I'm firmly convinced that a two track system is necessary, gut wrenching as that thought may be to many. The Per community will trot out Congressional objections to such a move, a partly valid complaint but their underlying objection to such a process will be that it is far more work, accusations of unfairness will be rampant and they would prefer to not have to deal with those. More importantly, they may make a mistake for which they might be held accountable. There are many arguments to oppose it and the only real argument for it is more combat effectiveness. How important is that?
A secondary argument for it is the opportunity all will have to truly develop expertise in a filed instead of being marginally competent generalists -- as one Generalist, a two star, once told me: "Every time I'd almost learned what I needed to know about doing a job, they moved me to new and different job..." If you want persons with expertise to advise and advocate, they need, as you noted, to be developed. The current system discourages that for too many.
We have padded the Staff numbers at all levels and Parkinson's Law is in effect. We did that to build an Officer strength cushion and a mobilization base -- something Congress generally opposes for some odd reason -- there are better ways to do that. As an aside, we're trying to make NCOES emulate the Officer system and that is really bad mistake which will adversely impact mobilization should it be necessary...
Up or out needs to go. In my last job, I had a problem with a rogue Colonel and needed to rope him in. We had a Major, due for mandatory retirement. I called him in and said "Bill, I need you to do this..." No dummy he, he said "Okay you figure since I've got to retire, he can't hurt me and I can rein him in a bit?" Yep. Worked quite well and no poor major got his career wrecked by a loose cannon. Point of all that is the current OER system and Army philosophy totally discourage initiative and risk taking. That is just flat criminal. Combat is a risk and initiative is necessary, it should be encouraged, not stifled. Peer and subordinate ratings should be required as well as senior ratings for all ranks (that will be even more gut wrenching than a dual track officer system
) . The form should be a 3x5 card...
The Task, Condition and Standard system has developed a generation of leaders who can do certain tasks well but do not really know how to amalgamate tasks for mission accomplishment. Really smart guys figure it out and make it work -- too many do not because of that flawed training process which force concentration of enabling skills and knowledges and not on mission sets.
Originally Posted by Ken White
I'm firmly convinced that a two track system is necessary, gut wrenching as that thought may be to many. The Per community will trot out Congressional objections to such a move, a partly valid complaint but their underlying objection to such a process will be that it is far more work, accusations of unfairness will be rampant and they would prefer to not have to deal with those. More importantly, they may make a mistake for which they might be held accountable. There are many arguments to oppose it and the only real argument for it is more combat effectiveness. How important is that?
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