The System Protects the System - The Armed Forces And Change.
Is the military an organisation capable of change,
constantly reinventing itself to face the challenges of new threats and problems,
or is it a static organisation that talks a good talk about change, but finds
itself unable to do so? The question is one that has been asked probably since
armed forces evolved, and is one that will continue well into the future – the same
questions asked of the Roman Legions will be asked of the Space Marine Legions
(and their trusty FV432 ‘Rhino’ steeds).
This issue came to mind when the author was reflecting the
other day that of his peer group who chose military service as a full time
career, many are now in increasingly senior positions of influence and authority.
They are in roles that, when they joined, seemed to hold significant power and span
of control and they could (and should) have the power to effect meaningful change.
Yet those same self-assured young officers of 20-25 years ago who were adamant
that “when they were in charge things would change” now find themselves
prisoners of the same system and unable to effect the changes they wish to make.
Why is the military system so good at preventing people from being the change
they want to be?
Heaven forbid you ask for a permanent pass, or try to go
between sites with a single car pass. No matter how much people in Defence
agree that the time is ripe for a single car pass to get into multiple sites,
or even just letting people on with ID and not a car pass, the system is institutionally
incapable of making it happen. It should in theory be simple, CDS should be
able to say “no more car passes on any MOD site” and change should follow
tomorrow. Instead working groups will be formed, terribly important staff
officers will write lengthy eloquent papers in beautifully formatted JSP101
compliant prose, Civil Service and military security managers will mutter
darkly about “risk” and nothing will happen. The end result will likely be a
trial that changes nothing and the introduction instead of yet another car pass…
The well-known and dangerously subversive (at least in the
eyes of some in the British Army) twitter user @Combat_Boot has tweeted and
blogged extensively on the challenges of car pass use – and their threads
are well worth a read because they expose the realities of a change averse
system. For all the talk of change, the system seems stuck on paper forms and
doing it that way because its always been done that way. Is change really
possible or are people just prisoners of a system that has become too impenetrable
to be salvaged?
This matters because it raises difficult questions around
how the armed forces are structured and work. They remain a closed shop with
practically no external injection of new talent beyond point of initial entry
and there is an insistence, bordering on religious obsession, with the idea
that you can only understand the armed forces and work in them if you’ve worked
your way up through the system. Strangely this doesn’t apply in reverse as
apparently military personnel have incredible transferable skills when it comes
to resettlement. The result is a system which promotes from the talent pool
that it has left to promote from, and often, bluntly this is not always the best
that a cohort once had to offer.
It has been said that the best generals leave the Army as Captains
or Majors and this is true. How many good officers have left the armed forces at
an early stage disillusioned with the inability to make good change or improve
things, and worn down by a system that thrives on slow process? By the time you
hit the senior cohorts, you are left with people who have been in a system for
30 years and have arguably not been promoted by rocking the boat or taking a
risk. In a highly competitive promotion environment where your career prospects
rely on the opinions and written words of others, who would risk breaking the accepted
norms of behaviour to do things differently? This may sound cynical but if you’re
in a system where you can only promote once per year and need a multi-year
record of success to show that you’ve met the bar for promotion, why would you
take a risk that could jeopardise this? The system actively disincentives
people from taking risks and trying to effect meaningful change for fear that if
it goes wrong, their report will be compromised. If you have to rank your officers
in terms of performance, do you write up the one who has played the game, done
as expected and delivered, or the one who tried to make a change and failed
badly?
At the same time the career plot moves people too often to build up the ability to see change through and own both its potential failure but also its success. It is rare for an officer in a two year posting plot to have the chance to really deliver a bold and risky new way of doing business, and they either leave with the change half done, or more likely not at all. The career management system and way of recognising talent makes it very hard for people to be the change they want to see because they know that to tinker raises the prospect of being career fouled. Why fix a problem when you see the next rank ahead of you? This may sound unduly cynical, but the military audience reading this may want to ask themselves “how many people do I know who got promoted by consistently taking risks, driving change and failing, but scoring some successes along the way”? The answer is probably ‘very few’. With a promotion system in place that makes it a poor choice to try to tinker, the result is an ever dwindling pool of people who know that to promote means to keep doing what they’ve been doing. Why if you are in your 40s and keen to get to the next level would you suddenly move from a risk averse successful approach to driving changes that could risk your long term career prospects when you have to worry about kids and mortgages?
Add to this the problem that the system suffers from a lack
of fresh thinking – the inability to bring genuinely new talent into the armed
forces stifles their ability to think creatively about problems. For all the
talk of working with civil servants or using contractors, as an institution the
military is hidebound by rank and tradition. They will default by instinct to looking
to each other for guidance and groupthink because there is familiarity in
uniform and well established service networks. At more senior levels, you’re
dealing with people who’ve worked together in a fundamentally closed society
for 20-30 years and who have had no external experience or new frame of
reference to question things. If you don’t know that what you are doing makes no
sense, how can you change it? You need new blood at senior levels to come in
and make meaningful challenge to obsolete policies and processes – yet the
system rejects this change on the grounds that you cannot know what it is to be
in the military unless you’ve always been in the military. The danger is that without
this change, things will be done because they’ve always been done this way – and
that way, eventually, lies defeat. In WW1 and 2 the influx of civilians, often
rapidly promoted, meant that society could help unleash its talents to secure
victory. Today the military is a little like the priesthood – you can only
progress to meaningful influence if you commit to dedicating decades of your
life to this one sole mission.
