Designing Behavioral Change Workshops for U.S. Army Personnel at Fort Belvoir
Organization: U.S. Army Readiness Unit — Fort Belvoir, Virginia
My Role: Workshop Designer & Facilitator — Mason Consulting
Timeline: Two-year engagement
Reach: Approximately 300 soldiers and staff across 6 sessions (~50 per session)
The referral came from a former student — a soldier who had experienced firsthand the kind of training I delivered and trusted me to bring it to her unit. What she described when she called was more than a training need. It was a culture problem with real consequences.
Within the command structure of a Readiness unit at Fort Belvoir, there was a pattern of disrespect flowing downward — leadership treating those below them, particularly women, in ways that undermined unit cohesion, morale, and ultimately operational effectiveness. The problem had a face: a specific individual in a position of authority whose behavior was affecting the people around him. But the solution couldn't be aimed at one person. It had to shift the culture of the entire unit.
I was brought in to design and deliver training as part of the unit's required training schedule. That context mattered: this wasn't optional professional development. These were soldiers and leaders who had to be there. Capturing genuine engagement from a mandatory audience — especially on a topic as sensitive as interpersonal behavior and respect — required a different kind of design.
The challenge was architectural: I needed to design two fundamentally different workshop experiences — one for enlisted soldiers, one for leadership — that addressed the same cultural problem from completely different vantage points, without making either group feel targeted or defensive.
For enlisted soldiers, the real issue was agency. Enlisted life is defined by constraint — orders, hierarchy, limited control over daily circumstances. Soldiers who feel powerless don't engage. They comply minimally and disengage emotionally. Any training that didn't account for that reality would fail before it started.
For leadership, the challenge was self-awareness. People in positions of authority rarely recognize their own disrespect in real time — they don't experience the impact of their behavior the way those below them do. Training that simply told them to 'be more respectful' would produce compliance theater, not genuine change.
The through-line I needed — the frame that could hold both audiences together — was the unit's own mission: readiness. Dignity and respect weren't soft concepts. They were operational requirements.
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“Dignity and Respect is the Center of Readiness. That wasn't just a workshop theme. It was a strategic reframe that made behavioral change a mission imperative.”
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