresh. He told CW3
Webb, “I can’t control what happened under previous commanders. It sounds like things may
have been handled poorly with how CW3 Mann became an SP and how he got brought onto the
Lakota project. For my part, I apologize for not including you in more of the decision making after I
got here. CW3 Mann was the first to be fully qualified in the Lakota, so I depended on him while I
got up to speed as the new commander. Going forward, I plan to include you in more of the
decision making. I value your opinion as a member of this team, but I need all of you to work
together for this project to succeed.” CPT Bryson felt that he was being more than fair with this
approach, but CW3 Webb would simply not let go of the perceived injustices he received in the
past. CW3 Webb stated “I’ll continue to do my job, and I’ll work with CW3 Mann where I have to.
Just don’t expect us to be friends.” Over the course of the next year, CPT Bryson did his best to
remove ambiguity and clarify roles and workstreams for CW3 Mann and the rest of his people.
CW3 Webb and CW3 Mann worked mostly on separate pieces of the project and continued to
work on separate shifts for the most part. Despite repeated attempts to bridge the gap, CW3s
Mann and Webb maintained a curt but professional relationship until CW3 Webb moved to
another location in early 2016.

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 Appendix
Exhibit 1

Plate E1 OH-58D Kiowa Warrior

Plate E2 UH-72A Lakota

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Exhibit 2

Figure E1 Organizational chart

Executive officer (XO) C Troop Commander

Troop First Sergeant
CW3 Smith CPT Bryson

Standardization Pilot (SP) Flight Leader Course Director Flight Leader

CW3 Wells CW3 Webb CW3 Mann CW3 Jonse

Exhibit 3. Rank explanation

Captain (abbreviated CPT): an Army Captain is the military equivalent of a mid-level manager in a
civilian organization. A Captain who is a Troop commander generally has about six to eight years
of work experience and approximately 1,000 flight hours. She manages personnel senior to her in
experience but is the ultimate decision-maker in the organization.
Chief CW3: Warrant Officers are subject matter experts in their respective fields, flying and
training new pilots to fly helicopters in this case. In this case, the CW3s all had significant time in
the military (between 10 and 15 years) and an average of 2,500 flight hours. A CW3’s role is to
advise Captains (and other officers) and help them make decisions.

Corresponding author
Jason Allan Bogardus can be contacted at: jason.bogardus@westpoint.edu

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