Many reasonable people will agree that if Group A only has to score one-quarter as well on an ability test as Group B to be considered equally capable to Group B, then you've got preferences occurring. If you mixed gender or race into this--if you had a school that admitted black students with 1/4 the GPA that it required white students to have--you'd note accurately that you were observing a case of discrimination, or affirmative action--however you want to term it.
The question is what circumstances warrant having differing standards for different groups based on arbitrary judgments about the value of those groups.
Ideally, those circumstances are not outcome or performance based. We don't want to introduce those arbitrary judgments into situations where there is a real, objective, measurable outcome based on the ability of the groups. Handicapping or helping certain groups would distort the outcome of the sorting mechanism--the ability test would no longer be a valid indicator of ability. The overall outcome would be a reduced overall capability for the aggregate group.
This is exactly what is happening in the Army with its sex-divided Physical Training (PT) standards. The Army Physical Fitness Test consists of 3 events: Pushups, situps, and a 2-mile run. Each of these events is graded by number of repetitions, and is scaled for age and sex. The minimum passing score for each event is 60 points, and the maximum is 100 points.
For instance: A 19-year-old female soldier who completes 19 pushups scores 60 points. If she completes 42 pushups, she scores 100 points. A 19-year-old male soldier has to do 42 pushups for his 60 points, and maxes out at 71 repetitions. For situps, the male/female scales are equal. For the run, the scale is again unequal. The male passes his run at a time of 15:54, and the female passes at 18:54. The max score times are 13:00 and 15:36, respectively.
That makes sense, right? Males are typically larger, stronger, and faster than females. The score distributions and scales were based on testing many, many people to develop reasonable expectations of fitness. Therefore, the scales should account for physiological differences between males and females.
There's only one problem with this. Men and women are both in the Army. The Army occasionally requires its members to do things like be in combat, or perform various physically difficult tasks. Men and women are both permitted in many of the same jobs, and are likely to end up doing very similar things throughout their careers. The 115-lb woman who can do 42 pushups may be in the same position as a 200-lb man who can do 71. A PT test scaled for sex nicely captures the difference between male and female capabilities, but does nothing to answer the important question: What is the minimum standard of physical fitness for a soldier?
This is particularly pertinent because physical fitness scores are noted on performance evaluations, and can be cause to get someone kicked out of the Army. A male who can bench 300 lbs may be at risk for being chaptered out for being a slow runner, but the 95-lb female who can run but can't lift a 40-lb box will stay in. Or vice versa. You get the picture.
By allowing women to have lower physical standards, the Army is doing a couple things wrong. It is acknowledging either that A) it is putting physically unqualified women into positions where they are likely to fail, or B) the requirements that it imposes on men are far too high for what the job requirements actually are. This approach also engenders resentment on the part of men, and a feeling of inferiority on the part of women. It is similar to affirmative action in this regard.
I suggest this fix: Align physical fitness standards to Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). If Infantrymen need to meet higher physical standards--and they do--than, say, intel weenies, then it's unfair to the infantrymen and the intel weenies. The Intel weenies don't need to have a high PT standard. The Infantrymen do. The force would benefit by having higher official PT standards for its infantrymen, and lower standards for its intel analysts, who probably don't need to be training on push-ups anyway. It would get and retain more analysts, both male and female. Having an aggregate PT standard for each sex imposes unnecessary requirements and restrictions on each of the MOS's, which do radically different jobs.
Additionally, this division by MOS would solve the very important problem of differing standards of physical fitness for men and women. A MOS-specific PT test, with the same standards for men and women, would clearly show what the minimum standard is. It would not grant a free pass to anyone. It would not penalize anyone. It would simply say that to be a generator repair mechanic, you have to be able to do X pushups and X situps and haul your butt around a 2-mile course in X time.
This would be a very good solution to matching qualified personnel to job positions, and it would eliminate the male-female PT standard divide. It would end the perception that women can't hack the Army that men have to. It would better separate who is suited for what job. For an organization as proud of proclaiming its reliance and adherence on standards, the Army has hopelessly bolo'ed this matter for decades, and this is an easy fix.
Showing posts with label army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label army. Show all posts
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Surefire controversy!
Let's talk Don't Ask, Don't Tell a bit. I have served in all-male light infantry and motorized line infantry units, co-ed training units, and co-ed staff units. I went to the Military Academy, which is a co-ed institution with approximately 17% of the student body being female. My experience is wide enough that I have a fairly good idea of what goes on in the Army and can therefore comment on some impacts of the policy popularly known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT).
First, let's posit a few things.
1. Any policy affecting or regulating the military ought to be crafted with the explicit aim of enhancing the capability of the armed forces. I hope this is apparent. If you disagree with me on this, then stop reading and go do something else.
2. Military capability is a function of the total equipment, personnel, and leadership/organizational activity of the military. It means the ability to deliver the right force to the right target in the right place at the right time.
3. There are trade-offs inherent in every policy. To make an analogy, a pawn may move two spaces forward, which is an advance, but the trade-off is that it loses control of the squares it has passed.
Ok, great. Now we are on the same page. So let's address some points about DADT.
The first is a pretty big one that most people seem to miss. DADT does NOT PREVENT gays from serving in the military.
Let me say that again because it is an important point.
DADT does NOT PREVENT gays from serving in the military.
What it prevents is gays from OPENLY serving in the military. What does that mean? That means engaging openly in gay behavior. The line is a little ambiguous, but public displays of affection such as kissing, or getting caught in flagrante are sufficient to open an investigation into the behavior.
But nothing in the policy prevents gay servicemembers from serving, provided they do not publish their orientation to the world to see. And that's the rub. There could be a couple of infantrymen, gay as can be, serving in a line unit, and, for example, living in their own off-post house, doing whatever they wanted to do. And there's nothing the Army could do about it. All that would be required is that they not make out in the barracks in front of their soldiers.
So, you say, the policy is still discriminatory. Well, yes, yes it is. But let's go back to our propositions: Looking at #1, would repealing DADT enhance military capability? I don't think so, and here's why.
1) Gays are already allowed to serve in the military; those who want to can, and therefore the military is not losing a valuable source of manpower. The best (and only, as far as I am concerned) arguments for allowing blacks, women, and etc into the army and integrated units concern the usage of the whole population of the US in military endeavors.
Fairness, taking into account peoples' desire to serve, etc., should have nothing to do with whether they are allowed to serve. To make the point: If a paraplegic wants to serve in the infantry, do we let him? If he is a superior strategic genius, then maybe he should be made a general. However, he is incapable of doing common Infantry tasks. Women (~50% of the population) and minorities (~30% of the population) give valuable contributions to the military, and so the integration effort was well-aimed and well-implemented, despite the negative effects that we do see in co-ed units from a high-percentage male population interacting with a low-percentage female population, especially given the framework of the rank system. There is no such argument for repealing DADT, because gays (2-3% of the population) are already allowed in the military. Repealing DADT would be an exercise in enhancing gay self-esteem, not military readiness. Consequently, the negative effects that we can anticipate--to unit readiness and morale-- are NOT outweighed by the benefits.
Because it would not be a beneficial policy, I am forced to conclude that the campaign to repeal DADT is not based so much on "gay rights" as it is on "I'm Gay, Look At Me!" In short, it is about the individual's freedom to do what you want. Freedom is great-- I am a huge fan of it. And I am leaving the military so I can do what I want. There are tradeoffs (see my #3 above) to every decision. The military demands some degree of conformity. If you can't handle it, don't join-- you know what you're getting into when you sign up. However, DADT-repeal proponents would rather force an institution to change for a few individuals' lifestyle preferences than recognize that what they are doing is not in the best interest of the military.
