Things Every "O" Should Know

[ArcticOneSix]

Did I mention I went to school in texas? Counting isn't our strong point.

Rage, good point. Many guys are push overs and don't even stand up for themselves. I have several stories that my former PSG and SLs tell everyone who will listen about me getting into an arguments with a 1SG about standards and their misinterpretation of the right one. That said, you have to be a rock stand fast if you're in the right.

Accepting input is good too. I did a mission where we've been building an ice bridge up north for 2 months this past winter. There wasn't an established approach to it, so anyone who had a good idea could input ideas. We'd think about them and try them out, many time they would have the best ideas that saved time and effort. It was bad ass!

 

[RAGE275]

Did I mention I went to school in texas? Counting isn't our strong point.

Rage, good point. Many guys are push overs and don't even stand up for themselves. I have several stories that my former PSG and SLs tell everyone who will listen about me getting into an arguments with a 1SG about standards and their misinterpretation of the right one. That said, you have to be a rock stand fast if you're in the right.

Accepting input is good too. I did a mission where we've been building an ice bridge up north for 2 months this past winter. There wasn't an established approach to it, so anyone who had a good idea could input ideas. We'd think about them and try them out, many time they would have the best ideas that saved time and effort. It was bad ass!

And see, that's how it should be. That would be very appreciated by the enlisted side. And shit got done easy after that I bet. The biggest thing is common sense, leaders don't have to think like the lowest common denominator. That's what team leaders are for.

So, the bridge... Was made of... Ice?

 

[TLDR20]

I think remembering how valuable time is to your joes is important. Just because you have to stay until 1900 on a Wednesday, doesn't mean your Joes should have to. One of my best friends recently graduated from USMA, and I gave hime that advice. However if they fuck up the best way to punish a dude is to take his time. Money can be made back, but time is forever. And I hated when we would have to sit around because the guy in charge was still working. Let everyone who is done with what they have to do go home.

 

[Diamondback 2/2]

Don't tell an NCO who has been in since you were 15 about the "standards" while chewing gum and wearing sun glasses in front of the formation.

 

[Pistol_Pete]

I have just one bit of advice for now. This is not picking on Officers by any stretch and I have been fortunate to work with many great brothers who happen to be officers and this is the only time I ever saw something like this. I relay this experience in hopes that it will pay off to a SOF or other unit down the road.

While serving on an ODA, I observed one company commander who disappointed me in his lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity to the host nation's culture. He acted like an ignorant asshole (hate to say it - ugly American) on a deployment and not to SF standards IMO. I never said anything to him about it (no way to tell your commander he doesn't have a basic skill and do it gently). I'm not talking touchy-feeling sensitivity, but cultural awareness and sensitivity to the host nation cultural differances are CRITICAL skills and aptitudes for everyone in a SF unit, but especially amongst the leadership and ODA members. This is basic stuff and you can't disregard it without risking many problems.

It goes without saying we have all worked with excellent officers and NCO's who I looked up to and would feel fortunate just to shine their jump boots - so my one example is not common place. I'm not sure what the malfunction / bad fit was in this instance with this particular individual or why he got a company - but I never saw it anywhere else but this one brief time. He didn't seem to handle stress entirely well. Happens to the best of us at times.

So, this advice is not just to officers but to NCO's, wannabe's and any support unit associated with an SF unit. Learn the culture of your AO to the highest level of intelligence and expertise you can muster then try to adapt and fit your mission the best you can between two cultures that are often worlds apart. That's what sets us apart and why they send us in to do these specialized missions.

 

[Marauder06]

First impressions count, make sure when you make one, it's a good one. If the first impression someone has of you is a bad one, it is very, very hard to overcome. Be polite, punctual, professional, and prepared any time you meet someone and you should be OK. This applies to everyone you meet or go in front of, no matter who they are or what the circumstances are. If you go through life deciding how you're going to treat people based solely on the way they look and/or what you think they can do for you at that moment, you'll be an utter failure as an officer and quite probably as a human being.

 

[sfmike]

So, this advice is not just to officers but to NCO's, wannabe's and any support unit associated with an SF unit. Learn the culture of your AO to the highest level of intelligence and expertise you can muster then try to adapt and fit your mission the best you can between two cultures that are often worlds apart. That's what sets us apart and why they send us in to do these specialized missions.

I will echo Pistol Pete's advice. I accompanied a field grade SF Officer to an ARVN General's Villa in Vung Tau. The General had a formal dinner served in the French fassion. As the dinner progressed, finger bowls were served to each guest to wash their hands, before the next course was served. The SF Officer thought that he was being served some kind of soup and started eating it with his spoon. The ARVN General and all of the other guests started eating their finger bowl contents, too because no one wanted the Ami` Officer to loose face.

