What they don't teach at Leavenworth

Army, Jul 2003 by Eden, Steven

Action Officer's Orientation

"WELCOME, SOLDIER, TO THE world of higher headquarters. Finding it a bit confusing, a little intimidating? Afraid that you can't pull your weight in the unfamiliar environment of conferences, working groups, process action teams and other various 'adhocracies' that make the Army run? Don't feel bad, newbie, I've been there. After years enjoying the simple, Spartan pleasures of troop units, we all end up here. It's tough, but the secret is learning the language. If you can learn the lingo well enough to employ it in your PowerPoint slides, you'll find that everything else becomes easy. Competence, substance, even coherence fade in importance against the ability to brief smoothly-not to mention that the language of higher headquarters reduces the strain of original thought and all but eliminates the need for critical analysis.

"First, though, let me see that rucksack. Here, get rid of those counseling forms-you're not a captain anymore, for crying out loud; what do you need regular, written counseling for? Nobody outside your immediate circle of friends is going to know what the hell you do anyway. And these staff manuals, you ask? Dump'em, soldier. There are no operation orders above the division level and certainly none in TDA-land. You may have needed them to move that tank company of yours around, but mammoth major commands with hundreds of moving parts can get by on e-mails and PowerPoint. Hmmm, picture of your kids ... better keep that. Holy cow, what is this? A calendar? Typical rookie mistake. You think life was unpredictable in your old battalion? As Dr. Claus said, you have no idea.

"Okay, let's talk turkey. Your life from here on in revolves around briefing slides-preparing them, staffing them, reworking them and, someday, if you're good enough, presenting them. How good you make them depends on verbiage, so let's cover a few of the basics.

* "Lesson one: Never use a simple word when you can come up with something more impressive. I have a few favorites that even a newbie like you can employ fairly painlessly. 'Leverage,' for instance, sounds much better than 'use,' and you can stick it in almost anywhere. 'Optimize' is another good verb-it's a positive, proactive kind of verb that gives the illusion of precision without actually tying you down to any kind of measurable standard. Get some excellent adjectives in the old kit bag, too, like 'overarching' and 'seamless.' That last one is especially effective because it allows you to make an otherwise ludicrous claim-that your system or process or whatever is not subject to the laws of friction-without being called on the carpet for it. Finally, we have a relatively new suffix that is all the rage now: appending '-centric' to a word can make a mundane statement seem innovative and sexy. Here, try it with the following example: This is an infantry brigade.'"

"This is an infantry-centric organization."

"Yeah, good, you're getting the idea. It may seem like basic stuff, but you have to understand something your Combined Arms and Service Staff School instructor never taught you. Senior leaders nowadays don't have time for deep reflection or thoughtful analysis. My old mentor, God bless him, said nobody above the rank of major ever reads anything longer than 1,500 words. That's why 400-page documents always have a three paragraph executive summary in front. So when you get your 15 minutes at the podium, you have to maintain the initiative and control the pace. You've got to gloss over the rough spots because they provoke questions; that leads to discussion and next thing you know the general is off to his next meeting and all you have is a tasker. Which takes me to my next lesson.

* "Lesson two: Make smooth the path. There is no problem or glitch that can't be hand-waved away if you couch it in the right terms. For instance, let's say you've got a proposal for a new organization that has one big drawback: it is dependent on a particular weapon system to make it combat effective. If that weapon system can't be used because of enemy countermeasures, weather, terrain or some other factor, the unit collapses, the mission fails and soldiers die. In more innocent times, our forefathers called that a 'single point of failure.' Today, we call it a 'critical enabler.' Boy, that's the brass ring. If you can get your widget labeled a critical enabler the bean counters will carry you to the bank on their backs.

"Now, what if your organization is so hideously complex that the failure of any component causes the whole house of cards to collapse? Call it a 'system of systems.' Everybody likes systems-the phrase connotes a well-oiled machine rather than the Rube Goldberg contraption you've actually created. Plus, you'll have every proponent, project manager and contractor in the room licking their chops in anticipation. They understand the benefits of huge, complicated projects where everyone has a vote, no one has responsibility and those nominally in charge (if they can be identified at all) have neither the time nor the personnel to run things.