Amid the fastest transformation the Army has ever seen, the service must make sure the institutional force is moving forward alongside its fighting formations, said Maj. Gen. Christopher Beck, commanding general of the Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence.

Speaking on a panel during the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium and Exposition in Huntsville, Alabama, titled “Institutional Training and Transformation,” Beck said that transformation is a team sport.

Nested with every transformation in contact organization should be an element from the institutional Army, whether it’s Army Training and Doctrine Command, the Combined Arms Center, the centers of excellence or the schoolhouses, Beck said.

“We’ve got to ensure that we’re learning not just the materiel domain lessons, but the entirety of the DOTMLPF,” he said, referring to doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities and policy. “That’s what makes this so important.”

Resources still determine how quickly and thoroughly programs of instruction are updated at the schoolhouses, but “at the same time, every one of them, every one of the commandants, are making real-time changes to ensure that our young leaders are graduating and they’re ready to lead in the Army,” Beck said.

Leaders also continue to look for different ways to incorporate lessons learned from ongoing operations or exercises, Beck said. As an example, a team from the Combined Arms Center went to Europe to capture lessons learned from the fighting in Ukraine. Upon their return, the team briefed Army senior leaders, but those lessons also were “immediately” shared to each center of excellence and regiment, Beck said.

“The question was, what are you going to do in the next 30 days, 90 days, 120 days? What are we doing today to change our education and be sure that our cadre, our small-group leaders, our instructors are relevant?” Beck said.

As the Army continues to transform and learn from its experiments, one critical factor for success will be to get equipment into soldiers’ hands as quickly and often as possible, Beck said. This ensures the Army can learn formation-based lessons and better understand how a new capability may change how an organization operates or fights, he said.

Without capturing those lessons, “we’re not going to be able to sustain it,” Beck said. “So, at the end of the day, this means that we require everybody to be part of this discussion. This is deliberate transformation, and ultimately continuous transformation, that drives lethality in our warfighting and [allows] us to deliver combat-ready formations.”