Why The Army’s Officer Evaluation System Needs A Complete Overhaul

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 12:48:17 -0500

I read this article today and thought the author was dead on. Thoughts?

http://taskandpurpose.com/why-the-armys-officer-evaluation-system-needs-a-complete-overhaul/

Within the current system, we still truly don’t know who the best officers and noncommissioned officers are.

Response by COL Vincent Stoneking made Dec 10 at 2015 5:23 PM

COL Vincent Stoneking — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 17:23:16 -0500

The problem is real, some of the proposed solutions, not so much.
The idea of (I'm going to call it) multi-point rating, (discussed as like lanes) is a non-starter for me. There are three main immediate problems. First, this is multiple "point in time" ratings. The problem with THAT is that it will encourage showboating for the elevator(s) over consistent performance. The second is that there are simply not that many seniors (or even peers) wandering around to do all those point evaluations, and those that would be available will not have the context to make fair ratings. They won't have the context for at least two reasons: A) they haven't seen the Officer perform over time (see issue #1) and B), they probably don't have the knowledge of what "right looks like" at a given position and level. Even if they think they do. Third, this would encourage "likership" over "leadership". Sometimes, being the guy or gal in charge requires you to make the right choice instead of the popular one.

As an absolutely trivial example, Look at what is required to be a successful G6 MAJ, reflect back to your perception as a Specialist in the Personnel field of what signal did..... To make this work, there would need to be a giant cadre of MOS- and Grade- Aligned O/Cs (or whatever they are called today....) following every Officer around. An there would still be the allegations of bias.

Until the Army is willing to accept the Bell Curve and quit pretending it is stationed at Fort Woebegone, evaluations will remain broken.

Response by CPT Aaron Kletzing made Dec 10 at 2015 6:05 PM

CPT Aaron Kletzing — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 18:05:01 -0500

This is a very old problem that gets discussed ad nausea-- the real challenge is putting in place mechanisms to truly fix this. I am skeptical that that will happen anytime soon...