The government incessantly copycats private sector business ideas.
For the military, almost all of that is wrong.
The military is the military, business is business.
The 360 degree review is the latest idiotic buzzword.
I was initimately involved with an HR project that was later abandoned when key players left the company. The key players were simply bolstering their own resumes.
After their departure, their successors already knew the thing was a waste so it was shelved.
Reading the comments on the story at the link it looks as is this setting of new standards is just another long series of eff ups the Navy leadership is implementing to degrade its fighting effectiveness.
It’s time to go back to what worked by stripping all the p.c. crap out and raising the standards back to where they were.
It only makes sense to me that in order to assess the qualities of a leader, one must talk to those he's actually led.
That's not to say it should be strictly a popularity contest as their superiors certainly also need to assess the individual's ability to accomplish the missions they've been assigned.
The problem for the military is that while in war leaders are required, in peacetime, managers are rewarded ahead of leaders. No one has yet solved this problem.
Just great, that will solve all the problems. The problem with adding more programs is that it takes time away from the rest of the an officers career path. Of any of the warfare in communities, SWO already spends the most time on post grad, JPME, and "career development." Maybe the problem with the community is the time that takes away from a sea shore rotation that builds the skills these officer need to run their ships.
The aviation community suffers on both ends. Officers have troubles meeting the wickets to make command. The officers that do make all the wickets do so by giving up at least one flying assignment so they aren't as experienced in their primary warfare specialty.
No training program will fix a CO like Graf, or screen her out of the selection process. She was picked for political reasons. In her wake she left a a pile of subordinates whose careers were scuttled while she played CAPT Queeg.
Promotion in the Navy enlisted ranks is by means of fleetwide exams with longevity as a tiebreaker.* It is certainly reasonable that candidates for command all meet a common standard, as those they command are required to do.
*As of my time in service, 1961-1964; if anything’s changed let me know.
The old boy’s club of ignorant, incompetent, brittle, arrogant, prissy prima donnas is not constructive to good discipline nor patriotism.
Getting input from those under the leaders should have been included a long time ago—with good sampling and iron-clad confidentiality.
There are wonderful officer and non-com leaders in the Navy. They can be incredibly self-less and faithful to the Constitution and the Republic.
And, as in any large group, there are some real dorks with more power than they should have ever been remotely allowed close to.
I do wonder . . . in terms of Ship CO’s . . . has the job been made almost impossible with all the constraints and requiremtns that may have little to do with running a ship well?
Some perfectionism re life/death, safety, survivability issues are vital. Some perfectionism stuff is silly to counterproductive to . . . in some contexts, unnecessarily potentially deadly, imho.
So he does what a good CO does and walks around the command to find out what is going on and how his subordinates are doing. That is very different than a 360 which is a bureaucratic process with a lot of high paid consultants wasting everyone's time.
Actually, he is not a good CO because if he had to talk to the XOs subordinates to decide not to recommend him for command, he was not doing his job to mentor the XO, after sufficient time at which he would know whether the XO was CO material or not.
All you guys have made excellent posts which I totally agrre with...
To add to pionts made, I’d say the “leadership” in the military services have just demonstrated how they “manage”, not lead by passing ok-ing the repael of DADT to give O’bummer a political win.
It was NOT good for the service and did NOT enhance the capabilty of our military to kill bad guys who want to hurt us.
I served 10 yrs as an O and supported hubs another 20 while he went up the chain...seen it all, heard it all, know a lot of the players personally and hated a lot of it.
Again, you guys are absolutely right!
(As for Graf, I’ll see your Graf and raise you six more females I knew who made it to 0-6 who had no business getting promoted...)
All you guys have made excellent posts which I totally agrre with...
To add to points made, I’d say the “leadership” in the military services have just demonstrated how they “manage”, not lead by passing ok-ing the repeal of DADT to give O’bummer a political win.
It was NOT good for the service and did NOT enhance the capabilty of our military to kill bad guys who want to hurt us.
I served 10 yrs as an O and supported hubs another 20 while he went up the chain...seen it all, heard it all, know a lot of the players personally and hated a lot of it.
Again, you guys are absolutely right!
(As for Graf, I’ll see your Graf and raise you six more females I knew who made it to 0-6 who had no business getting promoted...)