Q & A: Major General Mick Ryan

Phil Tarrant:

Oh, good day! How you going? Phil Tarrant, host of the Defence Connect Podcast. Thanks for joining me today as we navigate Defence and Defence Industry, and I think it's absolutely clear and quite fortunate, the last couple of weeks I've been able to get out and about, out of lockdown. We are in New South Wales here. Sydney lessening restrictions means more accessibility to geographic connectivity rather than just using Zoom for of my meetings. Been good to get out and about. And one thing that echoes the sentiments in every single conversation I have is around how adaptive Defence Industry has been to the circumstances that has faced us over these last start nearing two years since the COVID-19 outbreak. I don't think anyone's going to go back to how it used to be as a result of COVID-19, in particular, the way in which Defence and Defence Industry works. And it's going to be a greater approach to a fluid workplace.

It's not really necessarily where you're working. It's how you are working. These are the changes which will be the hangover. Maybe that's not the right term for COVID-19. I think it's a real enabler for how things are getting done. We're recording this to an environment with quite a lot of advancements in the relationships that Australia's advancing upon to address its strategic position here in the Indo-Pacific. We're very clear and we talk about it a lot on the Defence Connect podcast about what that future looks like. But one thing, much like COVID-19, we need to embrace is change and having a very comfortable relationship with change and how conflict may transform itself into the future. You are guaranteed that's going to be very different to how it's been done in the past. Huge advancements in technology over many years, which I'd like to think Australia's embraced largely.

There's still some way to go. How that melds in with the geo strategic position for Australia. These are big questions way outside my pay grade so I've actually brought someone in who knows a fair little bit about this and is recently pen-to-book, which is to launch pretty soon. We're going to get the inside word on it prior to it. It's called War Transformed. It's by Major General, Mick Ryan, AM. He is current commander of the Australian Defence College, a soldier, scholar, one of the classic professions for hundreds of years from our people in the military. And he's not far off finishing his tenure there at the Australian Defence College so, we thought we'd bring him on, have a bit of a chat. General, how are you? Well?

Mick Ryan:

I'm very well, Phil. It's great to be back with you again.

Phil Tarrant:

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I know when we were only chatting off air before we come on, we got together back in May, 2020. I only felt like it was a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago that a lot of ground has been covered since that period of time. You've been at the helm of the college over what would be no doubt looked back upon as a transformative period for how the business of education took place around the profession of warfare. How's the last 18 months been for you, Mick?

Mick Ryan:

It's obviously been very busy as it has been for everyone. And whether you've been in lockdown, having to homeschool kids or having to work from home, I think everyone's had to change how they think about work, family and physical and virtual interaction. And we've done the same with education. We were already on a journey of transforming what we teach to who, where, when and how. The last 18 months or so was really sped that process up. There is no snap back to where we were. We have to snap forward to something different than how we were operating just two short years ago.

Phil Tarrant:

I don't want to start thinking about the legacy of Mick Ryan leading the college. You've still got your feet under the desk there for another couple of weeks, but no doubt things have changed under your stewardship of the college as a result of the necessity for change. But having spoken to you a fair bit in the past, I understand you're wired up. You probably enjoyed steering that, and in many ways, championing that change, or even accelerating that change using this as opportunity to probably shift forward faster than what would've happened organically if we didn't have this COVID experience.

Mick Ryan:

Yeah. Education is how you affect generational, not just change for the here and now. And over the last four years, we've focused on what are we teaching our people when? So, we developed a new joint professional military education curriculum and continue on from cadet to general that led to organisational change with the formation of the War College and the ADF training centre, and a couple other new directorates that were more strategic in outlook. We've obviously reset our academic services contracts for ADFA and the War College, which have been fairly significant. We've reformed the development of our instructors at the War College and ADFA with new guides and some wonderful work there. And then, of course, in the last two years, we've really looked hard at the virtual versus live training and education environment for our people and how we prepare our teachers for that environment.

