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union ever was.
Those Screening Boards Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine
It is difficult to find a colonel in the Army or the Air Force who does not believe he has an outside chance of making brigadier general before he finishes his 30-year career. But, it is equally difficult to find a single Navy captain who shares the confidence and aspirations of his Army and Air Force contemporaries. The Navy is demotivating a large proportion of its officer corps with a series of screening boards which identify those officers who are no longer competitive for stars much too early in the game.
The unfortunate effect is that the Navy has a disproportionate number of officers in the grades of lieutenant commander, commander, and particularly captain who are essentially "retired on active duty."
While the Army and Air Force have found a number of ways to blur their checkpoints along the trail to a successful career and to “string their people along” until their thirty-first year of service, Navy personnel managers have gone in the opposite direction.
We have come close to issuing to all line officers a ticket which contains a number of blocks that must be punched in order to be eligible for the next promotion, selection, or careerenhancing assignment.
Failure to acquire just one punch in the appropriate spot and the game is over. No performance of duty, however superb and notable, in the wrong assignment will compensate for the missing ticket punch.
Even if the conclusion stated above is wrong, the common perception of its validity has its inevitable effect. Men simply do not perform as well when they see no tangible reward, such as promotion and pay raises, to be gained from their best effort.
Naval officers have their last screening for executive officer billets much too early in their careers. Commanders receive their last review for command in the grade of commander, before they have had a chance to show what they can do in their present rank. The most demotivating screening of all takes place in the grade of captain, where a candidate’s last screen takes place before he has three years in grade, leaving seven years of well- paid, but incentive-free service ahead of him.
Right or wrong, an executive officer’s billet (at least in the ship drivers’ community where retention is worst) is seen as the sine qua non of making commander. Command in the grade of commander is seen as essential to making captain, and major command, ashore or at sea, is a “must” milestone on the path to stars.
The personnel managers of the Navy have not made the system any more fair by convening a formal screening board for every job but garbage barge coxswain. Instead, they have achieved a condition in which an unacceptably large number of officers are serving out their time in the Navy, with their eyes on second careers and their motivation to perform well seriously affected by their premature screening out from meaningful competition.
When the Navy had 1,000 ships, dozens more aircraft squadrons, and a larger number of officers, it did not appear necessary to resort to whole congeries of formal screening boards to match outstanding officers with appropriate career-enhancing assignments. Contemporaries of the “water-walkers” were content to labor mightily in their current assignments to earn later consideration for the “good jobs.”
Why our smaller, more efficient Navy must reassure its “water- walkers” that they are on track so early, while eliminating the vast majority of naval officers from serious consideration by “screenings," is a mystery.
That which may have appeared ap propriate during the Zumwalt ^
people-oriented initiatives needs to reexamined in the light of current conditions.
Adding to the problem is the faCt that the A-B-C type, machine- readable fitness report is a management disaster. _
The ideal bell-shaped curve has e come a misshapen blob, concentrate in the one, five, and ten percent c° umns, and the remarks sections have become so inflated as to be meaning^ less. Commanding officers who sptea out their grades are inadvertently shafting their subordinates.
Neither the Bureau of Naval Pef sonnel nor the screening boards can tell the good guys from the bad gLl^ anymore. The rank and file of the o cer corps have begun to lose faith <n the fairness and impartiality of the assignment/promotion process.
The specter of “sponsors” intert ing more and more with the assign ment and selection process is very real. The nuclear power-trained un is more firmly entrenched in all the key jobs than the carrier aviator s
Command of a ship, which use ^ be an end in itself to dedicated nav officers, has become just another ticket to be punched.
Our most recently departed Secte tary of the Navy, who crawled ^ through more boilers than any fla£ fleer in the Navy, with the possib ^ exception of Rear Admiral Bulkekf InSurv fame, put his finger on the ^ problem in his last charge to the Rear Admiral Selection Board:
“Bear in mind that documente ^
ceptional performance of a unit
spiritless hulks with all the
juice ;
Any commanding officer who leaves only dispirited exhaustion,
Alexander’s “mistake” in help- Set one Lieutenant Commander arcus Aurelius Arnheiter assigned to
reporting on board.) The “Arn-
were rising to
utive officer and commanding of- !r billets.
Th •
c0e evidence that this is so is not Vp,C bsive. The number of COs and
*°s b,
SjVg 'e'ng relieved for cause is exces-
r°ving significantly, and the fun nearjf e 2est °f going to sea have
°f off, Nu ^ards
tioi
eed without the payment of reten-
0rganization may be purchased at considerable personnel or material cost. I am concerned lest we reward cadership that mortgages future capability for short term gain.” he ticket-punchers who use com-
^h&nd only for their personal ad- cement have a tendency to leave
behind squeezed out of them.
, hy
behind
and^1655 h‘S Battle Efficiency “E” g his up check from the Propulsion *amining Board, does the Navy and t'* S^*‘P a disservice which is difficult Pleasure but truly immoral in its Sequences.
nia^ *S 8eneral’y rec°gn‘zed that for- ^ screening boards were established
a Navy over-reaction to Captain U‘ck -I L.i^
'Ufi
(P|mmand the USS Vance (DER-387). w eutenant Commander Arnheiter afte re^eve<^ his command 99 days
to'te£ Affair” is now dim, dark his- tJT ut its effect in the permanent es- ^h '^Hbenr of screening boards, f0 screen too early, with too much pr^'-y > and with cutoff dates which „j Uc*e the favorable screening of a<jJe hloomers” continues to produce forVer- effects on both officer per- ^ance and retention.
°h this might be acceptable if reSu^ts were more favorable, and if could be assured that the best and st effective officers
' The readiness of our ships is not ceased to exist for the majority 'cers and enlisted men alike.
I ear management, which re- are ^ hard-charging workaholics who sUcr- lyers rather than leaders, cannot
tijre °nuses (bribes) and the expending bf vast amounts of treasure which nllC|ee appropriate and necessary for ear ballistic missile submarines
but will never be made available for the maintenance and operation of the Surface Navy, particularly in a period of galloping inflation.
Spinoffs from the nuclear management program designed to perfect the surface forces depend on both a proliferation of fault-finders and the use of terror tactics, the acceptance of which can be purchased only at an unacceptable price.
The most marvelous and sophisticated hardware, sensors, weapon systems, propulsion plants, and command and control devices will not ensure an adequate defense if there is no pleasure to be derived from making things run, and from organizing a community of sailors and officers whose commitment to their ship or unit and the Navy transcends the material rewards to be gained from service therein.
Current trends have taken most of the fun out of being a sailor, whether he be officer or enlisted. We need to get back to the drawing board for a success-oriented blueprint for change or get ready to start hiring mercenaries.
The intelligent use and management of human resources in the Navy must supersede the current methods which are perceived as exploitation, even when the gut feelings of young sailors and officers are not articulated with genuine clarity. They vote with their feet, and too many neither complete honorable first enlistments nor opt for careers when their first contractual obligations have been discharged.
A searching reexamination of how we deal with people and how we over manage individual naval units must be undertaken. Whatever study is ordered, however, must not have its conclusions preordained. (We have had too many such studies.)
Navy Dept.,
Washington, D. C. 20370 Phone: (202) OX 4-1638
NAVY
MUTUAL AID ASSOCIATION
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Until we solve our people problems (and they are not entirely rooted in low pay, erosion of benefits, or dwindling commissary subsidies), the Navy will continue to decline as an effective keeper of the peace and a credibly efficient instrument of national policy.