Posted on Apr 14, 2015
What are your thoughts on Anna Granville's (a Navy officer) reasons for resigning?
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NOTE: The photo of the Naval Officer attached to the original taskandpurpose blog post is not a photograph of the author of the taskandpurpose blog post, as is noted on the photo at taskandpurpose. This has been brought to my attention by a colleague of the officer in the photo, who is currently serving. I can't seem to get RallyPoint to remove the photo except by removing the URL to the blog, so I'm removing the URL. The photo does not add anything to this discussion, so I'm removing it.
This young Navy officer's reasons for resigning seem applicable across the Services.
1. Promotions are based more on “hitting the wickets” than exemplary performance.
2. Unsustainable strain on your personal relationships.
3. The military is a homogeneous, anti-intellectual organization.
4. Ownership of self.
On point 3, she writes: "When I was a week into my first deployment, I was preparing my slides for a watch turnover brief as the assistant chiefs of staff all filed in. A fellow junior officer, whose watch station was adjacent to mine, muttered, “Man, the Navy has a never-ending supply of middle-aged white men.” And she was absolutely right. The majority of senior military leaders are white, Christian, conservative men with engineering degrees from a service academy, masters’ degrees from a war college, who grew up middle-class or privileged and whose wives do not have a career outside the home. There is nothing wrong with any of this — indeed, this is probably the profile of most executives in America. But this also means there’s a lack of diversity of ideas, a resistance to alternative ways of thinking, and the lethality of group think."
How do those she describes here (senior officers) respond? Is Service homogeneity a problem, and does it create a "lethality of group think" and a "resistance to alternate ways of thinking"?
You can find the article at taskandpurpose; it is titled "4 Reasons I Am Resigning My Commission As A Naval Officer."
http://taskandpurpose.com
This young Navy officer's reasons for resigning seem applicable across the Services.
1. Promotions are based more on “hitting the wickets” than exemplary performance.
2. Unsustainable strain on your personal relationships.
3. The military is a homogeneous, anti-intellectual organization.
4. Ownership of self.
On point 3, she writes: "When I was a week into my first deployment, I was preparing my slides for a watch turnover brief as the assistant chiefs of staff all filed in. A fellow junior officer, whose watch station was adjacent to mine, muttered, “Man, the Navy has a never-ending supply of middle-aged white men.” And she was absolutely right. The majority of senior military leaders are white, Christian, conservative men with engineering degrees from a service academy, masters’ degrees from a war college, who grew up middle-class or privileged and whose wives do not have a career outside the home. There is nothing wrong with any of this — indeed, this is probably the profile of most executives in America. But this also means there’s a lack of diversity of ideas, a resistance to alternative ways of thinking, and the lethality of group think."
How do those she describes here (senior officers) respond? Is Service homogeneity a problem, and does it create a "lethality of group think" and a "resistance to alternate ways of thinking"?
You can find the article at taskandpurpose; it is titled "4 Reasons I Am Resigning My Commission As A Naval Officer."
http://taskandpurpose.com
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Commission
Officers
Edited 9 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 53
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I think homogeneity is needed in a military organization. There is no way in any force size to know all your team mates good enough to work as a homogeneous multi-unit task force without it. Now her accusation that the senior leadership of the Navy is all “middle age white men” and that the Navy lacks diversity is not what I experience. I was honored to serve with both a female CO and a female Admiral in my time. Both were the best leaders I had the privilege to work for. I found them to be much more even keel in a crisis where some of my previous COs were screamers and chokers. I think if she would have had the opportunity to do her DH tours and spend some time at a Staff College she would have experienced more of this “alternative ways of thinking and the lethality of group think” in some of those settings.
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MAJ (Join to see)
LCDR (Join to see) I don't. I think diversity is needed; the more, the better. Agreed, though, the author's point on lack of diversity can seem misplaced (until one, say, looks at the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the general/flag officer ranks, or overall statistics about military officers, or etc).
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She was a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.Being in the military profession is a calling, not just a job. I had a salty old SSgt when I was a young man tell me that being a lifer was like being a priest, you have to give up a lot of things, among them "easy" relationships, self-gratification and the idea that things will always be done the way you think they should.
