Who Certifies the Certifier? A Case AGAINST Accreditation for Special Forces and Special Operations Training

If all tactical training courses were created equal, then special operators could skip selection and pipeline training and any existing recerts, and could simply attend a local "gun safety" course and then BOOM, they'd be ready for combat... right?

No.

So there most certainly is a difference.

I often stay awake at night, into the wee-hours of the morning, literally losing sleep while I weigh over the smallest of details concerning the nuances of my craft. On a recent sleepless night, while researching and refusing to let my brain rest, I stumbled across "Who Certifies the Certifier? Making a Case for Accreditation", an article written by Sean Walters, posted to investmentsandwealth.org. (link)

I think the author means well. I really do. But the nuance is that the author means well...for normal people. And this nuanced expansion highlights the problem (and the solution).

Special Forces personnel and Special Operations personnel ARE NOT NORMAL PEOPLE.

An excerpt from the piece:

With the abundance of options out there, especially in the financial services field, how do u know which certifications are good, and which are bad?

With the abundance of options out there, especially in the financial services field, how do you know which certifications are good, and which are bad? [Make sure your certification passes the SMEL test]

S = Standards. Does the certification body apply rigorous standards to earn the credential, and does it, in turn, meet accreditation standards itself? This will be the focus of this article.

M = More designees does not always mean a “better” program. Unfortunately, most journalists when writing a piece on “which designation should you choose”, look for the designations that have the most people, rather than the programs which do the best job in certifying professionals.

E = Could be “The Four E’s”: Experience, Education, Ethics, and Examination. But most certifiers would argue that the MOST important “E” is the examination. We’ll talk more about exams in the next article in this series.

L = Individuals should LOSE the designation when they fail to meet ethics or ongoing requirements. This is a primary difference between a certification and a designation. Any MBA grad can list those three letters after their name as a designation, and even if they consistently ruin one company after another, they can still put MBA after their name.

Let's go ahead and crush this myth that governing bodies, "accreditation boards" and certifying authorities signal effective products and services to potential clients.

Imagine for a moment that you are a high-ranking commander of warfighters in the year 1902, and you would like your country to win whatever is likely to be the next big war... and you think to yourself "Gee whiz... wouldn't it be nice if we could just... fly... overtop of our enemies on the battle field?" So you set off on a quest to find, or develop, or adopt a brand new technology for the battlefield. A crazy idea, which obviously would never work.

Then, in 1903 you hear about the Wright brothers and that they have, in fact, created a flying machine and have established some foundation of sustainable flight. And you think to yourself "Preposterous! We should shut those heathens down! They aren't operating under any recognized certifying authority and they have absolutely zero accreditation!"

If your special team requires a special capability, there likely is no accreditation board oversight for the trailblazers that operate in the highest-levels of super-niche areas of expertise providing said capabilities.

I could fill an encyclopedia full of examples of incredibly valuable products and services that both originated, and continue to exist, outside of any regulatory or oversight standards; but one example should be enough to prove the point.

Now, what about actual "certifications?"

I guarantee that you know someone who is "certified" in a specific skill set, and that that person is absolutely and positively complete dog shit at the task that they hold a certification in. Additionally, I guarantee that you know someone who is positively magical at imparting a unique skill, of which they hold no certification; and/or no certification exists for that skill.

In my experience, certifications only serve to function within a bureaucracy, and in support of bureaucratic functions. Let us lay this myth to rest in an even shorter proof...

Training 4.0

Okay, so, who cares?

Well, for one, I care. I care enought that it is currently 1:39am and I am typing away on my laptop, continuing my 20+ year long journey to change the entire face of tactical training.

I have attended more than my fair share of administrative lectures, as well as some quite expensive tactical training certification courses that were so bureaucratic I struggled to stay awake during the course. And I'm sure that you have experienced a few "accredited" training courses that have made you want to gouge your own eyeballs out at the sheer uselessness of the information presented.

A crash course on Training 4.0...

• Training 1.0 - Think: historical "big army." You get handed a rifle. You are told to insert a magazine. You are told to fire at a target. You do. Training complete.

• Training 2.0 - Training that, even with good intentions, is presented in a standardized method, including lecturing, printed handouts, charts, group discussion, show and tell, and even some active coaching and drills. Everything pre-9/11.

• Training 3.0 - While most modern training still falls under "2.0," post-9/11 we started to see a few cases of tactical trainers that were breaking the rules and questioning the standards. However, even the cutting edge of the 3.0 trainers still stick to the safety briefings, and the risk assessments, and the show-then-tell, and the step-by-step, and the Death-by-PowerPoint... even if they do eventually move into active and engaging effective-learning.

• Training 4.0 - There are no more rules, there are no more check lists. Students simply engage with masters of their craft and all parties enter the flow-state with a zero-tolerance of anything that looks even remotely like a bureaucratic function.

And what does this mean for UTAC students?

Explained via two last metaphors.

1. I'm not a sports-guy but imagine you want your child to be a world-class basketball player and you want them to go pro after college. You have the choice of hiring a coach who will show up and teach, point-by-point, every item down a check list program that is listed on their website. Or, you can hire someone who has a reputation for graduating NBA player after NBA player from their program, but there is never a check list in sight during the training sessions.

2. Imagine you are a coach of a basketball team and you have a player that struggles with moving around the court. Would it make sense to hire a "tech" to come in and to teach this player how to dribble better, and how to pass better, and how to perform different footwork patterns better, and to work down a check list of foundations? I think yes. Completely reasonable. And what if you are a coach who has a team that can do all the basketball skills but who does not win games? Would hiring a "tech" to help all of the players boost up their foundational skills be appropriate? Or, would it be much more appropriate to hire a die-hard strategist who eats-sleeps-and-breathes basketball to come in and to teach your team the concepts that will help them win games?

It is impossible for any two UTAC courses to progress the same as one another. And, it is impossible for UTAC courses to follow an item-by-item progression. This is because at UTAC, we teach special operators "how to win the game" or the mission. And to win the game, or to complete the mission, operators need not only the skills but they need the experience, and they need the ability to understand and apply strategic concepts that support the mission.

When a student asks a question in training, the training must follow the progression that the student requires, instead of forcing students to follow a checklist. This is organic learning that supports student success.

Nobody cares which basketball team has really good foundational ball handling skills.

People care which team wins championships.

At UTAC, our students leave our courses knowing how to appropriately fold their new skills into future operations in support of mission success, and this is very hard to quantify on a spreadsheet...and for good reason.