Mike

 

[Marauder06]

So a couple of days ago I was having dinner with an acquaintance, a nice young woman my wife and I are friends with. She mentioned that there were some new people in her office, including one young woman whom my acquaintance did not care for. My acquaintance starting listing all of the new girl's faults, which included her graduating from "a school no one has ever heard of before." She said, "I mean, have you ever even heard of XXX University?" me: "Why yes, it's in CITY/STATE" which might have been a clue, but she continued on with the rant, which included enumerating the problems of this particular school, which apparently is inhabited by rich, socially conservative, Bible-beating "Southerners" among other issues, if I remember correctly.

If she would have paused for breath or asked how I knew about the school, I could have told her that the reason I have heard of XXX University before is because my wife and I are both graduates; in fact, we me there and later got married at one of the chapels there on the campus. I think that because she knew I had spent several years trying to get into the teaching faculty at West Point she assumed that I must be a grad. Bad assumption.

I didn't want to let the issue overshadow an otherwise very pleasant evening so I let it go, I actually found the whole thing kind of funny, and when I told my wife the story later, she got a chuckle too. I think the only thing that could have caused her to stick her foot in her mouth more is if the new person XXX University grad in her office turned out to be a blood relative of mine ;)

Two lessons from this incident- one, try not to talk bad about people or organizations if you can avoid it. Listen while you're talking, follow up on what the other person says especially if it's something you didn't expect. Lesson two, be careful about the assumptions you choose to make about people, they will often bite you in the ass.

By the way, in case anyone is confused, no XXX University is NOT a real school.

 

[Chopstick]

So will XXX University be making an appearance in an upcoming case study?

 

[Marauder06]

So will XXX University be making an appearance in an upcoming case study?

No way, it's full of rich, socially-conservative, Bible-thumping Southerners, remember? No one wants to read about things like that ;)

 

[Chopstick]

No way, it's full of rich, socially-conservative, Bible-thumping Southerners, remember? No one wants to read about things like that ;)

Right..every University has a seedy underbelly..I dont care how rich or socially conservative you are.

 

[Marauder06]

This article was written from a civilian management perspective, but I think a lot of it carries over into the Officers' Corps.

According to a new CareerBuilder survey, 71 percent of human resources managers say they place more emphasis on emotional intelligence — a person’s ability to control his or her emotions, sense the emotions of others and build relationships — than they do on IQ. Fifty-nine percent of employers even said they wouldn’t hire someone who had a high IQ but low EI.
Among other reasons, hiring managers said they value EI over IQ because employees with high emotional intelligence are more likely to stay calm under pressure, solve conflict effectively and show empathy to their team members.
“Technical competency and intelligence are important assets for every worker, but when it’s down to you and another candidate for a promotion or new job, dynamic interpersonal skills will set you apart,” says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. “In a recovering economy, employers want people who can effectively make decisions in stressful situations and can empathize with the needs of their colleagues and clients to deliver the best results.”

I think in the military there's a bit of a stigma attached to discussions about "emotions," so call emotional intelligence "interpersonal skills" or something more palatable if you like. Whatever you call it, I think most of us would agree that the traits that the article associates with emotional intelligence- calmness under pressure, effective conflict resolution, and empathy towards team members, are good skills for officers (or any military leaders, for that matter) to master as well.

To this list of recommendations that the article puts forth as things you should do (control over emotions, self-reflection, listening, empathize with colleagues), I'd also add something you shouldn't: "don't gossip." It's important to have frank discussions about things that are or might be happening in your organization, but when it goes from "relevant" to "rampantly speculative," it crosses out of being constructive and starts being destructive. If something bad might be happening in your unit, follow it up immediately so you can squash either the perpetrator(s) of whatever it is, or the people spreading the rumors. Few things ruin unit cohesion faster than false rumors or rulebreakers whose bad deeds are known about but are not called to account.

 

[Marauder06]

Bump. This thread hasn't been updated in a while, anyone have anything to add?

 

[Teufel]

Here is a relevant gazette article.

 

[IT101]

From the perspective of an "NCO" on the receiving end:
1. Please do not let your personal problems or professional ambitions get in the way of what's best for your folks.
Our CO, from when I first arrived on my ship, was constantly (as verified by our Operations Officer) volunteering for deployments/exercises, to the point that our DESRON was considering forcing him to back off. The rumors going around included that it was "less than good at home" and he was vying for promotion, which caused some of the crew to lose faith in him. Regardless of his reasoning, the family lives of the crew suffered.