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A lot of what she said is true. Leadership does not want to change there ways and continues to promote on meeting the wickets; not on leadership qualities or good judgment. There are too many people I have seen get promoted who lacked both the leadership, attitude and competence to be in the position they were placed in. Leadership as a whole in the military is going down hill and I've seen it time and time again from the officers and cacky use the JR enlisted side for there advancement and career with no care to moral or degradation to the cmd. Secondly as I stated above with competence, the ignorance allowed in the military now is just as bad. It almost seems from what I've seen they want ignorant and incompetent people in the military so they cant for them selves or ask the questions from the BS that goes on that I've seen time and time again as well. to include trainings on the same thing month after month when it should be trained once let go, were wasting time and money on that as well. I could go on and on about how the military is slowly degrading its personnel and efficiency! But she is wrong on white privilege. I did not grow up with a lot of money and we got by your life is a choice and what you do with it, not white privilege. On a final note if there weren't things I still wanted to do in the military and serve my country I would be resigning as well due to these reasons and a lot more.
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Echoing some of the other comments I've read, I think she will look back on this with regret.
My only real contention is her #3 reason. Did she compare the ethnic/racial and religious demographics of the US population to those of the Armed Forces? If, for example African Americans make up 14% of the US population, would she expect that the percentage of African Americans in leadership positions in the Armed Forces would somehow be higher? Did she consider that perhaps more women choose to not enter military service than do enter military service, and that their reasoning behind this choice isn't necessarily rampant gender discrimination?
I mean, I'm sorry... but if 80% of the US population identify as Christian, then I would expect somewhere around 80% of my brothers and sisters in arms would probably identify as Christians as well. Is that the DoD's fault?
Some people's kids...
My only real contention is her #3 reason. Did she compare the ethnic/racial and religious demographics of the US population to those of the Armed Forces? If, for example African Americans make up 14% of the US population, would she expect that the percentage of African Americans in leadership positions in the Armed Forces would somehow be higher? Did she consider that perhaps more women choose to not enter military service than do enter military service, and that their reasoning behind this choice isn't necessarily rampant gender discrimination?
I mean, I'm sorry... but if 80% of the US population identify as Christian, then I would expect somewhere around 80% of my brothers and sisters in arms would probably identify as Christians as well. Is that the DoD's fault?
Some people's kids...
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TSgt Christopher D.
Oh, and I have to laugh at 'anti-intellectualism' in the Armed Forces. Indeed many of the more intelligent, well-read people I've ever met were in uniform, or wore it at one time. The problem is that, as in any organization or group, we obtain the knowledge well before we actually implement it. I don't fault the services for this. They are made up of fallible human beings, just like every other group of humans in the world.
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From The Editor: A Response To Criticism On ‘4 Reasons I Am Resigning My Commission As A Naval...
One of our latest stories generated intense attention, and some criticism. We'll always explain editorial decisions, whenever they draw critical questions.
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https://medium.com/@Doctrine_Man/a-reality-check-ce863ffffa79
A solid response from a veteran, who writes: "First, it is never a good idea to insult your audience."
Anna Granville's blog post has gone viral and sparked an enormous response, probably for a couple reasons, outlined below.
I put the conclusion and lessons learned up-front, as many of you might not read to the end of this:
Conclusion: Granville would have been better served to cite some data. However, I’d conclude that she purposefully targeted her audience. But it would be a stretch to say she purposefully “insulted” her audience; after all, it is not her fault that the demographic that the audience represents feels “insulted” by a blog post that points out the issues with a lack of diversity in the military.
Two lessons learned: 1) those in the officer corps and the military who respond emotionally and defensively to Granville’s post might want to spend some time considering why they are so thin-skinned (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thin-skinned) and 2) if you want to reach an audience and initiate a serious discussion on a topic, knowing your audience is key; by the volume of responses to her piece, Granville clearly knows her audience well, and has accomplished a great deal by once again highlighting the issues she addresses.
1) Generational. As you'll read in the comments on this thread, there is quite a backlash against the "entitlement generation" that many assert Granville so adequately represents.
2) She's a female company grade military officer, one of 20,000 or so female company grade officers in DoD out of an officer corps of 230,000, and the military has yet to really accept females serving in the military (reference the outrage about women starting Ranger school on Monday, the surveys about how Special Operations vastly oppose women serving in their units, the numerous Navy scandals involving sexual harassment/assault/covert photography of female submarine officers in the shower, etc, etc).
3) She identifies faults/inefficiencies/problems with the system, in which such a vast swathe of serving military members are so heavily invested.