We then have a branch. Would DADT repeal be detrimental to the military? I don't know for sure. I can say that with the coming confluence of gay marriage and military benefits, I would bet a month's paycheck that with those policies in place, most of my all-male infantry platoon would have gotten "married" to be allowed to use off-post housing and get BAH. I can't say that my platoon would be significantly degraded by this, but I think getting my soldiers in formation in the morning would be a lot more difficult, and I would see a lot more legal problems coming out of Animal-House style quarters. I could be wrong, but that's where I would see things going.
I would also guess that living quarters for military service members in general would be dramatically reconfigured. There would no longer be ANY justification for segregating housing by sex.
Read that again, and think about it. It's absolutely correct. What is the justification for segregating housing by sex now? Privacy? Sexual harassment cases? When DADT goes, housing segregation by sex will (logically, but the army doesn't always follow logic) go too. As a result, service-members will have to have each of their own rooms. This is great for the servicemembers and I am all in favor of it generally, but not for the cause celebre of some individuals.
You will notice that I haven't addressed the morale., etc,. of the people in the units. That is intentional. My platoons could probably be assessed as homophobic, but I am not sure how much of that was peer-pressure induced and how much of it was genuinely being bothered by gays. I don't think integrating gays into the units themselves would be a problem unless you had gay romances going on. That is a problem in male-female integrated units as well, and can have a significant detrimental effect on unit readiness. It goes to a lot of fraternization issues. If those could be avoided (which I don't think is entirely realistic) then there wouldn't be a big problem.
However, let me make a point here: forcing people to change their beliefs for the sake of forcing them to change is egotistical and wrong. If there is an injustice going on, fine. But to label a group of people ("the military") as being mentally deficient and requiring them to adjust to accommodate a relative few individuals is not the best use of the military's already poorly-managed time and energy. There are already copious opportunities (mandates) for quarterly and yearly training on suicide, sexual harassment, equal opportunity, and so forth. I got more time in EO classes in my training at Fort Riley than I did training on IVs or calling MEDEVAC. Just sayin'.
Although to be fair I suppose I am at more risk of an EO complaint here on staff than I am of getting blown up. But if I'd gone to Afghanistan, then I'd have a real point.
Are we willing to accept the upheaval that repealing DADT will cause? I personally don't think there's a point to it. We should go with my marriage policy, and DADT in place.
Feedback is welcome, as are additional facts or commentary.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Organizational Ownership Phenomenon
I attended a hail-and-farewell today. For those of you who haven't attended one, it's one of a long list of Army functions that purport to be tradition and morale-building but actually serves to suck up between one and 3 hours of potentially productive time. Last night, for instance, over the course of an hour-and-a-half, we learned exactly who of the incoming and outgoing personnel in the 3 shop were married, and some of what they were going to do once re-deployed. A Colonel sang Irish songs in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Though all this is no doubt crucial to individual self-esteem and a well-deserved recognition after a year of service in Iraq, I can't remember a single person except the specialist who was publicly mocked by the Sergeant Major for being fat and interested in fantasy role-playing games. It was a near-total waste of time, except that I got some chicken wings and was able to assess the male/female ratio on the J3 staff to be approximately 20:1.
However, one productive thing did come out of this event. I came up with yet another reason that the Army is possessed of strong organizational inertia--that is to say, why it doesn't change. The fact that everybody in this Force-level staff changed out in the period of about a month clued me into this: Since the typical tour of duty in the Army is between one and three years, no officer has any incentive to take actions to improve his organization past his individual time-frame.
Hypothesis: Organizational ownership increases with the anticipated tenure of the individual in the organization. Ray Kroc and Sam Walton had tremendous senses of organizational ownership because their lives were tied up in growing their businesses. The typical wal-mart clerk is probably not as enthusiastic. Likewise, Army officers who constantly change units have no incentive to view their role in the Army in light of the long-term good of their immediate organization because they are moving around so much.
Individual officers do not have the capability or incentives to work on anything that will outlast them. Therefore, they focus on short-cycle projects that will produce immediate tangible results. This is where the current deployment-refit-train- cycle (I think it's called something like "Life Cycle Units, or Rotational Readiness program or etc) is very beneficial to the commander. He works through the cycle, declares victory, and goes on to his next assignment. He has no staying power or ability to influence anything in his organization past his RIP/TOA date.
This phenomenon is not strictly limited to officers, but it seems to hit them harder. Within 2 months of my last deployment ending, I'd estimate that 90% of officer-positions changed hands.
So what's the problem? Well, let me make an analogy: Publicly traded businesses are often derided for taking courses of action that benefit their share prices in the short-term without regard for moral hazard or long-term consequences. Just think about the recent banking collapse if you need an example. They are pressured by the public clamor to keep share prices up. This prevents them from taking actions that might be beneficial to the long-term health of the company (i.e. shedding lines of business, layoffs, etc) but are unpopular.
Apply this to the Army. A unit commander (or other officer, but I will say "commander" here to keep it simple) has a short-term goal, just like keeping share prices high: Career advancement, i.e. his OER. After his 2 or 3 years, he moves on to another position in another organization, or a different shop within the same organization-- but more commonly the former. So his incentive is to do whatever he can do NOW, because he is a) rated on his short term performance, and b) he will not be around long enough to see any long-term projects to completion--hence, anything that has a less-than-sexy performance in the immediate term will hurt him. Thus, problems have a tendency to be ignored or put off until the rotation happens, to let the next guy deal with it.
So because officers are moved around so much, they have no incentives to take on long-term unit improvements. They focus on the immediate train-deploy cycle. They focus on their immediate tour and not on how to build the battalion over years.
But, you ask, isn't that a good thing because of cumulative improvement to the unit? Surely new commanders, all full of piss and vinegar, reinvigorate organizations and keep them wired tight.
You'd think so, but then account for the fact that all the expertise and teamwork built up during that time frame is constantly decimated by OTHER officers moving around. The WHOLE ORGANIZATION can change in a period of a couple of months. Because officers are the ones that set the training and operational agenda, every time a command position changes hands, there is a reorientation of priorities throughout the unit. Everyone has to adjust to the new boss. This can happen en-masse--like when the battalion commander and company commanders all change at roughly the same time-- or it can happen piecemeal, with platoon leader rotations, company commander changes, etc. But every time there is a change, the ship has to adjust course. In fact, a time-honored tradition in the Army is assuming authority and declaring that the last guy was all messed up and the situation needs to be fixed. Maybe our current CoC knows something about military culture after all.
The required re-org and re-orientation following personnel turnover simply further reduces the ability of everybody else to make long-term change or adjustments that would improve the organization. Everybody has to drop what they're doing and learn what the new boss wants.
What kind of long-term organizational improvements are we talking about?
How about winning wars? If postings to combat zones were permanent, would we win faster? How about equipment and accountability problems? If officers couldn't kick the can down the road as easily, then they might be able and motivated to take action to fix problems.
By the way, this post nicely supports my idea for a free-market HR department, in which units and individuals work at common interests to find good organizational fits, and then retain the leaders that are worth a damn.
However, one productive thing did come out of this event. I came up with yet another reason that the Army is possessed of strong organizational inertia--that is to say, why it doesn't change. The fact that everybody in this Force-level staff changed out in the period of about a month clued me into this: Since the typical tour of duty in the Army is between one and three years, no officer has any incentive to take actions to improve his organization past his individual time-frame.
Hypothesis: Organizational ownership increases with the anticipated tenure of the individual in the organization. Ray Kroc and Sam Walton had tremendous senses of organizational ownership because their lives were tied up in growing their businesses. The typical wal-mart clerk is probably not as enthusiastic. Likewise, Army officers who constantly change units have no incentive to view their role in the Army in light of the long-term good of their immediate organization because they are moving around so much.
