What Does it Take to Train a Good Stranger

Abstract A good stranger (GS) is a professional who can effectively integrate tact and tactics, and create positive outcomes in social encounters, particularly in situations with others with whom they have little shared history, culture, language, or common ground. For a GS in any field, particularly the military and policing, creating positive social outcomes enhances mission effectiveness and supports broader strategic and tactical objectives. As part of a large Government-funded program to maximize individuals’ ability to adapt to and successfully manage high-risk, high-consequence interactions, our team has developed a theoretical structure for GS skills. We consider the flow of an interaction across different categories of GS skills, some involving overt demonstration of behavior and some internal to the individual, to include its cyclical nature. Generally this flow maps to the basic sequencing for most interactions that produce positive end states: An approach; a period of framing, orientation, and sensemaking; engagement in the evolving business of the encounter, often involving necessary rapport-building, adaptation, and trouble recovery; and an appropriate departure. We are exploring effective ways that GS skills can be taught, using innovative training methods and leveraging existing and near-future technologies and techniques. Our methods are scalable to support student throughput, and grounded in providing opportunities to put skills into action in targeted social and tactical situations. We have worked within an Army basic officers’ leader course to test an implementation of an innovative, scalable, grounded approach for training GS skills.