4) She's resigning, which is so often interpreted as "quitting" and couched in negative terms. At least Bryan Shaw and some commentators on this thread acknowledge that resigning one's commission is not tantamount to disloyalty. I’ve watched as countless peers tendered their resignations, and observed first-hand the negative reaction of senior officers that so often seemed stunned that one would be so “disloyal” as to decide to leave the military, even if the resigning officer well and fully performed assigned duties throughout their initial commitment. It still seems odd to me that so many interpret resigning as disloyal to the organization, when such a large percentage of officers resign their commissions after their initial commitment.
5) She directly and purposefully targets her piece at an intended audience. The intended audience of Granville’s blog post is the “majority of senior military leaders (who) are white, Christian, conservative men with engineering degrees from a service academy, masters’ degrees from a war college, who grew up middle-class or privileged and whose wives do not have a career outside the home.” She clearly understands that the officer corps, especially at the GO/FO level, and decreasingly so as one goes down the ranks, exactly fit or fit most of the descriptors here, in no certain order: 1) white; 2) Christian; 3) conservative; 4) men; 5) academy graduates with engineering degrees; 6) war college graduates; 7) middle-class or privileged backgrounds; 8) married; 9) with wives that do not have their own careers.
We can argue about statistics all day, and many have already done so on this topic. The DoD, transparent as it tries to be, does publically release full demographic statistics (http://prhome.defense.gov/portals/52/Documents/POPREP/poprep2011/appendixb/appendixb.pdf and https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/appj/dwp/dwp_reports.jsp). Other entities also release studies on the data. Here’s a good one: http://www.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2013-Demographics-Report.pdf.
Point 1: In 2013, 30.7% of active duty military members were minorities. Per the DMDC data, in 2011, 78.1 percent of the officer corps was white. So Granville’s point 1 is spot-on.
Point 2: also spot-on: about 77 percent of active duty military are Christian, with about 20 percent having no religious preference and 3 percent being Jewish, Pagan, or Muslim: http://secular.org/files/mldc-ripsdemographics_0.pdf.
Point 3: also spot on: http://www.gallup.com/poll/118684/military-veterans-ages-tend-republican.aspx shows that 34 percent of veterans are Republicans (29 percent are Democrats, 33 percent are Independents) and a solid series by Military Times (http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2014/12/21/americas-military-a-conservative-militarys-cultural-evolution/18959975/) clearly demonstrates the conservative credentials of the Active Duty population; http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/25/military-no-less-conservative-less-republican-surv/, based on the Military Times data, shows that 41 percent, a plurality, of active duty military members identify as conservatives.
Point 4: The veracity of Point 4 is clear: men comprise 85 percent of the military, women 15 percent.
Point 5: truer the higher up the rank structure one goes; https://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/gao/reports/d07372r.html, for example, clearly shows that at academy graduates represent something like 15 percent of officers commissioned each year. But as one looks at Academy grad representation at the higher ranks, the percentage of Academy graduates at each rank increases (see my rant at https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/would-you-be-in-favor-of-repurposing-our-service-academies for more on this). I do concede, though, that Granville’s argument would be more accurate if she had written “bachelor of science degrees” versus “engineering degrees,” as the range of academic majors at the Academies has grown substantially over the years.
Point 6: almost 100 percent true: almost all O-6 and above will have graduated from a war college; a select few go to other, non-war college programs for senior service colleges; here’s the Army example: http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/army/officer/2015/03/19/assignments-officers-resident-schooling/25015731/.
Point 7: also accurate: see http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-in-the-us-military-the-demographics-of-enlisted-troops-and-officers for a snapshot.
Point 8: 72 percent of the officer corps is married (page 46 of http://prhome.defense.gov/portals/52/Documents/POPREP/poprep2011/appendixb/appendixb.pdf for 2011); again, spot on.
Point 9: I had some trouble finding data, but here it is: http://vets.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/MilitarySpouseEmploymentReport_2013.pdf. See page 27-28: in 2012, something like 96 percent of military spouses 45 years old and older were unemployed, and 85 percent of military spouses 25 to 44 years old were unemployed. One assumption I’m making: most spouses of senior military officers are older than 25 years old. One issue with the data: it isn’t broken out neatly into officer versus enlisted.
Conclusion: Granville would have been better served to cite some data. However, I’d conclude that she purposefully targeted her audience. But it would be a stretch to say she purposefully “insulted” her audience; after all, it is not her fault that the demographic that the audience represents feels “insulted” by a blog post that points out the issues with a lack of diversity in the military.
