Great points. I left out making a clear delineation between the feedback of solid junior enlisted guys vs the feedback of Joe Shitbag who hates being in the military and wishes he was back home playing XBox. There would almost by necessity be a demarcation between the weight given to the opinions of solid dudes vs shitbags, but this does not always translate into reality.
Army Troop Drawdown
- Thread starter Marauder06
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Great points. I left out making a clear delineation between the feedback of solid junior enlisted guys vs the feedback of Joe Shitbag who hates being in the military and wishes he was back home playing XBox. There would almost by necessity be a demarcation between the weight given to the opinions of solid dudes vs shitbags, but this does not always translate into reality.
It's not like the subordinate is only referring to privates. The only person that would have privates input would be the buck sergeant. Also, if your subordinates ratings are averaged out, that should make up for the occasional shit bag who hates you, and lets not forget that you would also be getting rated by your peers and superiors, so that there is a system of checks and balances, so to speak. no one person would be able to ruin you based on their personal feelings.
Goon I value your opinion and you are more current than I am. When I spent my time in Military and DOD I often saw knob polisher sent to a school that made no sense until I later saw the modified retention notice that said five point would be given to anybody who had completed XYZ school. That was the ways of the road a few years back. The guy in the field was working and never got a shot at school XYZ without a sponsor watching out for him. Just my observation. We had a draw down of O3 and 04 officers that had spent their entire life preparing for life in the military with degrees that didn't transfer well and found themselves back in school scrambling to compete with the new graduates.
Bill
Bill
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Why not rate everyone on 3 or 4 different categories, then weight your ratings on how well you rate? It wouldn't take too long to work up the excel book to do it for a company sized element.
For example we grade everyone on PT, leadership. and army values. Possible scores are 1-5. If you rate a 5, you get a weight of 3 for your rating of others, if you rate a 4 you get a weight of 2, if you rate a 3, you get a weight of 1- if you are evaluated at a one or 2, you are not considered.
Say person x and y are rating person z.
Person x rates at a 5 giving him a weight of 3, person y rates at a 3 giving him a weight of 1.
X and Y rate Z 3 and 5 respectively. The equation would be-
(3+3+3+5)/4= 3.5
Z would rate a 3.5 in the category because X carries a more weight as given to him by his peers/subordinates/superiors, since he is considered higher within the category. Y gave Z a high rating, but it is overridden by X since person Y is only 60% of Z by equation.
It can be done, it needs to be done smartly in a way that excludes the shit bags.
For example we grade everyone on PT, leadership. and army values. Possible scores are 1-5. If you rate a 5, you get a weight of 3 for your rating of others, if you rate a 4 you get a weight of 2, if you rate a 3, you get a weight of 1- if you are evaluated at a one or 2, you are not considered.
Say person x and y are rating person z.
Person x rates at a 5 giving him a weight of 3, person y rates at a 3 giving him a weight of 1.
X and Y rate Z 3 and 5 respectively. The equation would be-
(3+3+3+5)/4= 3.5
Z would rate a 3.5 in the category because X carries a more weight as given to him by his peers/subordinates/superiors, since he is considered higher within the category. Y gave Z a high rating, but it is overridden by X since person Y is only 60% of Z by equation.
It can be done, it needs to be done smartly in a way that excludes the shit bags.
I like 360 feedback, but NOT 360 evaluations. Why? Because it turns leadership into a popularity contest. Not all of the best leadership decisions are the most popular ones with the troops, and many young troops (including officers) have trouble discerning the "professional" from the "personal." I think 360 feedback is useful because it is always good to find out what your subordinates are thinking (sometimes it can be very eye-opening!) but tying it to evaluations is, IMO, a mistake.
Brill
SOF Support
Says the guy with mutton chops for side burns!!!
Florida173
SOF Support
Going to resurrect this thread and specifically this post based on the bold portion and I couldn't find a more appropriate prior post to add this to.
I just sat through a brief by HRC here at Macdill on the new Army NCOER system that goes in effect 01 Jan. I can immediately say that there is going to be some serious issues within some communities, especially within Special Operations and some smaller joint/guard/reserve billets.
1. If I am a senior rater and based on my position will only ever senior rate one soldier, I can give him a "Most Qualified" and then have to wait nine years before I can give another "Most Qualified." Based on the 24% limitation.
2. All NCO ranks can be senior rated by a GS9 or higher, meaning an E9 can be senior rated by a 23 year old kid with no experience.
3. A SSG can be rated by another senior SSG, but can only be senior rated by a MSG. Although the intention is that the Rater be directly responsible for the rated soldier, and the Senior Rater be directly responsible to the Rater. At least this is preferred, but they are adding an additional requirement that may complicate the rating scheme.
4. If a rated soldier is up for a promotion and the Senior Rater's "rating tendencies" are left of center (meaning mostly highly qualified and most qualified) it can actually hurt the soldier being considered for promotion because the board may discount that senior rater's opinion.
I admit there are a few good things.