There's been a lot of work there as well as a lot of the COVID courses. And if I was to say, there's one lesson of the last two years in particular, is that training and education can never be conducted solely in a virtual environment. It is a good way to make it more accessible to more people across this great country and beyond, but learning is more than just the acquisition of knowledge. And I think the last two years of reinforced that the social aspects of learning that interaction between humans in person is a really important part of developing leaders, planners, and policy makers for the future.

And we shouldn't think that in the future, we can just go to an all virtual construct. I just don't think humans work like that. It's hard coded in our DNA and how we think that we like interacting with other humans. We like to tell each other stories. We like to support each other. We like to challenge each other and you can't just do that through a screen. You actually need to do that in person. At the end of the day, that's what war is, right? It's up close and personal, and you need to prepare people for that environment in the training and education environment.

Phil Tarrant:

I completely subscribe to that position. And so the adaptation of digital technologies and collaboration tools has been good in many ways.

Mick Ryan:

Yes.

Phil Tarrant:

And personally, I'm a lot more efficient as a result of it. I'm on planes less, I'm probably more present and I've got more availability to my family and that's all a big tick from my side, but I still need, and I still enjoy connecting personally with people and we are humans in the way it works. And everyone's had a different experience through COVID. For many, it's been a challenging time for those who work in industries, which have been disrupted. Defence, Defence Industry, largely buttressed against it in many ways and fortunate as a result of it. And it's hard to talk about the positives of COVID because of a lot of the distress that a lot of people have gone through, but have you actually enjoyed the challenge from both a personal point of view, but also from an academic point of view and a professional point of view to steer the college for this change, which in many ways is going to be permanent?

Mick Ryan:

Yeah. I think for most people at the college, despite the personal challenges that everyone's gone through. Everyone has had some kind of personal challenge or distress over the last two years for a range of reasons, whether it's because of closed state borders or sickness in the families or just the stress of having to manage a job, a partner's job and kids home schooling.

But I also think that for the vast majority of people, it's really driven us to think hard about how we do business when and where. And there's been a lot of innovation that's come out of the last two years, not just at the Australian Defence College, but across the Australian Defence Force and across Defence Industry as well I'd add. So, I don't know you'd ever describe the pandemic in any kind of positive terms, but it's driven changes that I think might have played out over a longer timeframe, had the pandemic not occurred and it will result in practises and interactions, both physical and virtual that we might have got to eventually, but we've it got there a lot quicker because of COVID and that will potentially stand us in pretty good stead over the coming decade

Phil Tarrant:

And this thing of yours for ideas within the college, I guess you've been able to AB test two different ways of teaching. And I'm quite intrigued in not the actual application of the syllabus or the creation of application syllabus, but how students have responded. As a result of it, you've seen two very different environments. How is the overall... Because we are dealing with other external factors, family, et cetera, as a result of COVID, the general wellbeing of the students during that period of time. Has a lot of efforts of yourself and your instructors being around mental health capability of your members who are going through the training, going through the college versus how it might have been prior to the COVID pandemic?

Mick Ryan:

Yeah. I've got to be honest, four years in one job for an army officer is really weird. We're used to 18 months, two years in a job, so four years is weird, but boy, you can get stuff done. And having two years of normalcy before the two years of COVID gave us a really good foundation. There was a lot of change that went on in those first two years so by the time COVID came around, we were used to Mick Ryan fiddling with the system. COVID was just another thing to adapt to. And both the students and staff, whether you're instructors or admin staff, there's been a lot of different stresses and it's tough on students because you don't get that physical interaction. Now to be frank we've only had the lockdown for a couple of months of each year, which has put us in a very good position compared to some of our friends and partners overseas.

