Snipers work in hostile environments, under high pressure and under extreme individual responsibility. I spoke with soldier and researcher Christian Ytterbøl (Department of Leadership and Tactics, Norwegian Military Academy) about his research paper “shooter ready” (about integrating mental skill training in advanced sniper course).
In this clip, a preview about one of the principles: “expertise equipped versus competence equipped.”
Throughout the podcast, we talked about “being a pracademic” and the importance of scientists also having “boots on the ground. And if you don’t have that what to do then.
The three-part series covers such crucial topics as: “what are mental skills”, how do you offer them in specialist units, adaptive expertise and adaptive skill and the philosophy of ‘provide performance options rather than solutions’. We also talked about metacognition, the cognitive activation theory of stress AND the important difference between perfomance psychology and mental health (clinical psychology).
Between the topics I learned about his experience in leading high performance teams in austere environments, his unique experiences, and the role of an innovative and out of the box mindset.
Trainers and scientists: watch out for this 3 part incredibly informative conversation.