Individual officers do not have the capability or incentives to work on anything that will outlast them. Therefore, they focus on short-cycle projects that will produce immediate tangible results. This is where the current deployment-refit-train- cycle (I think it's called something like "Life Cycle Units, or Rotational Readiness program or etc) is very beneficial to the commander. He works through the cycle, declares victory, and goes on to his next assignment. He has no staying power or ability to influence anything in his organization past his RIP/TOA date.
This phenomenon is not strictly limited to officers, but it seems to hit them harder. Within 2 months of my last deployment ending, I'd estimate that 90% of officer-positions changed hands.
So what's the problem? Well, let me make an analogy: Publicly traded businesses are often derided for taking courses of action that benefit their share prices in the short-term without regard for moral hazard or long-term consequences. Just think about the recent banking collapse if you need an example. They are pressured by the public clamor to keep share prices up. This prevents them from taking actions that might be beneficial to the long-term health of the company (i.e. shedding lines of business, layoffs, etc) but are unpopular.
Apply this to the Army. A unit commander (or other officer, but I will say "commander" here to keep it simple) has a short-term goal, just like keeping share prices high: Career advancement, i.e. his OER. After his 2 or 3 years, he moves on to another position in another organization, or a different shop within the same organization-- but more commonly the former. So his incentive is to do whatever he can do NOW, because he is a) rated on his short term performance, and b) he will not be around long enough to see any long-term projects to completion--hence, anything that has a less-than-sexy performance in the immediate term will hurt him. Thus, problems have a tendency to be ignored or put off until the rotation happens, to let the next guy deal with it.
So because officers are moved around so much, they have no incentives to take on long-term unit improvements. They focus on the immediate train-deploy cycle. They focus on their immediate tour and not on how to build the battalion over years.
But, you ask, isn't that a good thing because of cumulative improvement to the unit? Surely new commanders, all full of piss and vinegar, reinvigorate organizations and keep them wired tight.
You'd think so, but then account for the fact that all the expertise and teamwork built up during that time frame is constantly decimated by OTHER officers moving around. The WHOLE ORGANIZATION can change in a period of a couple of months. Because officers are the ones that set the training and operational agenda, every time a command position changes hands, there is a reorientation of priorities throughout the unit. Everyone has to adjust to the new boss. This can happen en-masse--like when the battalion commander and company commanders all change at roughly the same time-- or it can happen piecemeal, with platoon leader rotations, company commander changes, etc. But every time there is a change, the ship has to adjust course. In fact, a time-honored tradition in the Army is assuming authority and declaring that the last guy was all messed up and the situation needs to be fixed. Maybe our current CoC knows something about military culture after all.
The required re-org and re-orientation following personnel turnover simply further reduces the ability of everybody else to make long-term change or adjustments that would improve the organization. Everybody has to drop what they're doing and learn what the new boss wants.
What kind of long-term organizational improvements are we talking about?
How about winning wars? If postings to combat zones were permanent, would we win faster? How about equipment and accountability problems? If officers couldn't kick the can down the road as easily, then they might be able and motivated to take action to fix problems.
By the way, this post nicely supports my idea for a free-market HR department, in which units and individuals work at common interests to find good organizational fits, and then retain the leaders that are worth a damn.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Fraud, Waste and Abuse, or Your Tax Dollars At Not-Work
Something that a lot of people mistake is frictional unemployment. That's the amount of people in a given economy who are between jobs, and represents the normal exchange or flow of labor between sources of production. It indicates that the market for labor is working. It's really a useful concept, and puts unemployment rates into context. 4% unemployment? That's probably really good, based on the actual can't-find-work percentage. It looks like this:
Can't Find Work = Total Unemployment - Frictional Unemployment
So the Can't Find Work percentage might be actually closer to 1-2% overall. Pretty good, eh? A certain amount of frictional unemployment is actually necessary to having a healthy, functioning free-market economy.
That's not what I'm writing about today. Today's topic is more along the lines of Frictional Employment, a term I'm coining to describe what's happening in my office, and which I will extrapolate to the larger Army and government bureaucracies in general to describe the rampant waste that goes on with the military.
So here's an example. In my staff section, we have several civilian contractors. They are very experienced in their fields. They have spent careers in law enforcement, customs, intel, etc., and are incredible assets in those areas. They are being paid considerable amounts of money to come overseas and ply their expertise to help assist the US or Gov't of Iraq (GoI) learn about governance, law enforcement, etc.
And they are completely useless. They are getting paid essentially to sit around because they have been misplaced in my section. Think about this for a second. These contractors are getting paid in the six-figures (from what I gather) to be here. Their contracting company is getting paid some amount that includes profit as well as additional comp packages for the contractors. So in my shop alone, the US government is spending-- I estimate-- Six Hundred Thousand Dollars (could be more, could be less, but let's call it that for a SWAG, shall we?) to have expertise and experience and sit around and read CNN.
It's not the contractors' fault. They are hard-working individuals. They applied for specific jobs, and were accepted, hired, trained, and sent over here. They have notified their superiors and companies about what's going on. The US forces know what's going on. But they stay in this section. Hence, Frictional Employment is folks being employed where they shouldn't be.
I strongly, strongly suspect based on my time in the office as well as a few other places in this country that this is NOT an isolated occurrence. So let's multiply my figure of $600K by the Mystery Multiplier of my observations and experiences--let's assume that the contractor placement process is incredibly efficient all across iraq, and call it "5", for a total of only 15 mis-utilized/overpaid contractors across the country (Stop laughing, we'll get to that in my next point)--and we end up with a total utter wastage of a cool 3 Million Bucks.
At this point, I anticipate several objections.
1) "So what? 3mil is peanuts compared with the overall cost of the war."
Yes, and it's still $3 mil, which is enough to do a whole lot of other things in this country. Like the man said, a million here, a million there, and soon you're talking real money. But this attitude is commonplace. There is almost no incentive for fiscal discipline for the service at war. Expenditures are all based on a budget and pots of money from various places, and while those are drying up (In Iraq), you'd be surprised how adept at finagling money the military is. The usual justification is "Oh, it's for the troops!" which can be very valid, but let's face it-- if we spent more time figuring out what we needed and where to cut money from useless crap (or at least get the value from the money we've spent), then we'd be a lot more cost effective.
This is not an isolated incident. The amount of money that the Army wastes by having the wrong people in the wrong places is amazing. Soldiers, contractors, it doesn't matter: Somewhere, somehow, your dollars are being spent to pay someone in Frictional Employment. Don't blame the soldier: blame the system.
We don't want to skimp to defeat, but right now there's a lot of things to do and we don't need to be paying for mid-eastern vacations for people. If you're going to deploy me, use me. Which brings me to my next point:
2) "It can't be avoided, we just have to live with it."
You're absolutely right. There's no way that the Army can avoid wasting money on things. But somehow, companies across America learn to do it every day. I am not sure what the solution is, except for possibly introducing financial discipline as a criterion pursuant to my first few posts. We needs a total overhaul in accountability and justification, which is something that soldiers aren't good at when it comes to money. The generals have a completely different idea of spending priorities than do the field-grades, and the staff thinks that the operations folks are totally off base, and so forth. It's a giant cluster. But there's a lot of money to go around, everybody takes their piece, and everybody's happy... but the efficiency rates aren't so hot.
For another instance, the ACU/ Multi-Cam fiasco is just winding up. After 5 years of fielding the Generals' Favorite Uniform Evar (the ACU), the Army has decided to listen to the soldiers and 1) get rid of that silly-ass ACU digital pattern, and 2) go back to buttons instead of velcro on the pockets. They are going to switch uniforms for troops in Afghanistan to the Multi-Cam pattern.