But the ones who I think have really been fatigued by this are the staff. It's really hard work for our staff in a normal teaching year to try and do the same thing virtually and solicit interaction and quality feedback online is even tougher. So, we've had to learn how to deal with that fatigue in a different way over a longer period of time. You're not dealing with fatigue over weeks and months. You're dealing with it over years here, but I think, largely, Defence as an outcome of the last 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan has transitioned from looking at mental health as how we used to look at it, which was not positive and quite poorly, to something that's just it's another health issue where we support our people. We try and do the right diagnosis and try and give our people the best moral and medical support that we can possibly give them. COVID, I think, has accelerated that in some respects, but in other respects, it's a continuation of what Defence has learned over the last 20 years on constant operations around the world

Phil Tarrant:

And this tenure... I follow a lot of your writings, I know you blog. For an army officer, you're pretty [inaudible 00:10:51] with the old social media as well. You have The Cove. A big part of the role there as community Australian Defence College is to invest your own time and efforts into your own academic pursuits. And that is about advancing the business or the profession of warfare pursuing those things, which are of interest to you, doctrinal development about what the future looks like, and we'll get into how that's probably the origin of your book War Transformed. But do you feel as though COVID had to deviate a lot of your attention that you would've liked to invested into this deep thinking academic pursuits rather than the practicality of ensuring the continuity of the college as a result of COVID?

Mick Ryan:

Not at all, because my first priority's always been the college and my writing and speaking is designed to compliment that. You probably don't see, but I do teaching at the college as well, whether it's on advanced technology, social media, the profession of arms and those kind of things. So my writing supports the teaching challenges, some of our curricular at times, that's a good thing. So, COVID hasn't impacted on that. In some respects, it's given us time at home to reflect more on the profession and how we need to change and how quickly we need to change. So, it's been a very complimentary process rather than two things, intention and competition with each other.

Phil Tarrant:

Is there any particular part of the course content that you've most enjoyed or you most enjoy teaching? You talk about social media there, get quite tactical with this. Do you think there's benefits? And the answer must be 'yes' around emerging leaders inside of the ADF to be embracing this as a communications tool and where are the parameters of it. And do you think we'll see a lot more of it? Do you think that the senior leaders in the ADF will have more scope for sharing their views via social?

Mick Ryan:

Social media, I think it's partially about communicating, but it's also about influence and it's also about interaction. So, you probably remember the old service newspapers that we still issue on a fortnightly basis and they're great publications, but they're one way medium, right? It's us telling people what we are doing, but there's no interactivity there. Social media fundamentally challenges that where anyone, if I tweet something, they can come back at me. I love that. I love that interaction. Now that doesn't mean there aren't trolls out there, but to be quite frank, most of the trolls don't have the guts to take on a Major General. They'd rather beat up on other people, which is, pretty cowardly and pathetic. But I think social media is a wonderful mechanism, used appropriately to engage people, to interact with them and have a two-way conversation. That's the real benefit.

And I saw that as Brigade Commander in army training in my current appointment, and I'll continue to use it because it's interactive, but you also get to discover and interact with people that you would just probably never come across in real life. And there's the #MIL Twitter. There's a massive military Twitter community out there that is hugely supportive of each other. When the trolls target someone, we gather around and support them both openly and privately. And that's happened just in the last few weeks so, I'm a big advocate of it. But the other reason I like it is because at a certain point in your career, you no longer directing people to do things. You're trying to influence a wider organisation towards outcomes. And you don't learn that overnight. And the way you learn influence is honing your capacity to write, honing your capacity to speak and social media. So, I think it's pretty useful well beyond public affairs in those kind of things, as good as it is for those institutional outcomes.

Phil Tarrant:

We'll be back in a moment, stay with us. See you soon.

Welcome back everyone. Phil Tarrant, host of the Defence Connect Podcast with Major General, Mick Ryan, AM. When you think at back your career in the army, where we are today to maybe where you started and your peer group at that point in time, is the way in which our leaders in the ADF at all levels communicate, do you reckon we're a lot better at it now than what we once upon a time were? Do we speak better? We as in ADF leaders. Do they speak more effectively? Do they understand and appreciate the power of clear comms in propagating a better outcome for themselves or the mission? Is it better today?