2. Please do not jump to assumptions when something goes awry- get all the facts before developing a conclusion about what's going on.
Our Comms Officer was notorious for being unavailable via phone and physically tracking her down, but would storm in when the General Announcement system would incorrectly report an "outage" after one minute of down time. She was an intelligent person, but lacked EI (emotional intelligence), as mentioned previously.

 

[CDG]

Our CO, from when I first arrived on my ship, was constantly (as verified by our Operations Officer) volunteering for deployments/exercises, to the point that our DESRON was considering forcing him to back off. The rumors going around included that it was "less than good at home" and he was vying for promotion, which caused some of the crew to lose faith in him. Regardless of his reasoning, the family lives of the crew suffered.
.

This sounds exactly like my first ship. The DESRON commander was not so willing to ask our CO to chill out though. Instead he came on board and congratulated us for being the most underway ship in the Atlantic Fleet. It didn't bother me all that much, as I was single with no kids. Some of the other guys on board were not in the same situation though. Wives were calling to complain, and there were even a few divorces reported to have been filed due to how much we were gone and the strain it had put on people's relationships. The rumor mill about the motivating factor being the COs own lack of happiness at home was also alive and well. That may have been an unfair judgment to make, but a lot of people were sick of being gone. That's somewhat understandable, but only to a point. When you volunteer for the military, you have to recognize that you are giving up your right to be as comfortable and as happy as you may want to be. There's a lot we, as enlisted guys, don't see or know. Hopefully a command would not needlessly keep their people away from home, but at the same time it is their prerogative to do what they feel is needed or is best for the command, DESRON, Fleet, or Navy. It's possible both our COs just enjoyed being at sea. I think too often the Navy is a branch that people join because it's "safe and easy". They want all the benefits of being in the military, without having to do too much "military stuff" like deploying.

None of this is directed at you, IT101, it's just general commentary.

 

[IT101]

The rumor mill about the motivating factor being the COs own lack of happiness at home was also alive and well. That may have been an unfair judgment to make, but a lot of people were sick of being gone. That's somewhat understandable, but only to a point. When you volunteer for the military, you have to recognize that you are giving up your right to be as comfortable and as happy as you may want to be. There's a lot we, as enlisted guys, don't see or know. Hopefully a command would not needlessly keep their people away from home, but at the same time it is their prerogative to do what they feel is needed or is best for the command, DESRON, Fleet, or Navy. It's possible both our COs just enjoyed being at sea.

I agree with you wholeheartedly- there is a lot that goes on well above our heads. It is simply a matter of what the CO chooses to divulge, and what he or she is not allowed to put out due to it being classified or irrelevant. Which actually brings up another good point for this thread:

- In the absence of details regarding why an Officer said to do something, people will attempt to fill in the gaps with their own conclusions.

It's not right, but an inherent problem when people want to blame something or someone.

 

[Marauder06]

...

- In the absence of details regarding why an Officer said to do something, people will attempt to fill in the gaps with their own conclusions.
...

That's a very good point. I have almost always found it more useful to explain the reasoning behind a decision than to simply say "do what I said because I'm in charge." Some decisions are self-explanatory, and others you don't have time to explain, but when you have the time, explaining the "why" helps to prevent miscommunication and mistrust, and helps better convey commander's intent.

 

[0699]

From the perspective of an "NCO" on the receiving end:
1. Please do not let your personal problems or professional ambitions get in the way of what's best for your folks.
Our CO, from when I first arrived on my ship, was constantly (as verified by our Operations Officer) volunteering for deployments/exercises, to the point that our DESRON was considering forcing him to back off. The rumors going around included that it was "less than good at home" and he was vying for promotion, which caused some of the crew to lose faith in him. Regardless of his reasoning, the family lives of the crew suffered.

This was pretty common in the Corps. We'd get a new commander in and we'd go balls to the walls until we were NMC and exhausted. The only reasoning I could ever come up with was lack of a vested unit interest by the leader. He's going to be there 18-24 months; the only thing that was important to him was what "good" things happened under his command, not the state of the unit when he was done with it. If he could survive his time, have several successful exercises/deployments under his belt, and maybe field some new gear (didn't matter if it was a POS), he'd get his medal, fitness report, and orders and move on to his next duty station.

Not every leader, but enough that I remember it being a problem...

 

[SkrewzLoose]

I've heard of COs at the O5 level doing the same thing (constantly volunteering for underway) because they want to get their full bird.