Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
...(a Commander) is to inspire by some way, act, or process his men to perform their duties, and to execute the missions tasked to his unit...however, I believe that leading and planning are two separate and distinct functions...I certainly think there is room to make staffs more powerful and more effective.
A point on Command -- leading and inspiring is good but not a mandatory item; unfortunately, getting people to lay their lives on the line requires more than leadership and inspiration. It requires the force of law and command authority. That's why commanders are not called leaders.

Leading -- or commanding -- and planning are indeed two separate functions. However, the Company Commander is responsible for both and has no staff to assist. Higher commanders have staffs to assist but the responsibility for the plan is theirs, not the staff's...

I've already said but will reiterate because it's important -- staffs are too powerful now; they need less and not more power.
... I think the Army only gives lip-service to character development and can do much more in that regard.
No, the Army cannot do much more for character development, it does not have the time -- and more importantly, that is NOT the Army's job; that was the job of parents, educators and society. If a person in the Army has character flaws, place the blame where it belongs.
...I will dispute that adversarial decision-making necessarily undermines loyalty or teamwork. It can and it does undermine, but I do not think that it must necessarily follow from disagreement as you suggest...
Adverserial decision making undermines cooperation and / or teamwork -- as you'll later see -- far more importantly, it just takes up too much time. In an academic exercise, it can be illuminating -- in combat it is an attempt to replace a rapid good enough plan with a far too slow closer to perfection plan. Won't work -- will get people killed.
...Part of my intent is to find out (1) whether alternative relationships exist in other staff systems and (2) if such alternatives can produce better results than what we have now.
You say better results. On what basis do you think current results are unacceptable?
If personality types have a measurable impact on performance, then I think taking advantage of that is something worth looking into.
They have been looked into, numerous times by untold numbers of people and organizations. Check the research data; no sense in reinventing a wheel.
...I'm very interested in the abstract principles and assumptions that goven commander-staff relationships, and what, if anything, can be modified and improved. Obviously my comments so far indicate an interest in increasing staff powers relative to a commander. That's liable to make the commander types upset.
Abstract principles are all very well. It has been my observation that entirely too much effort in the Army is directed toward those at the expense of preparation for dealing with reality. If you're going to increase the power of the staff vis a vis the commander, you're going to turn over 5,000 years of military history around -- good luck with that.

You might want to eschew the abstract principles and try for practical solutions that can realistically be expected to offer a prospect of improvement...
I think the major contributing factor to our disagreement is the fundamental contradiction in our initial assumptions: I believe your assumption is that an intuitive, direct single decision-maker will make, on average, better (or more relevant?) decisions than a collaberative, deliberate process. I am assuming the opposite. Am I accurate? If so, what do you think are the implications of those opposing assumptions?(emphasis added / kw)
Might I suggest that your statement of your assumption appears to be correct as this thread illustrates but that your stated belief that RTK's assumption is as you state may be in error as in his case it is not an assumption at all but an acceptance of demonstrated fact?

I'd also very strongly suggest that you replace the word I emphasized with 'timely.' You may or may not wish to do that; I can assure you that most people in combat will do so.
...if a staff were semi-autonomous...
Why would anyone want a staff that was semi autonomous??? Who would they serve??? Far more germane to the issue, what purpose would they serve???
Do you think the thoroughness of MDMP is effective? Also, if a staff were semi-autonomous, do you think it would be helpful for it to run continuous MDMP (with the necessary changes) similar to continuous IPB?
No and no.