What are some effective methods to avoid wasting your soldiers' time as a platoon leader?

Well, LT...You can't get away from it. Pointless time wasting busy work has been a part of the military for ever, and it will be around long after we are all gone.

You are just a 2nd Lt...so you won't have the power to really do much...and honestly you will likely get pushback from the senior enlisted. "Butter Bars" are largely seen as children playing soldier.

Do your best not to belittle the Enlisted, and DEFINITELY listen to the Senior Enlisted. They will tell you what's what in a heartbeat. Your biggest challenge is dealing with the whims of your superiors.

Busy work sucks. I hate it. Always have, and always will. At best it's just something to keep us from getting into trouble. heh.


The worst thing I've ever seen, was an Ensign tell a Master Chief "how things were done". Yeah...don't be like that. heh If you want a functional work environment, just listen. Your Platoon will know what to do and how to do it.

You've cited and recognized the primary considerations in routine planning. You are responsible for directing your platoons time management.
One consideration you must weigh is the demands from higher echelons; is a platoon formation necessary, or can you handle them through your squad leaders? Do you need to interrupt the daily schedule, or can it be worked into the normal schedule.
You seem to recognize the fact that one of your primary functions is smoothing out the disruption of outside or senior level demands on your platoons duties and training. You can suggest a planned response to your seniors in deference to your schedule by consult with your seniors when they seem to be panicking!

Not to try to contradict anyone, you are the first level officer who ensures that the Commanders guidance and intent is met. The NCOs are the standard bearers. You of course walk the line and review, it is the NCO who makes sure whatever you are reviewing is complete and to the expectations of the commander. All other guidance is sound.

OH and you have control just how much is the answer, and how assertive / brave you are willing to be. Officers are there to save there own so unless you are rocking hard for no reason and can't get it done, you'll earn respect going up the chain. Just cause you have rank doesn't make you right, know it all, or have the best productive plan .

i have led from the rear my whole career and have a 27ish on my "got my boss promoted ribbon".

One of the best things you can do, is to not push things off until the end of the day. I can't tell you how many days we did literally nothing all day, and suddenly at 16:00 something comes up that could have been handled at 09:00. This, barring something being pushed down to you out of your control of course, is by far the worst practice. Nothing frustrates Joes more.

I found it's all about time management, and those with the initiative to keep momentum going.

We ended up hanging around longer because things didn't get done that were on the agenda because of PVT's without any guidance about what to do next, and NCO's lacking in initiative to stay on plan.

Maybe I'm not the most gun-ho soldier/officer, but I basically approached it to the soldiers as:
"What needs to be done before we can be released. Let's be doing that".

Okay so as a butter bar, i like the fact you are trying to be a good leader; However, you should not try to change something until you understand the purpose in it. You need to realize that your command existed before you got there, and will exist after you leave.

Also, if your CoC sees this, they may be offended that you think you can do it better as an O-1 than an O-5/6.

In a worst case scenario, some examples of what I want avoid are 4+ formations a day,

These formations are for accountability, first formation (PT formation) is so we know everyone got home form liberty okay. Second formation 0800 this is so we know everyone made it back form PT. third formation 1300 this is so we know everyone got back form lunch. and final formation at 1700 is so we can account for everyone before they are granted liberty.

We did not have these formations in the Navy, in my rate (MOS), and as leading airmen I actually had a married sailor who would go home for lunch and not return, it took me weeks and another new guy pointing out the other new guy was missing for me to figure it out.

hours long gaps in the schedule and 2 hour long breaks after PT in the morning,

That 2 hour gap is so the soldier can shit, shower, shave, and eat. Maybe you like smelling ass and shit, but most people don't.

and last second changes. This has a demoralizing effect on soldiers. Sometimes there is a lack of purpose, direction, and motivation from leadership, who react to everything last second, rather than planning in advance with a schedule known more than one day in advance.

I am not sure how your unit is doing things, but I can guarantee the training schedule is at least a year long, you don't just decide to go to JRTC or NTC, it is scheduled for all units and is in a rotation. Shit changes all the time, and you need to find a way to get used to it. I good leader is flexible we used to say "semper gumby". Your going to suck as a combat leader if you can't handle change, No plan survives first contact with the enemy.

This type of leadership comes across like crisis management, and it is very hard to effectively plan ahead as a PL under such circumstances.