Two lessons learned: 1) those in the officer corps and the military who respond emotionally and defensively to Granville’s post might want to spend some time considering why they are so thin-skinned (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thin-skinned) and 2) if you want to reach an audience and initiate a serious discussion on a topic, knowing your audience is key; by the volume of responses to her piece, Granville clearly knows her audience well, and has accomplished a great deal by once again highlighting the issues she addresses.
A solid response from a veteran, who writes: "First, it is never a good idea to insult your audience."
Anna Granville's blog post has gone viral and sparked an enormous response, probably for a couple reasons, outlined below.
I put the conclusion and lessons learned up-front, as many of you might not read to the end of this:
Conclusion: Granville would have been better served to cite some data. However, I’d conclude that she purposefully targeted her audience. But it would be a stretch to say she purposefully “insulted” her audience; after all, it is not her fault that the demographic that the audience represents feels “insulted” by a blog post that points out the issues with a lack of diversity in the military.
Two lessons learned: 1) those in the officer corps and the military who respond emotionally and defensively to Granville’s post might want to spend some time considering why they are so thin-skinned (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thin-skinned) and 2) if you want to reach an audience and initiate a serious discussion on a topic, knowing your audience is key; by the volume of responses to her piece, Granville clearly knows her audience well, and has accomplished a great deal by once again highlighting the issues she addresses.
1) Generational. As you'll read in the comments on this thread, there is quite a backlash against the "entitlement generation" that many assert Granville so adequately represents.
2) She's a female company grade military officer, one of 20,000 or so female company grade officers in DoD out of an officer corps of 230,000, and the military has yet to really accept females serving in the military (reference the outrage about women starting Ranger school on Monday, the surveys about how Special Operations vastly oppose women serving in their units, the numerous Navy scandals involving sexual harassment/assault/covert photography of female submarine officers in the shower, etc, etc).
3) She identifies faults/inefficiencies/problems with the system, in which such a vast swathe of serving military members are so heavily invested.
4) She's resigning, which is so often interpreted as "quitting" and couched in negative terms. At least Bryan Shaw and some commentators on this thread acknowledge that resigning one's commission is not tantamount to disloyalty. I’ve watched as countless peers tendered their resignations, and observed first-hand the negative reaction of senior officers that so often seemed stunned that one would be so “disloyal” as to decide to leave the military, even if the resigning officer well and fully performed assigned duties throughout their initial commitment. It still seems odd to me that so many interpret resigning as disloyal to the organization, when such a large percentage of officers resign their commissions after their initial commitment.
5) She directly and purposefully targets her piece at an intended audience. The intended audience of Granville’s blog post is the “majority of senior military leaders (who) are white, Christian, conservative men with engineering degrees from a service academy, masters’ degrees from a war college, who grew up middle-class or privileged and whose wives do not have a career outside the home.” She clearly understands that the officer corps, especially at the GO/FO level, and decreasingly so as one goes down the ranks, exactly fit or fit most of the descriptors here, in no certain order: 1) white; 2) Christian; 3) conservative; 4) men; 5) academy graduates with engineering degrees; 6) war college graduates; 7) middle-class or privileged backgrounds; 8) married; 9) with wives that do not have their own careers.
We can argue about statistics all day, and many have already done so on this topic. The DoD, transparent as it tries to be, does publically release full demographic statistics (http://prhome.defense.gov/portals/52/Documents/POPREP/poprep2011/appendixb/appendixb.pdf and https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/appj/dwp/dwp_reports.jsp). Other entities also release studies on the data. Here’s a good one: http://www.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2013-Demographics-Report.pdf.
Point 1: In 2013, 30.7% of active duty military members were minorities. Per the DMDC data, in 2011, 78.1 percent of the officer corps was white. So Granville’s point 1 is spot-on.
Point 2: also spot-on: about 77 percent of active duty military are Christian, with about 20 percent having no religious preference and 3 percent being Jewish, Pagan, or Muslim: http://secular.org/files/mldc-ripsdemographics_0.pdf.
Point 3: also spot on: http://www.gallup.com/poll/118684/military-veterans-ages-tend-republican.aspx shows that 34 percent of veterans are Republicans (29 percent are Democrats, 33 percent are Independents) and a solid series by Military Times (http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2014/12/21/americas-military-a-conservative-militarys-cultural-evolution/18959975/) clearly demonstrates the conservative credentials of the Active Duty population; http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/25/military-no-less-conservative-less-republican-surv/, based on the Military Times data, shows that 41 percent, a plurality, of active duty military members identify as conservatives.
