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I have always heard that we don't promote on performance but potential. I don't think that it is that simple. I have yet to find anyone that is a "Meet the Stands" type of soldier excel when they were promoted. But so often we try to gauge their ability to perform at a higher level. To me this is about as close as you can get to assess their potential. But so often we assume that a regular person that can simply perform their duties has potential. I don't buy that. The Peter principle comes to mind when thinking about that.
What have you do to assess this? Is there anything that you recommend? What about anything that you have done that didn't work as you thought it would?
We all know that as a Senior Rater we have to look at being that soldier a numeral rating when writing their NCOER and that everyone can't be a 1.
What have you do to assess this? Is there anything that you recommend? What about anything that you have done that didn't work as you thought it would?
We all know that as a Senior Rater we have to look at being that soldier a numeral rating when writing their NCOER and that everyone can't be a 1.
Evaluations
Promotions
Leadership
Edited 8 y ago
Posted 8 y ago
Responses: 11
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Sir, you asked...How do you evaluate Potential? My wife likes this subject and refers the oldest child. When he was in school his grades would falter midway and at the last minute he was able to dig in and bring the grade up. He has potential and it can be seen when you see his digging in. He chooses not to do the best he has potential for. He has potential to do better. Potential is something you see in someone and when we see it we must water it.
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Potential is a hard thing to gauge. It's like a crap shoot, you throw the dice sometimes you win sometimes you lose. And I hate losing. But I feel like if you get to know your Soldiers, know what their habits are, how they react to different circumstances, keep them motivated and headed in the right direction and most importantly in my mind setting the right example for them to follow. Then you will be able to gauge what their potential is.
I also agree with some of the other comments posted about the NCOER not being a very good leadership tool. Me personally I think we need to get back to the "job books" we used to have for the job performance section and use the NCOER just for leadership skills.
I also agree with some of the other comments posted about the NCOER not being a very good leadership tool. Me personally I think we need to get back to the "job books" we used to have for the job performance section and use the NCOER just for leadership skills.
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SGM Mikel Dawson
SFC Richard Giles - Why is it the tools which work well, the Army lets them go by the wayside?
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MAJ Rene De La Rosa
SGM Mikel Dawson, they went by the wayside when the War on Terrorism kicked off. After that, the constant op tempo got to the NCOs and officers that the leader books were forgotten about.
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SFC Richard Giles
MAJ Rene De La Rosa - I believe they went away before that. The last job book I had was the mid 90's maybe even earlier. I could be wrong though but it seems that's when we lost them in our unit. I still have mine somewhere.
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SFC Richard Giles
SGM Mikel Dawson - SGM Dawson I couldn't agree with you more, they were a great tool. I used a modified version of a job book for a few years to keep track of what my mechanics had accomplished but while some of upper leadership liked them, some didn't. Seems we turned into a "show me" world. But I really think the reason they went away is because Soldiers and some NCO's were misusing them
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If you are promoting on potential alone, you are making a terrible mistake. There is no substitute for results and performance. The best indicator of future performance or behavior is past performance or behavior. As Churchill said "No matter how grand the strategy you must occasionally look at the results".
People that exhibit solid results in a job/position over time may have a "stretch" role identified for them to see if they have the ability to make that jump. Assessing potential and promoting on it, if done incorrectly is simply promoting people that are not ready and do not demonstrate skills required for the job. It is promotion based more on feeling than results. Potential is a very speculative game and some use it to avoid doing the hard work of serious evaluation and coaching/development of people. In the business world can have very negative outcomes on revenues, profitability, performance, morale etc. In the armed forces it could cost people their lives.
People that exhibit solid results in a job/position over time may have a "stretch" role identified for them to see if they have the ability to make that jump. Assessing potential and promoting on it, if done incorrectly is simply promoting people that are not ready and do not demonstrate skills required for the job. It is promotion based more on feeling than results. Potential is a very speculative game and some use it to avoid doing the hard work of serious evaluation and coaching/development of people. In the business world can have very negative outcomes on revenues, profitability, performance, morale etc. In the armed forces it could cost people their lives.
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SFC Richard Giles
Couldn't agree with you more Cpl. Job performance and MOS proficiency is almost gone by the wayside and that's a shame.
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