Kicking off the blog series on Tim Kane's Atlantic article Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving, the following contribution comes from CDR Michael Junge. CDR Junge is a surface warfare officer who previously commanded USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41).Rarely do I read an article that squarely grabs my attention on the first paragraph - or has me emailing friends about it by the second.
Tim Kane's recent article "Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving" is one of those. In this article he describes the findings of a survey he conducted of Army Officers that discusses ideas, thoughts, and questions I've either had, or heard in wardrooms, coffee talks, or articles over the past 20 years.
One telling paragraph: “But the reason overwhelmingly cited by veterans and active-duty officers alike [for the loss of talented officers] is that the military personnel system-every aspect of it-is nearly blind to merit. Performance evaluations emphasize a zero-defect mentality, meaning that risk-avoidance trickles down the chain of command. Promotions can be anticipated almost to the day- regardless of an officer's competence-so that there is essentially no difference in rank among officers the same age, even after 15 years of service. Job assignments are managed by a faceless, centralized bureaucracy that keeps everyone guessing where they might be shipped next."
To illustrate some of what he writes, take this hypothetical example of three young men who graduate from college, are commissioned as officers, and report to their first command.
One is brilliant. Finishes everything he is assigned early. Qualifies his initial requirements in record time.
The second is a solid performer. Gets to work on time. Qualifies as required. Solid. Not exceptional.
The third parties. A lot. Is late to work once at least once a month. Qualifies late, and even then only with significant help from his entire chain of command - above and below him.
Along the way all three are assigned new positions within the command. One now works longer hours and is assigned additional collateral duties. As a result, he works later and later each day - but he still excels at what he does even though he’s beginning to put on weight and his physical fitness scores start to drop.
Meanwhile, Three has been quietly relieved of every collateral duty passed his way. As a result he is able to go home earlier, party more, even start training for a marathon.
Two presses along, doing well with what he is given but not necessarily seeking to put more on his plate.
Two years after the anniversary of their commissioning all three are promoted to Lieutenant (Junior Grade).
Nothing really changes over the next two years. One keeps working harder, doing well but getting assigned more and more work. Three spends more time working out, partying, decides to pursue Navy sports teams. Two remains a solid member of the wardroom.
After four years of service all three are promoted to Lieutenant. All three earn the exact same amount of money in their paycheck - despite differences in talent, capability, work ethic, production or any other tangible or intangible measure other than time in service.
All other things being equal, which officer is most likely to stick around past his initial service obligation? Which one is most likely to become a commanding officer? Which one is destined to be a Flag Officer? Which has been rewarded for hard work? Excellence? Productivity? Efficiency?
Now, what if these three had gone to work as junior management at Tysons Food, Shell Oil, Sun Microsystems, Google, Apple, or even WalMart? How would this scenario have played out?
Their starting salary and benefits might likely not be the same as what an Ensign earns. But the potential for promotion? Rapidity of promotion? Earnings potential?
Honestly, I don't know. But I can't imagine for a minute that any of their personnel systems prize seniority over talent. That’s something that corporations in the 1950s did, not anymore.
So, why does DoD have such an archaic system? Or, as Kane writes “Why does the American military produce the most innovative and entrepreneurial leaders in the country, then waste that talent in a risk-averse bureaucracy?”
Much of the “error” is in the interest of “fairness”. The personnel assignment and promotion systems were designed by military men who were products of the system, and then approved by Congress and the President in order to get the what they believed to be the fairest possible process they could create. But, fairness is at odds with exemplary performance, innovation, and creativity. And exemplary performance can often be masked (or created) by nepotism, favoritism, sexual or racial discrimination or a host of other subjective measures.
Additionally, the “up or out” system forces officers, and enlisted personnel, to often promote and serve beyond their capabilities. This in turn drives more junior personnel to seek employment and service elsewhere. And, a system intended to limit the number of senior personnel serving in the armed forces also makes it extraordinarily difficult to fill gaps created by those same policies.
If there are two criticisms I would give Mr. Kane it’s that the article is needlessly Army centric, and that he ignores one other important reality of our promotion and assignment system. Within the armed forces we don't promote to billet vacancies. Instead we promote a percentage of the eligible officers within the “control grades” based on nothing more than longevity.
To make matters worse, the control grade numbers are subdivided and apportioned in the Navy to the various “competitive categories”; Unrestricted Line, Restricted Line, Limited Duty (Line), Staff and Limited Duty (Staff) - Restricted Line and Staff are further subdivided by community. For URL this means that a board selects X% of eligible surface, submarine, aviation, special warfare and special operations officers which means is the Line community is short by a significant number of submarine officers it is legally impossible to add more submarine officers to a given selection group in order to promote more submarine officers to fill those vacancies - without also increasing the number of surface, aviator, special warfare and special operations officers. And, the board selection rate is legally required to be similar (close, not identical) for the community demographics within the Line competitive category (i.e. Surface Warfare can't promote at 100% to fix shortfalls while aviators only get 45% because they are overmanned).
The other problem, however, is within the subdivided RL and Staff categories. In those communities it is possible to have too few officers, but still have available vacancies within the community while another community has too many officers within a year group, but enough vacancies to fill - if they weren’t held to the DOPMA percentage requirement.
Each service, and within each service each competitive category, knows exactly how many officers we can promote each year to each control grade (O4, O5, O6) - and there is enough statistical information to be able to predict which year groups will have shortages as they move forward. Which means if community managers were to see a long term issue with inventory to billet matching, they should be able to reduce the number of billets at the O4, O5, O6 level to match the long term number of officers allowed at those levels.
But, there’s circular logic within the system. No one controls O1, O2, or O3 numbers, just the control grades and TOTAL number. So if a service meets authorized officer strength, and doesn’t break the control grades, that service likely has more officers than "ideal DOPMA" anticipated in the non-control grades. In other words, the control grade billets (O4, O5, O6) that are empty are notionally (budgetarily) filled by the over manning in the O1, O2, O3 ranks - even though those officers can't fill the billets set aside for them within the authorized end strength.
An additional wrinkle is that every non-command Commander who stays as long as they can, or post-command Captain not going to major command, or post-major command Captain knowing they won't make it to Flag ends up slowing the promotion path down for those behind them. Corporations can offer all sorts of incentives to get folks to leave…but it’s just not that easy in our system.
But, if our armed forces really want to retain the best and the brightest (since there is significant agreement that we are able to attract and recruit them already) we also need to find a way to professionally, and materially, reward those who have the best chance of being the best and the brightest 10, 15, 20, or 30 years into a career rather than allow us to become a system by which we are forced to select from those who chose to remain, rather than those who are chosen to remain.
Head over to The Atlantic and read all of this thought provoking piece. If you want to dig deeper, you can read the complete survey found online here.
The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.
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