You should be deferring these decision to your PSG until you finally understand how shit works, and based upon your question you got a long way to go, especially when a NG specialist knows more about how the unit works than you do.

Keep your head down, your mouth shut, and you just might learn something.

In the meantime you can issue orders to your PSG like:

If there is a break in the daily schedule more than X amount of time, I would like the specialists doing X work.

They have a CTT manual they can go over common skills tasks like first aid, land nav, and other skills that a soldier needs.

Now if you are not in a line unit in a combat arms MOS, there should NEVER be a break in things, there shoudl always be work that can be done. But if there is not you can have a class on proper handling of secure information, or proper use and stowage of tools, washing vehicles, etc.

Finally, for many soldiers, if it is not explained that we are trying to look busy, and instead you just give us "make work," you are going to alienate and demoralize your soldiers more. No one likes to inventory screws, just because some butter bar is angling for an award or other "atta boy".

Make work is worse than boredom, and if you train your NCO's right, the specialists will find shit to do to keep themselves busy. While your angry at the chain of command, you shoudl really be focused on what you can change, which is how you run shit in your platoon.

I was a E7 Heavy Mortar Platoon Leader and had a E7 PSG. I controlled the training and he controlled the soldiers. The billets is his and formation and accountability of them. Because as I had been a PSG it was a nice change for my last assignment before retiring. You will never get rid of the HEY YOUs in the military but in the training meeting you can say I need this to be done and I will need all my soldiers. Try to get blocks in the duty roster for training. The PSG will have a better chance with the 1SG with that, Above all remember that Platoon or Section is his listen to the SGTs they been doing the Job a lot longer then you. They know the ends and outs and can get around stuff.

Best advice I can give you is to do whatever last minute tasking it is with them. If your Soldiers time is being wasted let them know yours is being wasted as well, but also by doing whatever last minute task it is with them you will also let them know the task was important enough to warrant a PL doing it with them.

Like others have said you can't change the UTM/WTO/DTOs much.

2LT Wheeler, I can give you better advice if I know what type of platoon you're leading, but for now, I'll assume it's either a Combat Arms or Combat Support platoon.

Remember, if you want to avoid demoralizing BS taskings, you're always safest in the field or on the range, and you've got to have an aggressive training plan to get out there. So get with your Platoon Sergeant and determine which individual and collective tasks your platoon needs to train on the most. Use your Mission Essential Task List (METL) and prioritize all of them. Then make a long-range training calendar that extends at least until the day you're due to hand over your platoon to the next PL, but preferably beyond that. Be sure to mark big events like upcoming NTC or JRTC rotations on your calendar.

Once the long-range calendar is complete, break it into medium-range (quarterly) calendars and short-range (monthly) calendars. Then consolidate all of your calendars into a 3-ring binder as your Platoon Training Plan, and get ready to brief your Company Commander on it. When you brief the CO, you have to convey a sense of urgency about your top priorities for training: "Sir / Ma'am, if we don't spend some time getting proficient with marksmanship, land navigation, and operating radios ("shoot, move, communicate"), my entire platoon is going to wind up in the dead pool as soon as we go into the maneuver box at Fort Polk. We HAVE to do this, because right now we're a "U" (Untrained) on these METL tasks."

However, before you brief the C.O., you and your Platoon Sergeant need to set up a meeting with the Company XO and First Sergeant, and present the plan to them first. This is both for a sanity check, and to get their support. Be sure to incorporate their advice, and hopefully when you brief the CO, the XO and 1SG will be in there with you and your PSG giving their support to your training plan.

Once that training plan is approved, you then need to move like wildfire to reserve ranges, order ammo, batteries, and MRE's, and get vehicles ready to go. Your Platoon Sergeant will probably want to delegate most of these Training Support tasks to his Squad Leaders and Team Leaders for professional development, which is great training in itself. Watch and learn as he's doing that, because delegating is not a natural skill. It takes practice and experience to assign the right task to the right Soldier at the right time.

You'll never get out of all tasking requirements, but this should help to balance out taskings with combat training. If the other Platoon Leaders aren't already doing this, you just might see them follow your lead. If they do, that's great. Then you can work together to synchronize your Platoon Training Plans, so that maybe while one platoon is in the field training for a week, another is on the ranges for a week, and the third platoon is knocking out various taskings. Then the next week, the platoons rotate.

I wish you the best of luck.

Martin D. (Marty) Glynn
LTC, USA (Ret)