Staff Officer Education?

[GBNT73]

Staff = bureaucracy. I mean that in the objective, academic sense, not the colloquial, derogatory sense. It is a social-collective all its own, with typologies and dynamics governing structures and relations throughout. We expect our people to operate -- thrive, even -- in this kind of environment, yet we do not teach them about it. This would be useful not just for staff, but for commanders (since we are a leader-centric organization) and just about everyone else as all are touched or even governed by the influences of the "laws" of bureaucracy and the ill-fitted organizational types to which we are married.

The fields of organizational sciences and collective action bring quite a bit of research to this area and we do not touch it. Authors like Schein, Mintzburg, Arquilla, Barabasi, Moffat, James Wilson, Zegart, Senge and Rothstein all touch upon organizational structure, flow, culture, and "fitness" of organizational types and the environments that surround them and are contained within them. Some, like Arquilla and Rothstein, deal directly with military issues of organizational mis-fit.

We barely study anything from this field in the brief overview of the Army as a "learning organization." What little study we do engage in begins just as the leadership FM: with the presumption that the US Army is a learning organization. That presumption itself is indicative of the lack of understanding of what a "learning organization" actually is. Those of us who have studied the above issues will say that the Army is NOT a learning organization, though it does contain people and groups who do learn. The Army is the very difinition of the "traditional" model, as opposed to the "learning" model. The difference is transparent to those who have not studied it, and thus it makes for rather silly discussion in the halls of Ft Leavenworth, Carlisle Barracks, and the satellite campuses.

[Onion]

Here is the best answer for what the staff officers are expected to do after completing the 11 month course.

Upon graduation of the course the officers shall be prepared to work in the following positions:
- Commanders at battalion and formation level
- Staff positions in national central staffs
- Staff positions in NATO/EU HQ and in multinational tactical and operational level HQs
- Senior instructors at national and international military educational and training establishments

Thanks for all of the replies so far, all very useful.

[BayonetBrant]

I think that description is much more suited to a higher level than our current mid-career staff college in the US. It's almost approaching War College level, but War College attendees will have been prior BN Commanders.

[Ski]

Considering that only 15-20% of all American LTC's go on to command battalions, it's apparent that CGSC is designed to produce staff officers. Guess that's just how it goes when the personnel system is still designed to accept a large influx of draftees into the active forces as per the Industrial Age model.

Fully agree with GBNT73's comments. Individual level learning - and desire to learn - is evident...but it's a case by case basis.

[BayonetBrant]

Ski- my response was based on the post immediately above it (by Onion), who was laying out the goals for his staff college following a lot of responses from the crowd.

While many of the responses have been CGSC-specific, Onion (writing from Estonia) seems like he was looking for a more general set of ideas, and perhaps his goals are a bit higher than where we shoot for CGSC.

[sullygoarmy]

While many of the responses have been CGSC-specific, Onion (writing from Estonia) seems like he was looking for a more general set of ideas, and perhaps his goals are a bit higher than where we shoot for CGSC.

....Not hard to do when you have the "No Major Left Behind" program.

[John T. Fishel]

the duty positions you have in mind. But what I don't know is what you expect each of those duty positions to do. Let me address NATO and multinational staff officers.
Learning Objective (LO) 1: Describe NATO staff functions. Compare those to other coalition staff functions and the staff functions in your own military. Demonstrate how they are similar and how they differ.
LO 2: Demonstrate the ability to perform the roles and functions of C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 ... Cn.
CONDITION: Command Post or Staff Exercise
STANDARD: Produce an acceptible solution to the operational problem posed by the exercise as determined by the exercise controllers.

The format I have suggested is that of Task, Condition, Standard which TRADOC uses. I modified it to use LO (We used TLO and ELO at Leavenworth when I taught there but I never saw much utility in that formulation.) rather than tasks but you get the idea. This is hardly the only way to set up your course but it is a good place to start making the appropriate adaptations - especially ones that fall within the military traditions of the country. Culture, after all, does count.

Hope this is useful to you.

Cheers

JohnT