Perception Lecture: 'Battles Between Minds' with Lieutenant Colonel Alasdair Truett, MBE
On 8 October 2020, Dr Balasubramanian who is Chair of Perception and Deputy Housemaster at Charterhouse, invited a special guest to this extraordinary lecture series. Lieutenant Colonel Alasdair Truett, MBE, who spent all of his regimental duty time with The Parachute Regiment, reflected upon his experiences in his eye-opening lecture ‘Battles Between Minds’.
In his career, Alasdair commanded military operations forces for overseas crisis intervention, major war fighting, counter insurgency, counter terrorism and counter state influence, as well as advising military and political leaders in the UK and amongst many overseas strategic partners.
Alasdair focused on the intellectual and academic subject of stress, bringing this subject to life with personal anecdotes from his 20 years in elite military operations, and providing a fascinating backdrop to the chilling reality of modern-day conflict and terrorism.
He began his lecture by outlining the Conflict Spectrum, extrapolating it into several subtypes of stress. His gripping introduction allowed the audience to reflect on their own lives and how they’re experiencing these stresses now, as well as how these can be harnessed for success. The Conflict Continuum clearly demonstrated the rising and falling levels of stress throughout one’s lifetime from Peace to Competition to Confrontation and finally, to Conflict.
Many were surprised to learn, that we were placed on this continuum almost from infancy – be it in competition with siblings for parental affection or with friends in the school playground or sports matches. In fact, competition is the environment we spend most of our lives in – it is very much the nature of the mammalian species to be competitive, as Mr Truett pointed out. In evolutionary terms, improving life depends on competition; we compete, we learn, we start again.
But how do we know when competition escalates into confrontation? Well, we don’t. Different people have very different perceptions of the fine line between the two. Some people avoid confrontation and strive to keep themselves within the spectrum of competition, whereas others revel in confrontation and even conflict – actions that are by their nature physical against another party. In everyday life, every single profession has the ability to rise from competition into confrontation and sometimes even conflict, but also to fall back down again.
Alasdair’s key point is that the environment of stress and competition is around you all the time, regardless of what you do, your age or location. Alasdair then superimposed his own military career onto the conflict spectrum, with ‘2003 Iraq War Fighting’ topping the graph in Conflict. He talked about his experiences in various battles, and how he gauged the stress levels in them.
He provided valuable advice on how to train resilience by harnessing stress which stems from three main focus areas – physical stress, intellectual stress and emotional stress. Mr Truett emphasised that only a very small part of any modern battle involves physical combat, and therefore physical stress. In fact, much of the stress is intellectual. Predicting what the enemy is thinking, why they’re thinking like that and how they make their decisions is often as challenging and as important a task as fighting. Alasdair described in detail, the minuscule particulars which must be accounted for before going into battle and, with which, one can significantly improve ones chances of success.
He described how each of these factors came into play in an operation that he was involved in. From the initial task of planning the operation to take advantage of the enemy’s weaknesses and to strengthen and mask his own force’s, to the emotional stress of leaving behind family and friends and of course, the physical stress of preparing and fighting.
He concluded the lecture with key lessons in combatting stress in everyday life – a life of competition. You must be well prepared, have an understanding of yourself and those around you, always have a purpose but must also remember to invest in yourself through education and doing things you are passionate about. Mr Truett mentioned that, when you are prepared, you can not only harness stress for success but also use it as a way of motivating yourself.
The lecture was incredibly informative as well as being very much relatable to everyday life, setting some clear guidelines for harnessing stress to achieve success. Perception Society would like to wholeheartedly thank Mr Truett for this lecture, and Dr Balasubramanian, whose unrelenting determination has once again presented pupils the opportunity to hear from such a fantastic speaker. We very much hope to hear Mr Truett again, as soon as the opportunity allows – this time in person!
Article by Mark (Perception Society President)
With thanks from Dr Balasubramanian (Perception Society Chair)