Did we really need to purchase 5 years' worth of crap uniforms with all the associated generals doing studies and convening task-forces/working groups, etc., to take care of something that your average infantry Joe could have made a better decision on in five minutes? Apparently, the answer is Yes.
I won't even delve into the opportunity costs that all this has incurred.
Say it with me: Fraud, Waste, and Abuse.
Everything I've said is all anecdotal, which I admit is not quantifiable. But you have to have blinders on to think that the government can spend money responsibly, even in the context of a war.
What can we do about all this?
I am not sure, but it probably has to do with:
1) Figuring out what we need, preferably ahead of when we need it
2) Figuring out how much of what it is that we need
3) Buying it
4) Looking for ways to be efficient
These apply to materiel and personnel.
Army culture, history, and incentives militate against every one of these steps. I don't know how to change those things, other than what I've already written.
Can't Find Work = Total Unemployment - Frictional Unemployment
So the Can't Find Work percentage might be actually closer to 1-2% overall. Pretty good, eh? A certain amount of frictional unemployment is actually necessary to having a healthy, functioning free-market economy.
That's not what I'm writing about today. Today's topic is more along the lines of Frictional Employment, a term I'm coining to describe what's happening in my office, and which I will extrapolate to the larger Army and government bureaucracies in general to describe the rampant waste that goes on with the military.
So here's an example. In my staff section, we have several civilian contractors. They are very experienced in their fields. They have spent careers in law enforcement, customs, intel, etc., and are incredible assets in those areas. They are being paid considerable amounts of money to come overseas and ply their expertise to help assist the US or Gov't of Iraq (GoI) learn about governance, law enforcement, etc.
And they are completely useless. They are getting paid essentially to sit around because they have been misplaced in my section. Think about this for a second. These contractors are getting paid in the six-figures (from what I gather) to be here. Their contracting company is getting paid some amount that includes profit as well as additional comp packages for the contractors. So in my shop alone, the US government is spending-- I estimate-- Six Hundred Thousand Dollars (could be more, could be less, but let's call it that for a SWAG, shall we?) to have expertise and experience and sit around and read CNN.
It's not the contractors' fault. They are hard-working individuals. They applied for specific jobs, and were accepted, hired, trained, and sent over here. They have notified their superiors and companies about what's going on. The US forces know what's going on. But they stay in this section. Hence, Frictional Employment is folks being employed where they shouldn't be.
I strongly, strongly suspect based on my time in the office as well as a few other places in this country that this is NOT an isolated occurrence. So let's multiply my figure of $600K by the Mystery Multiplier of my observations and experiences--let's assume that the contractor placement process is incredibly efficient all across iraq, and call it "5", for a total of only 15 mis-utilized/overpaid contractors across the country (Stop laughing, we'll get to that in my next point)--and we end up with a total utter wastage of a cool 3 Million Bucks.
At this point, I anticipate several objections.
1) "So what? 3mil is peanuts compared with the overall cost of the war."
Yes, and it's still $3 mil, which is enough to do a whole lot of other things in this country. Like the man said, a million here, a million there, and soon you're talking real money. But this attitude is commonplace. There is almost no incentive for fiscal discipline for the service at war. Expenditures are all based on a budget and pots of money from various places, and while those are drying up (In Iraq), you'd be surprised how adept at finagling money the military is. The usual justification is "Oh, it's for the troops!" which can be very valid, but let's face it-- if we spent more time figuring out what we needed and where to cut money from useless crap (or at least get the value from the money we've spent), then we'd be a lot more cost effective.
This is not an isolated incident. The amount of money that the Army wastes by having the wrong people in the wrong places is amazing. Soldiers, contractors, it doesn't matter: Somewhere, somehow, your dollars are being spent to pay someone in Frictional Employment. Don't blame the soldier: blame the system.
We don't want to skimp to defeat, but right now there's a lot of things to do and we don't need to be paying for mid-eastern vacations for people. If you're going to deploy me, use me. Which brings me to my next point:
2) "It can't be avoided, we just have to live with it."
You're absolutely right. There's no way that the Army can avoid wasting money on things. But somehow, companies across America learn to do it every day. I am not sure what the solution is, except for possibly introducing financial discipline as a criterion pursuant to my first few posts. We needs a total overhaul in accountability and justification, which is something that soldiers aren't good at when it comes to money. The generals have a completely different idea of spending priorities than do the field-grades, and the staff thinks that the operations folks are totally off base, and so forth. It's a giant cluster. But there's a lot of money to go around, everybody takes their piece, and everybody's happy... but the efficiency rates aren't so hot.
For another instance, the ACU/ Multi-Cam fiasco is just winding up. After 5 years of fielding the Generals' Favorite Uniform Evar (the ACU), the Army has decided to listen to the soldiers and 1) get rid of that silly-ass ACU digital pattern, and 2) go back to buttons instead of velcro on the pockets. They are going to switch uniforms for troops in Afghanistan to the Multi-Cam pattern.
Did we really need to purchase 5 years' worth of crap uniforms with all the associated generals doing studies and convening task-forces/working groups, etc., to take care of something that your average infantry Joe could have made a better decision on in five minutes? Apparently, the answer is Yes.
I won't even delve into the opportunity costs that all this has incurred.
Say it with me: Fraud, Waste, and Abuse.
Everything I've said is all anecdotal, which I admit is not quantifiable. But you have to have blinders on to think that the government can spend money responsibly, even in the context of a war.
What can we do about all this?
I am not sure, but it probably has to do with:
1) Figuring out what we need, preferably ahead of when we need it
2) Figuring out how much of what it is that we need
3) Buying it
4) Looking for ways to be efficient
These apply to materiel and personnel.
Army culture, history, and incentives militate against every one of these steps. I don't know how to change those things, other than what I've already written.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Projection
All right. Let's play a game. Suppose, for instance, that you are a consultant.
Then suppose, contrary to all of your previous knowledge about how consulting is supposed to work, you pay your client for the privilege of advising him, instead of him paying you for your expertise.
Now suppose that your client only occasionally wants to take your advice, and only puts up with you being around to advise him because you are paying him.
This is what is going on in Iraq right now. It is of course a gross oversimplification of the whole situation, but several essential elements remain:
1) We are training and equipping Iraq's government. This is not limited to just training the army, but encompasses advising on all aspects of the functioning government.
2) The Government of Iraq doesn't have to do anything that we tell them to. Since the July 30, 2009 security agreement, the Iraqis have been running their own country. Certainly, there are bumps along the way, but they are doing it.
3) The US has a purely advisory role. Every operation we do is partnered; most aspects of interaction with the GoI are focused on increasing capacity and streamlining systems.
There's a saying that's frequently bandied about on the US side of the house-- "An Iraqi [or Arab] solution for an Iraqi [again, or Arab] problem", coming from some saying from TE Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia. It's meant to be a reminder that the US cannot expect that US solutions to Iraqi problems will work. There are too many competing local tribal, sectarian, and political issues in the mix for the US to impose solutions to many of what we perceive as problems.
Unfortunately, Iraq has become a staging ground for a whole host of commands, each bent on "doing something!" to look good, expand individual fiefdoms, or otherwise get promoted. The practical effect of this is that whenever the GoI is not handling something like the US thinks it should, there's a whole flurry of activity--research, briefings, more briefings, and some meetings--to conclude what this junior SM could have told you up front-- that the Iraqis will do what they damn well please, when they want it, and unless they want to do it, then USF ain't doin' squat. But unless those briefings happen, then higher-ups can't pretend to make decisions that mainly involve playing at diplomat and doing KLEs (that's Key Leader Engagement, for the uninitiated) in the hope of getting a recalcitrant partner to do something we want him to do.
