THE DISMAL OFFICER PROMOTION PROCESS

The method of promoting US military officers is pathetic. After decades of service and hundreds of thousands of dollars in training costs, promotion boards devote just a few minutes to review some brief performance evaluations to decide which officers should be promoted. The military will pay for officers to attend four years of college. It will pay for graduate school and foreign military schools. It will pay travel costs for months of instruction at professional schools.

However, when it comes to the key decision of which expensively trained officers should be promoted and remain in service, promotion boards spend just a few minutes for each officer to review some evaluations. This total reliance on brief, written evaluations has numerous faults. It assumes that officers who write them are competent to fairly evaluate those in their charge, and assmues they have writing skills to accurately communicate their view. In addition, none of the armed services have been able overcome the human tendancy to inflate reports to help subordinates advance, or to write poor reports on those who are unsupportive of their unprofessional schemes for career advancement. Finally, officers with difficult assignments are likely to make mistakes, so career officers avoid assignments or any actions which may result in mistakes leading to a career-ending less than perfect eval.

The officer promotion process can be greatly enhanced by dedicating more resources to the process. The traditional method of holding an annual boards in Washington DC worked well when our peacetime military had fewer than 10,000 officers. However, our nation now maintains a peacetime military with over 200,000 active duty commissioned officers. As a result, annual promotion boards must sift through thousands of files within a few weeks. It is not surprising that they adopt a scoring method based on "ticket-punching" achievments, and blacklist anyone with an imperfect report.

Promotion to O-2 and O-3 is automatic unless an officer has a pathetic service record. Current "DOPMA" guidelines call for around 80% of O-3s to advance to O-4, 70% of O-4s to advance to O-5, and 50% of O-5s to advance to O-6. (Promotion to the General officer ranks is political and very competitive and is addressed in this article TENURE GENERAL OFFICERS.) New policies are needed for competitive promotions to 0-4, O-5, & O-6. The basic problem that is no tangible measurement for this competition exists except how much the officer has pleased his raters, what positions he has held, and what medals he as "earned."

Since people like people like themselves, pleasing ones raters means adopting their hobbies and habits. This may mean playing tennis with the boss, inviting him to football games, helping build his deck, or attending his church. On the other hand, some officers are rated low because they smoke, married a foreigner, or refused to sumbit false reports so the rater would look good. Another problem is that some officers avoid conflict by giving everyone a perfect eval, while others feel it is their duty to provide an accurate report with lower markings.

Competition for ideal career assignments is intense, which often includes trading favors, or knowing a connected family member or buddy. Finally, "earning" medals mostly a selfish pursuit which leads to bureaucratic games and even poor combat decisions that destroys morale. All this produces an officer corps that and is dedicated to looking good rather than doing good. Mistakes are not allowed, which often results in false reports and cover-ups. The goal is receive a perfect evaluation in which all marks are the highest possible. Any mark less than perfect is considered an unsatisfactory eval.

Promotion boards need more insight. The first improvement to limit the pool of officers each promotion board can review to 100-200 officers, which will require permanent boards to review several groups of officers of the same grade each year. This will triple the amount of time each board has to review and discuss the performance of each officer. In addition, permanent boards will consist of officers assigned for one year, compared to today's ad hoc annual boards of temporarily assigned officers anxious to finish up the board's enormous workload.

This additional time can be used to allow each officer to appear before a board. Each officer will have ten minutes to sell himself in front of the board, by reviewing his duties and performance, including a chance to explain any imperfect reports. This allows board members to personaly see if that officer has a commmand presence or is overweight. The only look boards have today are a color photo, which some officers have professionally "brushed up" to look better.

After the officer finishes his ten minute career briefing, each board member may ask about the officer's record. Personal questions must be prohibited, like: "Who did you vote for?", "Are you related to Admiral Worth? "Why haven't you married?" Question time will allow the board to see if officer is articulate, confident, and informed, and allows clarification of confusing elements in evaluations or assignments. This is similar to local boards used effectively by commands for meritorious promotions for junior enlisted.