Mick Ryan:

I think in large part, it is. I think there's a generation coming through now, particularly around the Lieutenant Colonel, Major level that I think is really exciting. They're the group of people who set up Defence Entrepreneurs Forum, who are active in a whole range of different for women and future operations. There's a nuclear group of people who get together and others, there's an intelligence group of people. And I look at that generation coming behind me and my cohort and think, "Wow. They are smarter. They're better connected. They're better educated. They're more passionate. They're more engaged with each other and the profession." And my last day is 28 February, I look at that cohort coming through and just think, "Wow, it's going to be an exciting organisation when they finally get their chance to lead it because they fundamentally think differently about the profession."

My generation didn't really think of ourselves as being in a profession, not explicitly like this generation coming through does. For me, it's a very positive and optimistic way to leave the military when I see this group of people coming through that I just think are an extraordinary generation. There's a great temptation for many people to say, "Oh, the next generation coming through is not as good as us," and that kind of thing. Well, I think that's absolute hog wash. It's the exact opposite. There's a reason why the world keeps progressing. It's because the next generation is better than the one that went before it and that's certainly the case I see with the next couple of generations coming through on defence.

Phil Tarrant:

And I would imagine that's a measurement of effective leadership that the generation after you is better than the generation that you are, and it should be instilled in anyone's leadership principles that they go about. And they invest the time, energy, and effort to cultivate that next generation talent, particularly when you're looking at the ADF and Australia's security. Everyone's highly invested in that outcome. And I know a lot of your work academically, Mick, has been about the future of warfare, the rapid expansion, sophistication of tech, and the application of that. And I guess that sort of sits comfortably, or maybe it's not a very comfortable bedfellow with the evolving geo strategic environment and the application of this technology and how it might be used. But I understand that's the thrust of your new book, War Transformed. Can you give me some sense for within the college itself today, how you're teaching cultivating greater knowledge of understanding about the emerging security environment for Australia? It must be a key thrust. Always has been in military learnings, but it's probably pretty clear and present today.

Mick Ryan:

Yeah. The new curricula we developed in 2018, there was a lot of work going into that. And it went through secretary and CDF mainly because I wanted to ensure what we were teaching was relevant to their requirements. Mick Ryan might think it's relevant, but at the end of the day, if the service chiefs, the secretary of the department, and the chief of Defence Force don't think it's relevant, well, I'm not actually doing my job. So, the big four pillars in there were national security and strategy, joint war fighting, command leadership and ethics, and capability and technology. and that's kind of the four part lens we've taken to all the reform for training and education over the last four years, it's reform both the longer one year courses at the war college, but also it's led to the formation, a lot of short courses that focus on things like strategy, skilling people to do future's work.

We've got a new course we've run the last couple year called, Advanced Technology for Strategists, which is about advanced technology literacy. And there's a bunch of other short courses and seminars we run. So, we try and make sure not only are we providing an education that's relevant to the service chief, CDF and secretary, but it's done in a way that allows more people than normal to participate through both long, short and online courses. And we're constantly looking at it. We constantly review the content of courses. We take student and instructor feedback very, very seriously, as well as visiting lecturers. We engage lecturers from all around the world and we try and get the very best to talk to our people and answer their questions and provide cutting edge knowledge and ideas because the ADF is not a big organisation, but it must be world class in how it thinks about how it does its business. And ADC, I think, is an important part of that. Not the only part of it, but an important part of it.

Phil Tarrant:

We're just going on another break, Cass. Stay with us, back in a moment.

Welcome back everyone. Phil Tarrant, host of the Defence Connect Podcast with Major General, Mick Ryan, AM. We talk about those four pillars, which underpin the way in which the college goes about its work... Can you give some sense of the continuity that we're all aware of and familiar with some of the new announcements that have been made in security relationships Australia, which goes to show the speed of change and not only access to technology to support national security, but the application of it moving forward. Are those four key pillars that there is still a lot of tenure and longevity in those, irrespective of the changing environment?