1. Deflate the rating system
2. No more requirement for a Reviewer, only a Supplementary Reviewer in certain circumstances.
3. Senior Rater is responsible for potential of rated soldier and not performance, Rater is responsible for performance.
4. Senior Rater writes a narrative now of potential, although is prohibited in using board language (ie.. Would have rated "Most Qualified," but my profile doesn't allow for it.)
What the hell? That's madness!
It's weird how the new OER system allows 49% to be "most qualified" but the new NCOER only allows 24%. That discrepancy alone is going to have serious repercussions
Both systems penalize individuals in elite units, and punish people for things completely beyond their control. This is a terrible way to do talent management, all for the sake of providing a quantifiable number to make promotions boards' jobs easier.
Florida173
SOF Support
Other weird things are that a Rater for an E5 can only give a "Met Standard" or "Did Not Meet Standard," whereas a SSG and above are allowed to have all four performance measures. HRC's example for "Far Exceeded Standard" is a soldier that wins the competitions and boards (ie. "placed 1st of 23 teams in the recent LTG David E. Grange Jr. Best Ranger Competition") So I guess a highspeed SGT should wait to compete in Best Ranger until he gets SSG...
Sounds to me like mediocrity will be encouraged, and only the truly talented in verbal fellatio will advance.
Florida173
SOF Support
Not only encouraged, but forced if the Senior rater has already given out too many center of left ratings. It's insane. A soldier being penalized because the Senior Rater has exceptional soldiers.
Air Force had a similar system in the mid to late 70's.
Guys handpicked by the CSAF getting middle of the road OER's because everyone else in the unit was also handpicked.
End result was the really sharp guys avoided high profile assignments and stayed in the "mainstream" swimming with the middle tier fish.
I think what it does is force raters and senior raters to manage their profiles from the beginning of their career forward. If leaders counsel, have consistent and fair standards (requirements in 600-20), and rate consistent with the needs of the Army the system will work fine. What we've repeatedly have happen is leaders abrogating their responsibilities to 'take care' of people, play favorites, and fail to live up to their obligations as leaders to shape the force.
I'm glad the new system is in place, I think the only thing it is missing is a way to hold raters/senior raters accountable for their abilities in shaping the force. I was just having this conversation today with one of my MAJs about rating schemes and performance - that everytime you see a senior leader 'screwing over' a subordinate or 'being toxic' there is a host of leaders that failed to weed that leader out and properly shape the force. It's a significant responsibility and one I think too many leaders fail.
I mean, @Marauder06 - look at me, clearly you failed to shape the force properly :)
Corporate America has similar system of "everyone can't be great" which makes sense, not everyone is great. How it enforces the "standard" causes a whole new set of problems and you could potentially see something similar with this new system.
It issues ratings on a bell curve.
For example, you have a 1 to 5 system with 5 as the best rating. If you have 10 guys working for you, HR/ your manager allows one 5, one 4, you MUST have at least one two (but not too many, so that means managers give one guy a two regardless of his performance), and the rest are 3's. By forcing a set number of evals you guarantee the 4's and 5's go to the ass-kissers. Sure, you will have cases where guys who deserve the best earn the best, but you're also empowering those toxic leaders to take care of their own more than they're doing now.
It issues ratings on a bell curve.
For example, you have a 1 to 5 system with 5 as the best rating. If you have 10 guys working for you, HR/ your manager allows one 5, one 4, you MUST have at least one two (but not too many, so that means managers give one guy a two regardless of his performance), and the rest are 3's. By forcing a set number of evals you guarantee the 4's and 5's go to the ass-kissers. Sure, you will have cases where guys who deserve the best earn the best, but you're also empowering those toxic leaders to take care of their own more than they're doing now.
Florida173
SOF Support
The biggest part of the corporate world is that there is actual money connected to the ratings because your bonus is typically tied into it. So the biggest ass-kissers are taken care of the most. Which may be fine in a small organization, but larger corporate side when you start to introduce "C" employees you will have a system that pushes the best out. Falls into the Pareto Principle where 20% do 80% of the work.
104TN
Verified Military
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- Dec 4, 2006
- Messages
- 921
This is such a toxic practice. Once upon a time I worked in was made-up entirely of people that had started at the bottom of the company and busted their butts to work their way up. The company made a smart decision in limiting who they'd hire for the role to people that had progressed through a process, but then went full dumb dumb in subjecting those folks to stack-ranking. This was especially problematic as the company would cull the bottom quartile of each group's stack every 6 months. That might be ok for an organization with a lot of new faces that aren't panning out, but to eject people that had earned their position through actual merit simply because their manager had to rank someone the worst was stupid of the company/demoralizing for its employees. This would also frequently put the business in a position where they had to back-fill an experienced/high performer from bodies in a talent pool that in some instances didn't have any viable candidates, resulting in a lot of people "failing upwards" and actually lowering the bar for the group rather than raising it.
Brill
SOF Support
Holy cow...going to use that tomorrow in the office!
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