In order to save time and money, each service may establish regional boards. For example, rather than flying most all officers to Washington DC to stay in high priced hotels, the Navy may establish permanent Atlantic boards in Norfolk and Pacific boards in San Diego for promotions to O-4 and O-5. Since about half of all Navy officers live near these areas, transportation and temporary billeting costs can be cut in half. Another option is for the board to travel. It is cheaper for the Navy to send the board and its support staff to Hawaii for two months to review three groups of O-3s, than to send those 500 or so officers to Washington DC for a week. Such trips would be enjoyable to board members and less stressful for those reviewed for promotion.

To keep costs low, a second change will not allow "passed over" officers a second chance at promotion the next year. Only 1% of "passed over" officers are selected for promotion the following year, so they often spend their final year looking for a job while receiving a government paycheck. Since boards will convene several times a year rather than annually, the promotion review of an officer with missing records, a legal issue, an illness, injury, or personal problem can shift to a board a few months later for consideration. If the services were freed of the "second chance" formality, they could devote more resources to ensure a through intial selection process.

A third change is to use an officer's appearance for pre-screening. Some officers use their influence within a command to evade body fat limits, hide a disability like a knee injury, or cheat on physical fitness tests. Therefore, a medical team should screen officers, and a physical fitness test required. Failures will be reported to the board, which will look bad since an officer with a health problem had the chance to request that his promotion review be delayed and shifted to a later board. However, the board will accept some excuses, such as an officer who was shot while in combat a few months prior and has yet to fully recover.

A fourth change is to require the GMAT test, as explained here: GMAT. This will provide the board with a fair, tangible measurement of an officer's potential. Officers could take this test at nearby test sites within two years of the board, or it could be administered during their visit to the board, assuming the results can be provided to the board the next day.

In summary, an officer eligible for promotion will be ordered to the board for five days of temporary duty. A day to travel if required, then a day to recover from travel, attend an orientation brief, and perhaps take the GMAT. The third day will include a health and body fat screening and a physical fitness test. The officer will appear before the board on the fourth day (which will have the results of his recent tests), then a day to travel home if required. Promotion boards will spend around 40 minutes reviewing each officer: ten minutes to read through his record, ten minutes for the officer's personal career brief, then twenty minutes for questions. Therefore, they will review around a dozen officers a day, so the board will require about 2-3 weeks to review a group of 100-200 officers for promotion.

All these changes will not solve the problem of fairly evaluating officers for promotion. Good proposals to change the written evaluation process have been presented in books and journals.

However, the four changes here will make a huge difference in the selection process. It will allow a physical and mental review of each officer and allow them to particpate, instead of waiting for publication of a list compiled by a distant promotion board. Promoting the best officers is extremely important and it is past time for the US military improve this process.

-------------------------------------------------------

As a result, officers will be busy during their two weeks assignment for promotion board reviews. They will have to appear before the board, take two written tests, take a physical fitness test, and play 20 or so games of Chess with peers; time limits..

This system would cause a massive shift in the motivation of career military officers. Devoting efforts to pleasing their raters will remain extremely important. OutsidersCarrer officers today

Officers will read all the books on their services professional reading list, probably more than once. They will spend time

They will exercise more and spend play several chess games each week.

; only around 2.5% of O-6s are promoted. Therefore, it seems wasteful and expensive to invite 1000 eligible O-6s for promotion screening when only 50 can be promoted. It may be best for the board to have a record screening phase in which just 100 prospects are chosen and invited for the personal review. These 100 prospects would also undergo the health and body fat screening and take a physical fitness test after they arrive. This may red flag several prospective O-6s since these issues are more a problem with age.

The board would interview the remaining to choose the 50 best for promotion. Ideally, this board will act as an assignment board as well. They will not promote the 50 most impressive O-6s, but will select the best O-6 to fill each specfic O-7 vacancy. At this level, all those under consideration have impressive records. Therefore, it is best for the service to select those whose backgrounds make them most qualified to fill each O-7 billet. Likewise, the O-8 promotion boards should act as assignment boards, selecting the best qualified. bap