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O-4 List out (last year)
- Thread starter B.D. Drummond
- Start date
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
I don't think it's a nefarious plot. I probably misunderstood the paper, but the author made it sound like this was not an accident, as in the supposedly designator blind board didn't turn around at the end and say 'oops, we picked 50% 13xx and 90% other URL.'
Or, don't replace them. There are TONS of O4s and O5s manning pointless jobs on (select your favorite staff), who contribute little to the overall fight. This is (usually) not their fault, it's just a silly job that doesn't really need to exist, though it may of served a purpose at some point in the past.
I wouldn't call being an AW Mod Extraordinaire a silly useless job....
There are whole flag-level commands and staffs that should go away in the name of killing bureaucracy. Want personnel reform? Take the WWII USN org chart, take today's, and appoint a commission (66 percent civilian businesspeople, 33 percent military officers) whose task is to reduce 50 percent of the flag billets in the Navy to O-6 billets, reduce the number of stars necessary to hold the remaining ones, and gut their staffs accordingly. Secondary task: look at how many of the remaining O-6 billets can be held by an O-5.
Heck, make that DOD-wide. The Air Force would freak out.
Hozer does have a point about non-flying aviator billets, though.
Good luck with that. I don't disagree that many of our staffs are bloated and top-heavy, but mindless slashing (50% you speak of) is also frought with peril. There has already been a mandated 20% reduction in HQ staffs that the DoD is still wrestling with in terms of compliance. Believe it or not, there are a lot of areas where we're undermanned on the JS, I.E. GOFO billets not being filled or reliefs with gaps that prevent much needed turnover opportunities. There is a lot of functional redundancy (OSD/JS/COCOMs), but much of that due to statutory requirements. BL: It's a much more complex animal then most people might think.
But does it have to be?
Complexity doesn't equate to efficiency. Staffs that are undermanned is the fault of the detailers not controlling their billets properly. If there are bloated and/or overmanned staffs, it's not mindless cutting if the overmanning is removed.
I don't think that nittany was advocating just mindless slashing of staffs but a coherent and organized reduction in an much more top heavy force when compared to manning 50+ years ago.
I'm not making a value judgement on the efficiency of any given staff, just explaining that it's very easy for those of you (Nittany included) who haven't served on a large staff to think of it in anything but abstract terms. Given that, it's also easy to oversimplify solutions to perceived or actual problems. Does it need to be complex? I don't know. I just know that it is what it is and that there's a lot more involved in introducing the kinds of monumental (and aspirational) changes into big bureaucracies than some of you may appreciate.
This is the equivalent of a wardroom discussion environment, not a policy review board. Hence this is exactly the kind of place and the kind of discussions that we should be having. Talking about how inefficient and unorganized the staffs, acquisitions process, promotions boards, etc. are should be done here. Just because we are spitballing solutions that probably won't get implemented isn't a bad thing. You seem to repeatedly shoot down any thoughts of change for these processes.
Just because we have made FITREPS "kind of work," (if you know how to game them correctly) doesn't mean that they are efficient, or working as intended. Just because we found a place to stash many senior officers while still leaving other staffs shorthanded doesn't mean that the system shouldn't be changed. We all understand the improbability of true reform in these areas. But if no one discusses them if and we don't spitball answers, then we will assuredly be stuck with what we have until the system collapses under its own stupidity. I think this recent round of O-4 and DH promotions proves that we need reform. But hey, what do I know.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
Well, I also think there's a significant level of "We have the most important job ever and you can't afford to cut us" mantra in these organizations that muddies the water when people talk about making cuts to them. This isn't limited to DoD organizations, but state and federal agencies as a whole. It's only complicated because the decisionmakers in the process of where to make cuts are the same people who benefit financially from having all those top-heavy staffs around, as they provide ample promotion and job opportunity for them.
Having been on several 'joint' staffs, including one that made DC bureaucracy look lean and efficient, while some cuts are good to look at WWII staffs and leadership are a poor starting point. For one they had serious and significant problems back then with managing the forces they were leading, also the amount of information flowing in and out of the commands is many times more than it used to be (some of it useless but a lot of the info from intel to logisitics is vital and necessary) and while our forces and personnel have shrunk in size their greatly increased lethality coupled with a greater awreness of what is going on demands a lot more responsibility and control of those forces to a degree.
Bingo. Yes, as is often the case here, I was spitballing, and deliberately made my argument a bit arbitrary and a bit hyperbolic. I wanted to see what would happen if I kicked over the anthill; I really think if we collectively agreed to stop accepting so much self-inflicted pain, and at least tried to put half that pain into solving what Brett rightfully says are complicated, intractable, pain-in-the-ass structural problems, we'd be better off. Because RLSO is also right. Just because change is hard doesn't mean change is bad.
Flash has a point; we don't want to slavishly use WWII or any era as a baseline. But we have a bad habit of setting a system in stone, letting a bureaucracy grow up around it, and then saying "this is how it has to be." No, it doesn't. The only place it has to be that way is in our own minds. Other options still exist even if you don't realize that they do. Use the power we have, and persuade those who have the power we don't. If laws need to be changed, then laws need to be changed. Yeah, you have to evaluate, screen, and sometimes get rid of people. The goal is that when that is done, they don't think it's happened for stupid reasons. Fixing this properly is a continuous, iterative process.
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Please excuse my sidetracking off of the current issue being discussed for a moment, but...
I completely buy into the idea that Active Line results would come out earlier than Reserve Line since they met 2 weeks earlier. However, how in the world does Active Staff meet two weeks after Reserve Line yet their results were just posted? I know the timeline for each isn't the same, and I know I can't apply common sense to anyting having to do with the Navy and promotions, but come on!
Ok rant over, resume discussion on the botched Active Line results.
I completely buy into the idea that Active Line results would come out earlier than Reserve Line since they met 2 weeks earlier. However, how in the world does Active Staff meet two weeks after Reserve Line yet their results were just posted? I know the timeline for each isn't the same, and I know I can't apply common sense to anyting having to do with the Navy and promotions, but come on!
Ok rant over, resume discussion on the botched Active Line results.