And yet we continue to spin our wheels and panic when the Iraqis don't do what we want. At the same time, USF frequently completely disregard the Iraqis' motivations or wants. In a recent meeting, Your Intrepid Blogger noted a particular instance about training priorities:
Person A: Are these American Training priorities, or have the Iraqis had input into this?
*cricket*
Let the record show that the training priority had something to do with MILES., which is an American training system and is about the second-to-last thing that Iraq needs right now, right before snowplows for Basrah. But it's not just about equipment or training. This projection extends to everything the US does-- we desperately want to influence or push the Iraqis to do things, but can't stand to see them taking care of business on their own and at their own pace.
It's a shame. We want the US solution to the Iraqi problem. An Iraqi solution might work, but it wouldn't look as good on an OER, that's for sure. I can't help but get the feeling (and admittedly, I am removed from a lot of the action, being on staff and all) that we are simply cannon fodder for officers to pad their joint billet time in an only mildly threatening theater where there is minimal risk of failure. I am sure the Iraqis love having Americans over to tell them what to do. At this point, we're just a checkbook, and they'll pass on the partnership, thanks very much.
Then suppose, contrary to all of your previous knowledge about how consulting is supposed to work, you pay your client for the privilege of advising him, instead of him paying you for your expertise.
Now suppose that your client only occasionally wants to take your advice, and only puts up with you being around to advise him because you are paying him.
This is what is going on in Iraq right now. It is of course a gross oversimplification of the whole situation, but several essential elements remain:
1) We are training and equipping Iraq's government. This is not limited to just training the army, but encompasses advising on all aspects of the functioning government.
2) The Government of Iraq doesn't have to do anything that we tell them to. Since the July 30, 2009 security agreement, the Iraqis have been running their own country. Certainly, there are bumps along the way, but they are doing it.
3) The US has a purely advisory role. Every operation we do is partnered; most aspects of interaction with the GoI are focused on increasing capacity and streamlining systems.
There's a saying that's frequently bandied about on the US side of the house-- "An Iraqi [or Arab] solution for an Iraqi [again, or Arab] problem", coming from some saying from TE Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia. It's meant to be a reminder that the US cannot expect that US solutions to Iraqi problems will work. There are too many competing local tribal, sectarian, and political issues in the mix for the US to impose solutions to many of what we perceive as problems.
Unfortunately, Iraq has become a staging ground for a whole host of commands, each bent on "doing something!" to look good, expand individual fiefdoms, or otherwise get promoted. The practical effect of this is that whenever the GoI is not handling something like the US thinks it should, there's a whole flurry of activity--research, briefings, more briefings, and some meetings--to conclude what this junior SM could have told you up front-- that the Iraqis will do what they damn well please, when they want it, and unless they want to do it, then USF ain't doin' squat. But unless those briefings happen, then higher-ups can't pretend to make decisions that mainly involve playing at diplomat and doing KLEs (that's Key Leader Engagement, for the uninitiated) in the hope of getting a recalcitrant partner to do something we want him to do.
And yet we continue to spin our wheels and panic when the Iraqis don't do what we want. At the same time, USF frequently completely disregard the Iraqis' motivations or wants. In a recent meeting, Your Intrepid Blogger noted a particular instance about training priorities:
Person A: Are these American Training priorities, or have the Iraqis had input into this?
*cricket*
Let the record show that the training priority had something to do with MILES., which is an American training system and is about the second-to-last thing that Iraq needs right now, right before snowplows for Basrah. But it's not just about equipment or training. This projection extends to everything the US does-- we desperately want to influence or push the Iraqis to do things, but can't stand to see them taking care of business on their own and at their own pace.
It's a shame. We want the US solution to the Iraqi problem. An Iraqi solution might work, but it wouldn't look as good on an OER, that's for sure. I can't help but get the feeling (and admittedly, I am removed from a lot of the action, being on staff and all) that we are simply cannon fodder for officers to pad their joint billet time in an only mildly threatening theater where there is minimal risk of failure. I am sure the Iraqis love having Americans over to tell them what to do. At this point, we're just a checkbook, and they'll pass on the partnership, thanks very much.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Army Information Sharing, and Solutions To It
The Army puts vast time and resources into something called Knowledge Management. Any user of Army Knowledge Online and its agglomeration of user groups, networks, libraries, menus, and searches, knows that this is a well-intentioned but mostly futile endeavor. It is a blocky, chunked-up system that requires an endless array of credentialing, accounts, and searches to do anything. Worse, the Army requires that most personnel functions be accomplished through the online system.
The in-theater information management system is also terrible. You might think that the Army has a streamlined, easy-to-use information system. Nope. The Army does have a system where you can spend half an hour looking up a phone number, and discover that it's the wrong number for someone who left the country months ago. This is because sites require constant maintenance, which gets progressively lower in priority the longer a unit has been deployed, and the more times it has changed personnel out. You may find some of the information you need for a specific staff section, but you will only do that after dodging dead-link minefields, outdated and un-maintained sites, and so forth. Then, the document will only be about an 70% solution to your question, as it was produced for a totally different reason. Trying to find a simple document is extremely challenging, though to the Army's credit, there is typically some sort of search function that may help if you're really astute with keywords. And very patient.
If you are trying to get an answer to a question that isn't in a product somewhere, you have to resort to email and phone calls to get ahold of the person who knows what you're talking about. More than once, I have sent out an email question to someone, only to get the 20-email thread back in two days and see that the last person referred the thread to me as the subject matter expert. If I knew the answer, I wouldn't have asked! Now I am back at square one, and don't know where the email chain should have branched to get me to the right person.
Why is this worth valuable electrons and your time to read about?
Well, one of the key challenges the Army (or whole military, as most large operations are now joint) faces is sharing relevant information in a timely fashion across all organizations that need it. This is a formidable task. When one organization partners with Iraqis, for instance, and writes a report or hears some useful information, that information typically has applications all over the country. If that information isn't disseminated in a timely manner, then huge amounts of time and energy are expended trying to accomplish the exact same task that has been accomplished before. Winning wars and building nations is tough enough, but try to do it twice, concurrently, and you get the idea.
Information handling is vital to conducting synchronized operations across literally hundreds of staff sections and organizations, and yet the Army's response leaves huge gaps in awareness of reports, policies, orders, statistics, and meetings. Half of the meetings (in this SM's humble estimation) are conducted because someone is trying to find out information that other people already know. This causes a huge cascading effect, where meetings are held to prep for other meetings, which are in turn used to prep for other meetings, which are used to prep for other meetings, the results of which are then taken to a decision-maker for judgment. I do not offer exaggeration on the layers of CYA pre-meetings that are necessary to get a decision or guidance. While some meetings are necessary for discussion and analysis, most meetings should happen to make decisions or when a discussion is absolutely necessary.
Poor information management causes vast waste of time and effort.
But does it have to be this way? I suggest not. Let's look at some alternate tools for awareness.
There is technology available to make information sharing easier. For instance, let's take a look at a typical division website. There is a scrolling SIGACT bar that someone put in; there is a set of outdated links, or perhaps links to the unit's internal portal, which is great for the unit but terrible for anyone else trying to get information. The staff section links will go to pages with little useful information. If I know someone in the unit has something that I want, getting it takes ten times longer than it should when I have to do a separate research project to find a current staff roster, call the person, and wait for him to dig up the information.
While the unit's internal portal may be useful and have information, that information does no one any good if it's not accessible and if other folks don't know it's there. Critical reports, assessments, and data sheets often languish without potential customers being able to see them, and sites go un-updated due to lack of trained site-maintainers. How can we remedy this?