Point 4: The veracity of Point 4 is clear: men comprise 85 percent of the military, women 15 percent.
Point 5: truer the higher up the rank structure one goes; https://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/gao/reports/d07372r.html, for example, clearly shows that at academy graduates represent something like 15 percent of officers commissioned each year. But as one looks at Academy grad representation at the higher ranks, the percentage of Academy graduates at each rank increases (see my rant at https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/would-you-be-in-favor-of-repurposing-our-service-academies for more on this). I do concede, though, that Granville’s argument would be more accurate if she had written “bachelor of science degrees” versus “engineering degrees,” as the range of academic majors at the Academies has grown substantially over the years.
Point 6: almost 100 percent true: almost all O-6 and above will have graduated from a war college; a select few go to other, non-war college programs for senior service colleges; here’s the Army example: http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/army/officer/2015/03/19/assignments-officers-resident-schooling/25015731/.
Point 7: also accurate: see http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-in-the-us-military-the-demographics-of-enlisted-troops-and-officers for a snapshot.
Point 8: 72 percent of the officer corps is married (page 46 of http://prhome.defense.gov/portals/52/Documents/POPREP/poprep2011/appendixb/appendixb.pdf for 2011); again, spot on.
Point 9: I had some trouble finding data, but here it is: http://vets.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/MilitarySpouseEmploymentReport_2013.pdf. See page 27-28: in 2012, something like 96 percent of military spouses 45 years old and older were unemployed, and 85 percent of military spouses 25 to 44 years old were unemployed. One assumption I’m making: most spouses of senior military officers are older than 25 years old. One issue with the data: it isn’t broken out neatly into officer versus enlisted.
Conclusion: Granville would have been better served to cite some data. However, I’d conclude that she purposefully targeted her audience. But it would be a stretch to say she purposefully “insulted” her audience; after all, it is not her fault that the demographic that the audience represents feels “insulted” by a blog post that points out the issues with a lack of diversity in the military.
Two lessons learned: 1) those in the officer corps and the military who respond emotionally and defensively to Granville’s post might want to spend some time considering why they are so thin-skinned (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thin-skinned) and 2) if you want to reach an audience and initiate a serious discussion on a topic, knowing your audience is key; by the volume of responses to her piece, Granville clearly knows her audience well, and has accomplished a great deal by once again highlighting the issues she addresses.
One Veteran’s Views on Driving Positive Change
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We all have our reasons for leaving the service and if they are her reasons and she believes in what she wrote then all I can say is fair winds and following seas, best of luck in your future endeavors.
I think that the Navy is better off not having an officer, who would surely promote at the proper time, that does not have the Navy's best interest at hand.
I think that the Navy is better off not having an officer, who would surely promote at the proper time, that does not have the Navy's best interest at hand.
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I don't deny Anna's right to express her moue. But speaking for the Army Team, she is off base in her assertion of "a lack of diversity of ideas, a resistance to alternative ways of thinking, and the lethality of group think."
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COL Herbert Holeman
I respect your opinion, and from my personal view from both enlisted and officer status, there are people who certainly fit her typecast. I read Anna's piece (http://taskandpurpose.com/4-reasons-i-am-resigning-my-commission-as-a-naval-officer/) and for me, her assertion applies too broad a brush.
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It read to me like a lot of self-worship, admonishing senior leadership for not being smart enough to realize she's just the best naval officer ever. I don't think she ever considered that even though she probably performs her job quite well, her peers are pretty great at what they do also. The whole piece was wrought with entitlement.
Her comment on group think due to demographics blew my mind a bit. There's a reason that senior officers have held nearly every subordinate position within their command by the time they climb to the top of the ladder. Their experience in those jobs is the kind of alternate thinking we want, not a random idea from an inexperienced 26-year-old based on answers in a demographic questionnaire. So, if I'm a white male but neither conservative nor Christian, am I allowed to hold a leadership billet in her Navy? What a crock.
Her comment on group think due to demographics blew my mind a bit. There's a reason that senior officers have held nearly every subordinate position within their command by the time they climb to the top of the ladder. Their experience in those jobs is the kind of alternate thinking we want, not a random idea from an inexperienced 26-year-old based on answers in a demographic questionnaire. So, if I'm a white male but neither conservative nor Christian, am I allowed to hold a leadership billet in her Navy? What a crock.
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