If I could change one thing in personnel policy (9): Get rid of the Army’s branches

By Col. Chip Bircher, U.S. Army

Best Defense personnel contest entry

“You will nary find a single source anywhere that defends the current way that we run our personnel system except many people will lament how hard it is to actually change it. As a concept — no one defends it at all.” — Brad R. Carson, undersecretary of the Army, Human Dimension Panel, 2014 AUSA Convention, Oct. 16

Extremely tough challenge, picking only one thing to change when, as Undersecretary Carson discusses, “We have a system in place that is archaic — that now works against us — rather than helping us.” But I’ll take the challenge: we have to change how we manage officers by branch and functional area. Yes, I do realize I may be stoned for heresy.

I read the Human Dimension White Paper and listened to the panel discussion on the Human Dimension last month at the AUSA Convention. My first thoughts were, “Finally — someone’s willing to have the uncomfortable discussion, at the senior leader level, that perhaps we really do have some warts and need to fix them.” Unlike Tom, and probably because I am in the Army and guilty of being a TRADOCian, the language and style made sense to me — broad enough to challenge the status quo but open enough to leave room for discussion. When Tom posted this essay challenge I figured the two went hand-in-hand.

A little history may help frame my proposal. I did a research project a few years ago on adapting the Army to meet the challenges of an information-based environment (Alvin and Heidi Toffler were significant influences in my early life). I was stunned to learn that our branch system was formalized between 1813 and 1830 (Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, Quartermaster, and Engineer were the original five branches) and has only seen minor changes in the subsequent 184 years. We added some branches (such as the Signal Corps in 1860), but most of these were a result of splits; for example, the Transportation Corps broke off from the Quartermaster Corps in 1942 and the Military Intelligence Corps, established in 1967, can trace its roots back to the Signal Corps. We had the great divorce of 1947 when the Army Air Corps became the U.S. Air Force, but it wasn’t until 1983 that Aviation became a branch born out of Field Artillery and the Signal Corps. Yes, we added Special Forces, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations as branches along with others I omit for brevity, but again these were born from previous branches. Even our new Cyber Branch will grow from existing branches — primarily Signal and Military Intelligence.

The biggest change was the adoption of the functional area system under OPMS XXI; the Army finally recognized that having functional experts in areas like operational research, foreign areas, and information operations was an acceptable career path. Unfortunately, what hasn’t changed is how we manage people within these branches and functional areas. Basic branches are accession-based, with little to no room for cross-pollination. Functional area officers are limited to serving in functional area jobs only, again with few or no exceptions. This monolithic approach to personnel management actually inhibits the notion of talent management, or more accurately human capital management. The best qualified officer for a specific position cannot be assigned to it if it is “coded” outside his career field or pay grade. Our branch system was designed in an agrarian-based operating environment, slightly updated for an industrial-based environment, yet we are supposed to be building a force for an information-based operating environment; the system we have is simply too inflexible to facilitate this.

My solution: we still need tactical expertise at the junior ranks — lieutenants and captains to lead infantry platoons and companies. Officers continue to come into the Army in one of the accession branches, just as they do now. However, once selected for intermediate-level education the officer becomes a generalist, and the Army adopts a “Green Pages” system (first piloted by West Point’s Office of Economics and Manpower Assessment) that allows the talent management system to truly match the best qualified officer to the right job. Job-specific, functional training (not to be confused with leader education) can be learned en route to the assignment or throughout a career via broadening opportunities. Leadership at the LTC and higher positions is more a function of education and personal competencies than technical expertise. Officers can still stay in a specific area, such as cyber or operations, but they gain the real opportunity to pursue broadening assignments without fear of “leaving the herd” or missing the chance to punch a “key developmental assignment” ticket. This also adds the added benefit of lateral entry into a career track for those with the necessary talents and desire. Why wouldn’t a command deploying for a humanitarian assistance/disaster relief mission, primarily a logistics- and support-driven mission, want a former logistician as a chief of operations? Specialized training, such as knowledge management or public affairs, could be learned en route to the assignment, but it would build on a foundation of general military education.

Don Vandergriff earlier wrote about the need to change the Army’s fundamental culture. What better way to do so than change how we manage officers? This one change would have a ripple effect across the Army. Changes to whom and how we recruit, how we train and educate, and how we manage human capital would follow. Imagine the changes to the Army’s professional military education (PME) system, so vigorously challenged on this site, which would ensue if this one change were adopted. PME would have to become broader to produce the agile, adaptive leaders needed for not just this proposal but more importantly to meet the demands of an increasingly complex operating environment. Mentorship and 360 -egree assessments would matter as units advertise, and search, for the right officer and officers advertise and compete for the right job.

Perhaps I’m looking at the world through my rose-colored glasses again, but I thought this was the impetus behind the Human Dimension White Paper: “Maintaining dominance in today’s uncertain strategic environment demands both a technological and human edge over future threats. Developing and maintaining this human edge requires a sustained investment in the physical, cognitive, and social aspects of our soldiers and civilians with continuous innovation in training, leader development, and both talent acquisition and talent management.”

Isn’t this what we should be striving to achieve? Perhaps the best benefit of the Human Dimension paper is the discussion and conversation it has generated. I can only hope the authors are tracking all this conversation; the Army’s challenge will be producing results and measurable change.

Col. Chip Bircher has been in the Army for 25 years, both as a basic branch and functional area officer. His assignments include positions developing and delivering doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, and personnel capabilities for the total force. The views expressed are his, and his alone, and do not reflect the official policy or position of any Army command, the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

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