Dean Hohl

Education

Hohl attended Aquin Central Catholic High School in Freeport, Illinois. He graduated with honors from Ranger School (Class of 6-90), having attained the rank of sergeant. He was awarded the Merrill's Marauder Award. This award is presented to one officer and enlisted man, depending on the overall performance of the class. Criteria for selection are that the candidate must have passed the land navigation course (no retest), must have passed all peer evaluations, and must have the highest cumulative score.

The Ranger Course lasts for 72 days and Hohl, like his classmates, averaged three hours of sleep and lived on one meal a day. Ever present, was the threat of having to repeat the experience, since instructors, at any time, can "recycle" a student and send him back to day one. But this training creates the Ranger "culture" and inculcates the performance under pressure for which Rangers are noted. As Hohl noted in an 1998 interview, "Rangers aren't supermen." Asked what makes them capable of "such super feats," he replied: "Our operating culture. If the culture is strong, the people feel pride, involvement and ownership."

US Army Rangers

After passing the Ranger Introduction Program, Hohl was assigned to the 3rd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, headquartered at Fort Benning, Georgia. He served with the 3rd Battalion from 1988 to 1992. On December 20, 1989, the 3rd Battalion was committed to Operation Just Cause, the operation to remove Manuel Noriega from power in Panama. The 3rd Battalion successfully seized the Rio Hato Airfield and, in conjunction with the 1st Battalion, the Torrijos-Tocumen Airfield. This, and additional combat operations after the airports were secure, led the U.S. Army to assess that the 3rd Battalion contributed "significantly" to the United States victory in Panama.

Hohl recounts that when he jumped into Panama, he landed about a mile and half from where he needed to be to meet up with the rest of his unit. In the process of getting to the meeting location, and under fire, he met up with several other Rangers, some from different Ranger teams. He noted that, "Immediately we began working together as a tactical fire team..... We knew where to employ our weapons. We knew who was going to be the Team Leader. We knew the commands. There's not always time for consensus and debate. Under fire, you need to shoot, move, and communicate."

Leading Concepts, Inc.

Hohl is president of Leading Concepts, Inc., the company he co-founded in 1993. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, the company offers training in Louisville and plans to also offer training at client sites. The course, for which the company is best known, Ranger Teams/The TLC Experience, is a four-day, eighty-six hour training exercise. Like Ranger School students, participants execute simulated Ranger missions under the hardship conditions imposed by deliberately remote locations and little sleep. The goal of the course is " to remove learning barriers, ensure retention, accelerate application, and train leaders in a world where competition is so intense that business feels like war.

Participants in the Ranger Team course are formed into a squad. Together they face an enemy known as the MODD, an opposing group of trained Leading Concept employees given the mission to "make our day difficult." Over four days of missions, such as raiding the MODD headquarters for ammunition and supplies, the squad learns to function effectively as a cohesive team. The harsh conditions are designed to bring to the surface the kind of conflicts teams typically experience at work, but in a situation which compels cooperation. As Hohl has pointed out, "For Rangers, not working together is not an option. In Ranger reality, people die."

Though less lethal, the consequences for poor teamwork are as crucial in business. As one participant, an executive vice president, put it when discussing past leadership training his company had sponsored, "What we missed, badly, was that everyone has a different experience; Some have never been on a team, some have been on championship teams, some have been on teams that failed or lost.....We didn't address questions like what changes on a day-to-day basis now that we're a team."

To address this, Leading Concepts offers a strategy built on Tuchman's stages of group development—forming, storming, norming, performing. "Forming" is the creation of the team. As Hohl has noted, the idea is to remove people from their traditional, comfortable environments, putting them in relatively unfamiliar territory where everyone starts from the same level." "Storming" refers to the tension and conflict that arise among people assigned to tasks they've never performed in unfamiliar terrain. Participants are taught Ranger leadership skills through drills and maneuvers and expected to apply them "under fire"—sometimes literally, as both the participant squad and the MODD squad are armed with paintball guns. Several times a day, the MODD coaches engage participants in group discussions to relate what they are experiencing to the workplace. As one participant in the course put it, "It's not five hours at the Holiday Inn eating donuts."

As participants learn how to manage conflicts and communication through "storming" the next phase of team development emerges: "norming." During the norming phase, both individuals and teams the team as a whole learn to how "gel". Individuals learn the importance of being good followers, playing their roles to the fullest, and the benefits of "teaming," while the team as a whole learns it can succeed despite the inevitable changes that occur during team execution of the mission, plan, or task.

As the team perfects individual and collective behavior, they begin to truly master the task at hand, and master the art of team flexibility. Through this process, teams emerge into "performing," - the highest level of team effectiveness. Some research suggests that it can take teams three, five, or seven years to move into this stage without any major change to team mission, leaders, or members. Leading Concept training is designed achieve this level within the four day course.

Rangers Lead the Way

In 2003, Hohl published, Rangers Lead the Way: The Army Rangers' Guide to Leading Your Organization Through Chaos, with co-author Maryann Karinch, to bring the benefits of Leading Concepts leadership training to those unable to take the course.