Mick Ryan:

Yeah. No, they provide a very good framework for change. The capability in technology, we've already started work on incorporating things that will support the work of those who will build the workforce for the submarines in future. That work is already underway. The Shape, Deter, Respond framework and the Defence strategic update, we've been working for a year on changing curriculum to make sure it supports people's understanding of those three concepts, particularly deterrence, which has a long, both theoretical and practical understanding in places like the United States, but not so much in Australia. So, we're supporting internal and external work on that to ensure that our students understand that intellectually and leave here being able to better play their role in the ADF and the department.

So, they're very adaptable. My whole approach to the last four years is to make defence learning more continuous, to keep up with the pace of change, more accessible, so we can educate more people in different places, but more adaptable to make sure that when things change, firstly, we know things are changing and two, that we can change learning and what we teach where, and when more quickly than has ever been possible before.

Phil Tarrant:

And looking forward into the future, your book, War Transformed, they reckon everyone's got a good book in them at some point. What's the origin story of this? Is this just the amalgamation of your previous experience and trying to craft something which is shareable for the future?

Mick Ryan:

Yeah. Writing has become my yoga. I just find it's a good way to hone a range of different things I like to do, but at heart, it's about honing my capacity to identify where there are changes in the environment and then think about how we might respond to it and then provide purpose to our people.

The books, Genesis, was really just... I was writing on a few different topics, I thought, "Why don't just smashed this together?" And ended up in a manuscript that was about 150,000 words. And I went, "Well, that's pretty big." And there's a few speed bumps in there. And I've got a few people to read it and we whittled it down to about 80,000 and the very generous, quite frankly, wonderful folks at U.S. Naval Institute of Books said, "Oh, no, we'd love to publish this," about 18 months ago. And I've been working on it but I see it as a complimentary and an integral part of command is being able to think through those things and then talk to your people about, "Okay, what do we need to change?" So, they're not distinct endeavours, they're intricately linked. And I think I've probably got more than one book in me.

Phil Tarrant:

That sounds like you've got to have some time on your hands to actually pursue that new endeavour. What's the underlying thesis for the new book? Is it just get used to change? No doubt as part of it, but what would we learn?

Mick Ryan:

I think the key idea is that this huge transformation in technology and geopolitics that we are witnessing at the moment is not the first time the world's gone through this. We've seen it before. And we know from looking back from the first, second, third, and then this one, fourth industrial revolution that not only has it had fundamentally important changes for societies and political institutions, but it's always changed how nations see their national security. It's changed how they fight and that we should be learning the lessons from those previous historical examples so we can adapt and learn more quickly than we might otherwise in the current era. So, that's the diagnostic half and then the other half is how do we respond? And the core idea is our response has to be framed through new ideas, new institutions, and new ways of developing people. That's how you affect change. Technology doesn't change anything, actually. It's how you absorb new technology and use it with new ideas, new organisations, and developing people in different ways.

Phil Tarrant:

Yeah. I need to go back, look at near history about how the relationships between nation states change and evolve the balance of power shifting in the Indo-Pacific where we sit right now, the nature of alliances, the emergence most recently of tying up of what is historic relationships with the U.S. and the UK. When you look at reading your book, if I was going to think about what does this mean for Australia, is Australia acting in isolation or is Australia acting in collaboration with other people? How unique do you think the Australian experience is going to be if you applied against your writings and your book, War Transformed?

Mick Ryan:

Yeah. Well, I think it's applicable not just to military institutions, it's applicable to any organisation that's dealing with change in the 21st century. But this notion of uniqueness is important. Australia, physically as an island, but as a polity, it isn't. We interact with the rest of the world either by drawing in foreign investment, by drawing in immigrants, which are so important to our country, and also drawing in relationships. And our uniqueness should be about contributing different and valuable ideas to the collective Orcus, Quad, Ansys, [ASEAN Plus Plus 00:25:46]. All the multilateral organisations we're part of, we do have a unique perspective on the world so, we should be part of those multilateral organisations, but contributing different and unique ideas based on our own culture, history and aspirations for our people.

