February 11, 2002

Wharton first annual peacekeeping mission

By Rebecca Washenberger, WG ‘03

At 6:00 am on Saturday, January 26th, 2002, around 100 Wharton students woke to feelings of dread and anticipation. Little did they know that this was a premonition of the hope, chaos, and panic they would soon experience during the first ever Wharton Leadership Peacekeeping Mission held at Fort Dix. The mission: to establish a simulated safe area refugee camp called “Fox” after reported ethnic cleansing twenty kilometers north of a simulated headquarters in Bosnia. During a 6-1/2 hour ceasefire, the students were to accomplish several ambitious tasks intended to protect and resettle displaced refugees including identifying and securing the area; setting up communications; providing medical support, shelter, water and food; developing a school; and investigating the reported atrocities.

To accomplish this mission, the students separated into fourteen groups representing NATO and several non-governmental aid groups such as the Red Cross. Each group provided needed services and supplies to make the mission a success (i.e. one group had all of the shelters, another had the ability to set up a water purification system). The overall mission was to learn to handle a time-driven intense situation through planning, leadership, and teamwork in order to set up “Fox” in the allotted time.

The night before, the mission participants went through a mission briefing, and each group knew what its own objectives were… but they had little information regarding what the other teams’ needs or resources were. Essentially, no-one knew what was really supposed to occur that day. But, how bad could it be? We ARE talking about Wharton MBA students.

After arriving at Fort Dix, the participants were led to their doom in mission “headquarters” (known as TOC – “Tactical Operations Center,” later affectionately dubbed “Totally Out of Control”) where all of the decisions during the mission were to be made much like NASA Mission Control. TOC began as an empty room with a white board and neatly stacked tables and chairs against the walls. It resembled little of what it would look like six hours later (much like the floor of the stock exchange at the close of Black Monday).

Each of the 14 teams chose three members to be their TOC team while the others would operate as field support via computer workstations located in another room. The only communication between TOC and the “field” was through Motorola two-way radios – much too complicated to operate for the cell-toting, PDA-slinging elite at Wharton. Those left at TOC quickly set up tables, grabbed maps, and tried to build some semblance of structure. It was soon established that the NATO team was leading the mission. The Red Cross and Save the Children coordinated the transportation of supplies using eleven available trucks.

Chaos began at the sound of the first bell. Almost immediately, groups from all over were hounding the NATO and Red Cross groups to send supplies because, of course, each group thought its to be the most important. After some painful indecision about the location for “Fox” and losing three members of the military group to virtual enemy fire, everyone realized just how difficult the task at hand was. Doubt lingered, but determination grew.

All seemed to be going fairly well when mission participants finally managed to get food to “Fox” so they could eat lunch (military rations - eating being a challenge in and of itself). After lunch though, the last glimmer of hope was lost when the field team responsible for the majority of the transportation between TOC and “Fox”, whose Wharton egos had been patiently in check for the majority of the day, began to mutiny. It began with insubordination as they argued against orders passed down by NATO command and culminated in full fledge mutiny once they severed communications in protest of orders directing them to leave TOC. Images of the court-martial hearings to follow flashed through the minds of those at TOC. Minutes later, this same insurrectionist team resurfaced as pirates demanding food and power sources. After almost seven hours, this was the last of what anyone could handle. Tempers were short, the mission was not complete, and it was the end of the “ceasefire.” Exhausted groups slumped into the nearest chairs and attempted to ascertain the situation. The refugees had a hospital but no water, a school but not enough food.

Once the simulation was at long last complete, the hosts for the simulation estimated that the Wharton participants completed between 60-70% of the mission. A surprise to all was that this was more than the mission coordinators had expected. In terms of what went wrong, communication problems, a lack of standard operating procedures, and a tendency to make decisions democratically while a more dictatorship leadership style would have worked better were the most obvious failures. All of which were reflected through the overwhelming confusion and frustration during the simulation.

More input from the fearless leaders who organized the Peacekeeping Mission (Mike Useem, Monika McGrath, Bruce Newsome, Rob Carson, and Jason Cummins) provided a connection between what the participants learned during the simulation and their future business experiences: the importance of developing structure and communication with clear established leadership.

To end the day, participants of the simulations had the great privilege of listening to former Ambassador Robert W. Farrand, Deputy High Representative in Bosnia and first Supervisor of Brcko, Bosnia, speak about his peacekeeping efforts. His task was to manage “complex post conflict situations” in probably the most unstable region in Europe. The ambassador explained the challenges of negotiation and continuous strategy development in attempting to solve religious and ethnic conflicts. These conflicts, according to the ambassador, will become an ever more important focus to governments and business leaders as the world continues to become more integrated and, in essence, smaller. As a result, we will all need to figure out how to instill “peacekeeping” instead of waiting until we have to execute “peace enforcement.” The ultimate goal in these regions is not to “make money” but to build safe secure communities that can be sustained.

At some point in our lives, we will all have to lead during situations that require the wisdom gained during opportunities such as the Wharton Peacekeeping Mission, whether it will be dealing with an incident in an industrial plant or losing a top client in an investment banking firm. When it happens to you, remember some of the critical principles necessary to cope: communication, information management, and exceptionally clear leadership and structure.