Simple: Use a market solution. There have been very few things in history that the government can do better than private enterprise, and this is not one of those things.
Pay Google to re-vamp the search, archiving, and information management system, like with a Google search engine, Wave, and Google Docs. I'll bet a paycheck that the company could set up a much more efficient and effective system for the military for less than the current system's cost outlay.
Use Twitter to ask and answer questions in real-time.
Use the available technology and tools to get people away from the static section web-page concept, and get them tied in together for cloud computing, real-time messaging and information boards, feeds, and whatever else works for sharing information to the right people at the right time.
Let's get away from fact-finding meetings and move towards getting accurate, current information to decision-makers. It's time to move on to doing other productive things, like winning, and putting our soldiers' time and effort to better use than trying to building Sharepoint that no one looks at.
The in-theater information management system is also terrible. You might think that the Army has a streamlined, easy-to-use information system. Nope. The Army does have a system where you can spend half an hour looking up a phone number, and discover that it's the wrong number for someone who left the country months ago. This is because sites require constant maintenance, which gets progressively lower in priority the longer a unit has been deployed, and the more times it has changed personnel out. You may find some of the information you need for a specific staff section, but you will only do that after dodging dead-link minefields, outdated and un-maintained sites, and so forth. Then, the document will only be about an 70% solution to your question, as it was produced for a totally different reason. Trying to find a simple document is extremely challenging, though to the Army's credit, there is typically some sort of search function that may help if you're really astute with keywords. And very patient.
If you are trying to get an answer to a question that isn't in a product somewhere, you have to resort to email and phone calls to get ahold of the person who knows what you're talking about. More than once, I have sent out an email question to someone, only to get the 20-email thread back in two days and see that the last person referred the thread to me as the subject matter expert. If I knew the answer, I wouldn't have asked! Now I am back at square one, and don't know where the email chain should have branched to get me to the right person.
Why is this worth valuable electrons and your time to read about?
Well, one of the key challenges the Army (or whole military, as most large operations are now joint) faces is sharing relevant information in a timely fashion across all organizations that need it. This is a formidable task. When one organization partners with Iraqis, for instance, and writes a report or hears some useful information, that information typically has applications all over the country. If that information isn't disseminated in a timely manner, then huge amounts of time and energy are expended trying to accomplish the exact same task that has been accomplished before. Winning wars and building nations is tough enough, but try to do it twice, concurrently, and you get the idea.
Information handling is vital to conducting synchronized operations across literally hundreds of staff sections and organizations, and yet the Army's response leaves huge gaps in awareness of reports, policies, orders, statistics, and meetings. Half of the meetings (in this SM's humble estimation) are conducted because someone is trying to find out information that other people already know. This causes a huge cascading effect, where meetings are held to prep for other meetings, which are in turn used to prep for other meetings, which are used to prep for other meetings, the results of which are then taken to a decision-maker for judgment. I do not offer exaggeration on the layers of CYA pre-meetings that are necessary to get a decision or guidance. While some meetings are necessary for discussion and analysis, most meetings should happen to make decisions or when a discussion is absolutely necessary.
Poor information management causes vast waste of time and effort.
But does it have to be this way? I suggest not. Let's look at some alternate tools for awareness.
There is technology available to make information sharing easier. For instance, let's take a look at a typical division website. There is a scrolling SIGACT bar that someone put in; there is a set of outdated links, or perhaps links to the unit's internal portal, which is great for the unit but terrible for anyone else trying to get information. The staff section links will go to pages with little useful information. If I know someone in the unit has something that I want, getting it takes ten times longer than it should when I have to do a separate research project to find a current staff roster, call the person, and wait for him to dig up the information.
While the unit's internal portal may be useful and have information, that information does no one any good if it's not accessible and if other folks don't know it's there. Critical reports, assessments, and data sheets often languish without potential customers being able to see them, and sites go un-updated due to lack of trained site-maintainers. How can we remedy this?
Simple: Use a market solution. There have been very few things in history that the government can do better than private enterprise, and this is not one of those things.
Pay Google to re-vamp the search, archiving, and information management system, like with a Google search engine, Wave, and Google Docs. I'll bet a paycheck that the company could set up a much more efficient and effective system for the military for less than the current system's cost outlay.
Use Twitter to ask and answer questions in real-time.
Use the available technology and tools to get people away from the static section web-page concept, and get them tied in together for cloud computing, real-time messaging and information boards, feeds, and whatever else works for sharing information to the right people at the right time.
Let's get away from fact-finding meetings and move towards getting accurate, current information to decision-makers. It's time to move on to doing other productive things, like winning, and putting our soldiers' time and effort to better use than trying to building Sharepoint that no one looks at.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
DA Photos are Divisive and Costly
DA photos are racist. For those not in the know, DA photos are pictures of a soldier that go on his record brief to be looked at for promotions and other activities. For instance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1SG_Carl_E._Howard_DA_Photo.jpg
You don't believe me? Here are reasons that I have run across that might justify getting a DA photo:
1. Shows professionalism for the promotions board
2. Serves as photo for a funeral ceremony if a soldier gets killed
Reason 2 is a last-ditch, urban legend reason. I haven't heard any actual soldiers or anyone else cite it, so while it may be true, it is of secondary importance. Which takes us to the main question: Is reason 1 really necessary? Do these board members sit around and really look at ribbons and compare awards to the records? Do they inspect haircuts for the photo in order to judge professionalism, over the contents of the ORB and the officer's OERs?
Here's the regulation:
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/R640_30.pdf
It states:
"The photograph is an important representation of the Soldier. It is of particular interest during DA selection boards and career management activities."
Really? Why is that?
That statement is disingenuous. It means exactly what it says, but it's phrased to make people think that it's about evaluating a soldier's professionalism and qualifications. I think it's to ensure that the boards meet goals for ethnic and/or gender representation. There is no reason that a board needs a photo to represent a soldier other than to visually verify the soldier's race, his/her gender, and general physical attractiveness (which matters even for guys-- attractive people generally make better first impressions than do ugly ones). It's a great PR tool.
Let's see: Do photos like these affect promotion decisions for the wrong reasons?
http://www.bragg.army.mil/DA_Photo/thephoto.htm
Is there anything in these photos that cannot be represented on an Officer Record Brief, which lists all assignments, awards, schools, height, weight, security clearance, educational background, branch, home of record, and other qualifications? Or an OER, which is based on superiors' feedback of a soldier's job performance?
So what, you say, let's let kids be kids and play ball.
NO. Not only does this become a horrendous waste of soldier and Army time, effort, and money (see the policy above), but it's a PC tool to ensure that the Army looks good, instead of ensuring that the Army can do its job. It's another example, a bright idea, to ensure that someone can carefully pick a mix of promotees to match the Army concept of equal opportunity and gender/race equality. Enough of that crap. It's affirmative action, and it's divisive and counterproductive. It introduces doubt about the qualifications of minorities and women who have been promoted, regardless about whether those individuals are qualified or not. Or, if you want to go the other way with the argument, it gives the opportunity for board officers to discriminate against minorities and/or women. It is not fair to anyone regardless of how you care to spin it.
The Army, and in particular its soldiers--our nation's sons and daughters--deserves people who are qualified to do their jobs, not people selected to fill a slot.
Only by positing a neutral board do we see any benefit (excluding the soldier's time spent preparing for and getting the photo, the unit's time without the soldier, and the expense of maintaining DA photo studios at every base), but please refer to my proposal below for saving time...
Let's do it this way: Get rid of the photo and eliminate visibility of the person's name during the board selection process. Evaluate on qualifications, experience, and performance. If the board can take the time to read OERs, the ORB, and look at the photo now, let's save them some time and get rid of the photo. Any takers?
