Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving

[Wiseman]

I don't understand why the author believe that the private world is somehow immune to bureaucracy. The business world is heavily prestige oriented ( i.e what school did you go to?) and there are always internal bureaucracies where people who are in good graces with management, get promoted, and the people who do the work get stuffed either because they didn't go to a good school or that they are not of the best of friends with the people responsible for their career development. The prime example, although in a different industry, would be Genentech they have problems that senior management does not reward top performers but the top brown nosers.

[Go Devil]

Intelligent, motivated individuals with a high level of SA will always make or take opportunities to better themselves or their situation; when encountering ceilings of ignorance, said individuals will always find a way to attain their goals.

Any organization that fails to privide an advantageous stimulus for such individuals will find itself empty of quality people.

[Tree Potato]

Anyone remember SecDef Rumsfeld's attempts to change the gov't civilian personnel system to value merit and not just longevity? NSPS has been killed, and longevity returns to reign supreme. I'm skeptical of any effort to increase the value of merit in any of our personnel systems.

[Tree Potato]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

IMHO a large part of the problem is the rating system officers and now NCO's get. Any black mark can kill your carrear sooo officers that move up tend to be better politicans than leaders and in turn reinforce that mentality.

Amen, brother... but it's even worse than that in the AF. The fear of black marks is so great that even those deserving them are sheltered. After firing a flight commander for a laundry list of reasons and writing a 'referral' OPR, a general officer up the chain paid me a visit out of concerns for the officer's career. It started in typical transmit mode of 'this is unacceptable' and lasted nearly 2 hours, but after showing multiple documents backing up everything stated in the report the general signed with no changes. It's disturbing how difficult it was to officially document the ugly truths when it would have been easy to write a bland report and ignore the officer's demonstrated unsat performance and behavior.

[PRB]

...and the grass is always greener.
Many young 'O's think that they will be the captain of their ship in the civvy world without the 'crap' they had to put up with in the military.
Naive. People are people and the same conditions exist in any business.
I've talked to many that have left and are now in the business world and 90% have told me they made a childish mistake. Even the guys making more dough. They miss the culture.

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by PRB

...and the grass is always greener.
Many young 'O's think that they will be the captain of their ship in the civvy world without the 'crap' they had to put up with in the military.
Naive. People are people and the same conditions exist in any business.
I've talked to many that have left and are now in the business world and 90% have told me they made a childish mistake. Even the guys making more dough. They miss the culture.

You nailed it.

Officers are too damn honest to make it in the Civilian World, anyway.

Take Maj Williams, for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IByDSLeM6Lk

[TrueBeliever]

Originally Posted by Tree Potato

Anyone remember SecDef Rumsfeld's attempts to change the gov't civilian personnel system to value merit and not just longevity? NSPS has been killed, and longevity returns to reign supreme. I'm skeptical of any effort to increase the value of merit in any of our personnel systems.

NSPS is what came to mind as I read this article also...it was a good idea that unfortunately did not survive.

[ZonieDiver]

Unless that is being done it is noting more than a useless piece of paper that takes up valuable time and distracts from training.

In my limited experience, that is often the case. On more than one occasion, the rating scheme was changed to remove me as 'rater' of an individual for whom I had written a less than stellar, yet totally honest, appraisal of his performance.

The comment given as justification was, 'You'll end his career.'. That was the idea.

[Wiseman]

Politics does also have an effect in the pharmaceutical industry even when it comes to rating. I won't name the company, lets say it's really really big and reputable, but they do 360 reviews and one of my friends was trying to get in and during the interview he mentioned his friends' name who did a favorable review of the interviewer ( it was agreed upon ) at one point. The interviewer gave my friend an offer.

For those of you who have experience LDAC, NALC, or camp as it was called in the early days. If you had some personal problems with some Cadets during the course, you might get screwed over during peer evals. They won't kick you out like I heard from people who attended Ranger School but your overall eval might be just a bit lower.

[KLB]

Interesting read, but I think the economy has reversed that trend the past couple of years. Still, most of the officers I knew on AD left because they could double their pay on the outside. When you factor families, thats understandable - although many continued in the reserves. There are outstanding officers throughout the army, not just in SF. Some of the officers I served with at USAMRIID are among the smartest people I've ever known. A few of the Captains I knew are Colonels today. And one is a BG. Outstanding all.