Phil Tarrant:

When it comes to writing, what are you? A morning writer? Afternoon writer? You wait until you get in the right frame of mind to write or is it just you look forward to writing? If I've got to sit there and write something, I normally dread it. I much prefer to talk.

Mick Ryan:

Yeah. I mean, I love writing. Sometimes I write at night, sometimes I write in the morning, sometimes I write during the day, sometimes I'll do all three, if it's the weekend or a holiday. And it depends. This a nonfiction book. I've written a novel that's sitting there. That's a different undertaking. You plot it out, but you just make stuff up. It's great. And for me, that's about getting the creative juices flying. But I just write when the mood takes me and sometimes I'll sit down for a few hours and write, and sometimes I'll sit down for five minutes and go, "No, I'm done with that."

Phil Tarrant:

You can't fight that thing. So, there's got to be a point in the near future where you walk home, you take your uniform off for the last time physically, and then you're going to wake up the next day. If I saw you at a barbecue, "Good day, I'm Phil. I do podcasts." You say, "Oh, hi. I'm Mick Ryan. I'm in the army. I'm a Major General." Most people are going to know what that is so, when you wake up the next day, what's Mick Ryan? Is Mick Ryan an author? Is that the career transition progression for you?

Mick Ryan:

Yeah. I've always seen myself as... A Major General is what I am at, but it's not who I am. I'm Mick Ryan. I'm an Australian and a Queenslander who likes to write, who likes to think, who likes to speak and likes to mentor and lead. So, that's the portfolio of things I look forward to doing in the future. I love strategic thinking, but also the implementation of strategies, which is a different skill. And I adore the Australian army. It's not just, "I'm a member." I adore the army because it has come so far in the 35 years I've been part of it. It is not a perfect organisation, but we have perfect aspirations for how we lead our values, how we want to treat people.

We don't always live up to those and we do fall short sometimes. And we're the first to admit that, but I'm leaving an organisation that I adore, very happy, very satisfied with what I've been able to do and enormously grateful. That's probably the greatest emotion I have, is I'm just so grateful to the people that I've worked with, work for, that have worked with me and the organisations of the army and wider ADF for the last 35 years. I'm leaving happy and excited because I just can't imagine having spent the last 35 years in a better profession.

Phil Tarrant:

Well, what you've learned through those 35 years in that progression, I could see a lot of application for it into corporate Australia so, no doubt we'll see you at some point. Let's catch up in the future, Mick. Best of luck with the formal launch. How can anyone get a hands on a copy? Can you get a pre-release copy? Is anything like that happening?

Mick Ryan:

So, you can pre-order now on Amazon books and also United States Naval Institute of Books, hard copy will ship from 15 February, and then Kindle will be available about a week or two after that. And I'll be doing a couple of launch act activities in U.S. in February but if anyone wants me to come and talk about it after that, I'm sure I'd be more than happy to come and talk to people about it.

Phil Tarrant:

Okay. Well, absolutely. And I look forward to catching up, Mick. Best luck with the last few weeks in uniform and with the book launch. We'll catch up probably in the new year.

Mick Ryan:

No, that'll be great, Phil. Thank you very much and thank you to Defence Connect and everything you do for Australian Defence Industry, but also the relationship between the Australian Defence Force and Industry. It's so important for our country and it's a really important role you guys play.

Phil Tarrant:

I really appreciate those sentiments. Major General, Mick Ryan, AM, he's commander of the Australian Defence College. I hope you enjoyed that, everyone. I look forward to picking up this chat with Mick in the future. It's something I do enjoy, more academic conversations on the Defence Connect Podcast so, if you're out there, you want to come over, yarn to us. I'll take on most things. Some things are a little bit outside of my remit but I'll do my best to get myself informed about it. Get in touch with the team This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. And to remember to check out for daily breaking news around Defence, Defence Industry, defenceconnect.com.au. Social media, can find us at Defence Connect. You can follow me if you'd like on LinkedIn. I'm a big fan of the social as well as a way of communicating. We'll see you again next time. Until then, bye-bye.