I cannot find any history of the DA photo policy; if I've missed something big, I welcome feedback and additional information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1SG_Carl_E._Howard_DA_Photo.jpg
You don't believe me? Here are reasons that I have run across that might justify getting a DA photo:
1. Shows professionalism for the promotions board
2. Serves as photo for a funeral ceremony if a soldier gets killed
Reason 2 is a last-ditch, urban legend reason. I haven't heard any actual soldiers or anyone else cite it, so while it may be true, it is of secondary importance. Which takes us to the main question: Is reason 1 really necessary? Do these board members sit around and really look at ribbons and compare awards to the records? Do they inspect haircuts for the photo in order to judge professionalism, over the contents of the ORB and the officer's OERs?
Here's the regulation:
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/R640_30.pdf
It states:
"The photograph is an important representation of the Soldier. It is of particular interest during DA selection boards and career management activities."
Really? Why is that?
That statement is disingenuous. It means exactly what it says, but it's phrased to make people think that it's about evaluating a soldier's professionalism and qualifications. I think it's to ensure that the boards meet goals for ethnic and/or gender representation. There is no reason that a board needs a photo to represent a soldier other than to visually verify the soldier's race, his/her gender, and general physical attractiveness (which matters even for guys-- attractive people generally make better first impressions than do ugly ones). It's a great PR tool.
Let's see: Do photos like these affect promotion decisions for the wrong reasons?
http://www.bragg.army.mil/DA_Photo/thephoto.htm
Is there anything in these photos that cannot be represented on an Officer Record Brief, which lists all assignments, awards, schools, height, weight, security clearance, educational background, branch, home of record, and other qualifications? Or an OER, which is based on superiors' feedback of a soldier's job performance?
So what, you say, let's let kids be kids and play ball.
NO. Not only does this become a horrendous waste of soldier and Army time, effort, and money (see the policy above), but it's a PC tool to ensure that the Army looks good, instead of ensuring that the Army can do its job. It's another example, a bright idea, to ensure that someone can carefully pick a mix of promotees to match the Army concept of equal opportunity and gender/race equality. Enough of that crap. It's affirmative action, and it's divisive and counterproductive. It introduces doubt about the qualifications of minorities and women who have been promoted, regardless about whether those individuals are qualified or not. Or, if you want to go the other way with the argument, it gives the opportunity for board officers to discriminate against minorities and/or women. It is not fair to anyone regardless of how you care to spin it.
The Army, and in particular its soldiers--our nation's sons and daughters--deserves people who are qualified to do their jobs, not people selected to fill a slot.
Only by positing a neutral board do we see any benefit (excluding the soldier's time spent preparing for and getting the photo, the unit's time without the soldier, and the expense of maintaining DA photo studios at every base), but please refer to my proposal below for saving time...
Let's do it this way: Get rid of the photo and eliminate visibility of the person's name during the board selection process. Evaluate on qualifications, experience, and performance. If the board can take the time to read OERs, the ORB, and look at the photo now, let's save them some time and get rid of the photo. Any takers?
I cannot find any history of the DA photo policy; if I've missed something big, I welcome feedback and additional information.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Can the Army be Efficient? Pt 2: The system
The last entry summarized a concept for changing the way the Army does its human-resources management. In short, I proposed moving from the central-planning concept currently in use to a market-based approach in order to increase efficiency, mission capability, and retention or job satisfaction of soldiers. This entry will outline a bit more of how the process could work. Some readers will have ideas that could improve the system or other considerations I didn’t think of; please include those in the comments section.
First, a quick refresher on some of the key tenets of the free-market system: A free-market is composed of individual actors motivated by profit competing for scarce resources which are allocated by price (that's my lay-definition). This is in contrast to a central-planning system in which resources are rationed by planners in accordance with a top-driven master-plan. The free-market system is more efficient than the centrally-planned system because individual actors have more local knowledge of their needs than does the central planner. To use Thomas Sowell’s example: A gas station owner on a street corner has more knowledge about what the locals will pay, when traffic is highest, what refreshments are selling, and etc., than does a corporate strategic planner a thousand miles away. If the strategic planner tries to dictate everything that the gas-station owner does in running his store, the result will be a less-efficient–though undeniably more uniform– and less profitable gas station. The Army has a centrally-planned human resources division. The premise of this series of posts is that there is a more efficient alternative, based on free-market theory.
So. The basis of the system is a personnel-marketplace, similar to what exists throughout America today. In this case, however, the system would be Army-internal, and the pool of potential candidates would come from either existing service-members, commissioning sources, recruits, or draftees, and the information clearing-house would be HRC.
Here’s how it would work: Units would have a budget determined by a number of factors. Individual service members would have records– essentially a resume package consisting of the ORB/ERB and past evaluations–at HRC. Units would post job openings, similar to what happens on monster.com or similar job opening sites. Individuals could contact the units or vice versa about job openings; mutually interested parties (units and service-members) would come up with and sign contracts assigning the individual to a job or range of jobs with a given unit for the contract-specified amount of time and pay. The individual would serve the terms of the contract, and at the end of the contract, the individual could re-negotiate or seek another opening in the Army. The Army could specify a minimum time in service for the individual and mission set for the unit as a general framework.
It’s that simple.
There are some additional refinements for the system, or rather, other considerations.
The only units involved in the bidding/hiring process would be divisions or equivalents. This would be done to keep the administrative competition at lower levels to a minimum, and enable them to fight wars. At the same time, it would give enough flexibility to tactical-level organizations that they could properly employ their local knowledge to compete for personnel. Corps is too high; Brigade is too low. Division looks just right. The current system allows units to request personnel based on their MTOE (Modified Table of Organization and Equipment); however, the actual allocation is up to, again, HRC, to come through and slice out personnel based on Army requirements. With a division- level manning program, soldiers would have visibility on the organization they were entering, stability, and be ensured that they were getting into a small enough organization that they wouldn’t be totally lost.
The budgetary and salary issues become a prominent issue in this discussion. Army personnel are paid on a fixed salary, with fixed benefits depending on their dependents and physical location. Retirement consists of a fixed percentage of the average of the 3 highest years of salary, as shown here, which starts at 50% for 20 years of service and moves up gradually with more years in uniform. This is quite the incentive to stay in the service. How would the free-market system deal with the retirement benefits package? This might be a case where the Department of the Army (DA) supplies funds for the benefits package, or alternatively, the package becomes fixed to rank and years in service regardless of the High 3 earning average. No doubt this would cause outcry from career officers, but it would be an excellent way to put to the test any claims of being in the service for the service and not the money. It would also be equitable from the paying units’ point of view– multiple units wouldn’t have to argue over who paid for retirement of the Colonel or Sergeant Major.
As a practical matter, this would have to be implemented in a phased manner, with units coming on-line in the system in a gradual manner, and individuals prior to the end of their first term-of-service being put under the new system. Current “lifers” have already legally committed to a system, and changing the terms of their current contracts would likely be illegal. This would also remove an institutional barrier against change–namely, the “I’m going to protect my piece of the pie” mentality of people in an organization. Newcomers would have eyes-open to what was going on and would be able to leave or to commit to more time in service.
This also raises the important question of having a draft vs. volunteer force. I believe a draft is a good idea for many reasons, but (and I say this without quantitative studies to back me up) I believe that either system would work equally well in the meritocratic Army-market.
Units would still receive a given mission-set requirement from Big Army and would have to meet evaluation and performance standards to earn a budget. The unit could man itself any way it liked, as long as it could fulfill the mission requirements of its various staff and operational functions. Budgeting would be a combination of evaluated performance from scheduled on-post exercises, Training Center rotations, and surprise/short-advance notice evaluations and exercises. Impending combat tours could be factored into budgeting to allow units to come up to strength– to compete with other units for personnel.
Now we have a system where units are free to work to meet their mission needs, balanced against a reasonable measure of performance, mixed with a price-based allocation system that meets service-members’ needs and avoids the surplus/shortage symptoms of a centrally managed economy. Let’s move on to some effects of the system.
Can the Army be efficient? Pt 3: Effects
I've covered a new idea for the Army's allocation of manpower, moving from a centrally-planned depot system to a free-market system of allocation. Now I'll explore some of the effects of implementing such a system.
A system like this would allow Army units much more flexibility in choosing their soldiers and leadership. The leadership selection would no longer be driven by HRC, and the implied importance of OERs and personal relationships; it would be driven by the units themselves, competing to acquire the best leadership available. This would go a long way to solving a long-standing problem of the military, namely, the ass-kissery so prevalent among Officers and NCOs alike. A bidding system would reduce--though not negate--the importance of subjective evaluations and place those evaluations in a subordinate role to the objective accomplishments of the individual, communicated formally (OER/ORB and enlisted counterparts) and informally (individual and unit reputation, interviews, et cetera).
Sought-after leaders would be the ones displaying the traits necessary to succeed. This would be effected through the public nature of Army missions and assignments. The Army is a relatively small community; there are extensive personal networks in the Army, and every level from individual through corps has a reputation in the relevant arena. For Staff Sergeants to Colonels in this system, reputation as well as job position filled would go a long way in determining worth, which is not something that the current OER/HRC system can necessarily claim. In short, the Army would take a sharp tilt towards a meritocratic method of advancement and promotion, based on performance in assignments.
As an end result, the Army's best leaders and soldiers would be rewarded for doing a good job, and non-performers would be relegated to positions they did passably, or they could opt out of the Army. Recruiting would go up if the volunteer Army remained--the Army would stop being a welfare agency, and instead become an opportunity for economic as well as service-oriented achievement--or a draft could fill slots based on losses. This last assertion is based on a back-of-envelope analysis, but seems to be born out based on why people join the military-- it's not based on service or nationalistic tendencies, but rather tends to be to get away from bad circumstances or get job training. Better opportunities would also equal better recruits joining up.
On strictly personnel-management based grounds, this would have a couple of other effects. Individuals would manage their own careers directly, instead of dealing with the caprices of a branch manager or Army-planned jobs. Organizations would manage their own personnel needs, instead of relying on an HRC which bases personnel allocation on an MTOE that is not always filled, or not always suited to the assigned mission. For an organization that is stretched thin, I know a lot of folks who are in positions that they shouldn't be; this either because there truly is no better place for them in the Army, or because the Army is doing a poor job of personnel allocation. I tend to believe the latter, though because I am not privvy to the HRC databases, my evidence is purely anecdotal.
Budget compliance should also increase. I have seen units purposely blow budgets in order to get more money, immediately or in the following year. This is a good tactic, in the military; but how far would it go in the civilian sector? There are two responses of the parent organization: 1) Go for it! Your division/organization is more important than the other things we have going on, so we'll give you more of our precious resources to execute, and 2) Tough noogies; you spent it, you're done. The Army, because the US is at war and because it is a government organization with access to gov't coffers, tends towards solution #1. This is justified on grounds of winning wars, but instead can frequently turn out to be cover for waste and inefficiency.
How would this system affect mission readiness? Well, if you follow the point of the system, which is that we're looking for the most efficient way to allocate the scarce personnel resources in the Army, then mission readiness and effectiveness would-- at a cursory glance-- increase. I am not sure what metrics to use for this question, although personnel turnover during training cycles and deployments could be one, surveys of army personnel and retention rates would work, and number of "Mission Accomplished" banners would certainly be a large one. Under this system, retention rates should go up as individuals find the units they are suited to, the home stations they desire, and the career experience they want.
However, in the current low-intensity, asymmetrical environment, measuring numbers of Missions Accomplished can be very difficult, particularly 1) in near-real-time, and 2) at the varying levels of operations. Which leads to the next point, covered in Objections, in the next post.
As always, I welcome comments and critique.
A system like this would allow Army units much more flexibility in choosing their soldiers and leadership. The leadership selection would no longer be driven by HRC, and the implied importance of OERs and personal relationships; it would be driven by the units themselves, competing to acquire the best leadership available. This would go a long way to solving a long-standing problem of the military, namely, the ass-kissery so prevalent among Officers and NCOs alike. A bidding system would reduce--though not negate--the importance of subjective evaluations and place those evaluations in a subordinate role to the objective accomplishments of the individual, communicated formally (OER/ORB and enlisted counterparts) and informally (individual and unit reputation, interviews, et cetera).
Sought-after leaders would be the ones displaying the traits necessary to succeed. This would be effected through the public nature of Army missions and assignments. The Army is a relatively small community; there are extensive personal networks in the Army, and every level from individual through corps has a reputation in the relevant arena. For Staff Sergeants to Colonels in this system, reputation as well as job position filled would go a long way in determining worth, which is not something that the current OER/HRC system can necessarily claim. In short, the Army would take a sharp tilt towards a meritocratic method of advancement and promotion, based on performance in assignments.
As an end result, the Army's best leaders and soldiers would be rewarded for doing a good job, and non-performers would be relegated to positions they did passably, or they could opt out of the Army. Recruiting would go up if the volunteer Army remained--the Army would stop being a welfare agency, and instead become an opportunity for economic as well as service-oriented achievement--or a draft could fill slots based on losses. This last assertion is based on a back-of-envelope analysis, but seems to be born out based on why people join the military-- it's not based on service or nationalistic tendencies, but rather tends to be to get away from bad circumstances or get job training. Better opportunities would also equal better recruits joining up.
On strictly personnel-management based grounds, this would have a couple of other effects. Individuals would manage their own careers directly, instead of dealing with the caprices of a branch manager or Army-planned jobs. Organizations would manage their own personnel needs, instead of relying on an HRC which bases personnel allocation on an MTOE that is not always filled, or not always suited to the assigned mission. For an organization that is stretched thin, I know a lot of folks who are in positions that they shouldn't be; this either because there truly is no better place for them in the Army, or because the Army is doing a poor job of personnel allocation. I tend to believe the latter, though because I am not privvy to the HRC databases, my evidence is purely anecdotal.
Budget compliance should also increase. I have seen units purposely blow budgets in order to get more money, immediately or in the following year. This is a good tactic, in the military; but how far would it go in the civilian sector? There are two responses of the parent organization: 1) Go for it! Your division/organization is more important than the other things we have going on, so we'll give you more of our precious resources to execute, and 2) Tough noogies; you spent it, you're done. The Army, because the US is at war and because it is a government organization with access to gov't coffers, tends towards solution #1. This is justified on grounds of winning wars, but instead can frequently turn out to be cover for waste and inefficiency.
How would this system affect mission readiness? Well, if you follow the point of the system, which is that we're looking for the most efficient way to allocate the scarce personnel resources in the Army, then mission readiness and effectiveness would-- at a cursory glance-- increase. I am not sure what metrics to use for this question, although personnel turnover during training cycles and deployments could be one, surveys of army personnel and retention rates would work, and number of "Mission Accomplished" banners would certainly be a large one. Under this system, retention rates should go up as individuals find the units they are suited to, the home stations they desire, and the career experience they want.
However, in the current low-intensity, asymmetrical environment, measuring numbers of Missions Accomplished can be very difficult, particularly 1) in near-real-time, and 2) at the varying levels of operations. Which leads to the next point, covered in Objections, in the next post.
As always, I welcome comments and critique.
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