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| Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright 2023. |
Why does this matter? Is it really an issue if car passes
are still done a certain way? In one way, no it doesn’t matter in the slightest.
Things will keep going and be done the way they’ve always been done. But on the
other hand without a willingness to tear things up and throw away old practises,
new change will be stifled. Take Ukraine, which is now using commercial drones
to deliver and release high explosive shells into abandoned Russian tanks and
destroy them. This is a genius idea, very cheap to do and one that helps
neutralise at very low cost a Russian threat – it was probably thought up and
delivered in days to provide a quick and dirty solution to a real problem.
Could the British Armed Forces do something similar in the same timeline – no,
they could not. Instead the process would be delayed by years of concept
development, study days, field trips, trials and requirement redefinition and
eventual low rate production of something that was hardened against all manner
of threats and required a platoon sized footprint to support and maintain in
the field. It would reach the front line in several years time in limited numbers
and little interest in delivering sustainable long term capability. Its hard to
admit but the UK system is so process bound and resistant to change that it would
not be able to do in years what Ukraine seems to have managed in days or weeks.
Some seniors are reportedly calling for the MOD to be better
at accepting an ‘80% solution’ on the grounds that the armed forces always gold
plate things. The first question to ask back whenever a senior officer says “lets
go for an 80% solution” is, “certainly Ma’am/Sir, but can you define what you
mean by this and give an example”. Chances are there will be an awkward silence
and post meeting ‘interview without coffee’ for said questioner by their chain
of command. Demanding an 80% solution means asking what compromises are you
prepared to make to deliver a capability to the field and support UK troops whose
lives may be at risk.
In wartime the UOR process is ideal for accepting an 80%
outcome – delivery of a platform for a single theatre, not usable more widely
and lacking long term integration, support or stores because it is being
purchased for a single purpose. But does this make sense for a platform that
may be used for years to come across the military? Then you hit the question of
asking what is the 20% you can take risk on and why? Is it to buy something
that can defend against 9 out of 10 threats, but the 10th is so
complex that it would cost tens of millions extra to develop? Or is it to compromise
on safety, reliability, stores support and so on – what is it that you can take
an element of compromise or risk on to bring something into service more
quickly, and what do those tradeoffs mean long term?
The problem for risk averse officers is that an 80% solution
may mean a faster fielding of capability, but at the cost of deploying something
that gets more people killed. As a nation we are increasingly reluctant to accept
human casualties in an operation, so does this mean that taking risk and
introducing a faster 80% solution that gets a capability to the field, but
which could be higher risk to its users (say weaker armour that doesn’t defend
against all threats) is an acceptable trade off? Trying to get a Minister to
sign off on a decision to buy something that will knowingly be less safe for
British troops to use, but can be deployed more quickly is going to be
difficult. Its hard to imagine a Minister willingly approving a course of action
that could, hypothetically, see troops killed as a result of their own sides
procurement choices and willingness to take risk.
The result is the emergence of a dangerous echo chamber in
which a military career structure is emerging where people are promoted for
following and playing a well defined game, not challenging and forcing real behaviour
change. This has led to the rise of the “SO Mediocre”, namely staff officers
who move from post to post on regular career moves, acting in ways that are
bland and risk averse and avoiding genuinely difficult decisions. They know
little of their subject matter because the system will not let them stay a
while and gain deep expertise, while those that do take the time to become experts
are inevitably career stalled / fouled and do not promote further due to their
lack of ‘broader career experience’. The system discourages people from becoming
genuine experts and rewarding them, and instead drives a community of people
whose best chance of promotion is not to rock the boat. The danger of this
approach is that it results in problems like Ajax where over nearly two
decades, countless staff officers have written lovely papers, added in requirements,
insisted on redesigns, doctrinal changes and ended up presiding over one of the
biggest and costly procurement fiascos in the history of the British Army. It
is perhaps little wonder that the Treasury is reluctant to find additional
money for Defence and the Army at the moment as it seems to feel that that likelihood
of this being used to deliver meaningful results, versus some very expensive PowerPoint
slides and demonstration vehicles is low.
Is change even possible or should we resign ourselves to a
future of accepting mediocrity in our officer corps? We have seen the emergence
of a career management system that rewards a certain set of behaviours and
discourages others. We have seen the system reinforce itself by only promoting
those who adhere to this, and creating an atmosphere where those who want to
see change either give in and comply, or walk away and do great things elsewhere.
Only a major war that we lose, an influx of fresh talent and a willingness to
look again at the fundamentals of career management is likely to see any change
to the system. Given the utter reluctance to allow fresh blood in or
meaningfully change the career management structure, it is hard to see any
outcome here which solves the problem that the system itself prevents change
because the system rewards those who protect the system from those who threaten
the system.
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ReplyDeleteCompletely agree with this. Joined as a reservist aged 40+, now 10 yrs of FTRS service done. Continually amazed at byzantine, glacial process and no achievement. The inspirational OF3/4s I've served have all left and I have my doubts about those who are now OF5+. Promotion system would not let me go OF3 till 7 yrs time served despite decades of pertinent civilian experience. When I've railed at the system, have been patronised because I've not been in since 18 (only those who have done 20 yrs+ know what is best). Those who do not know my background always assume I am a retired OF4/5/6 because of my knowledge, bearing and ability. I used to think that was a compliment but now I'm not so sure!
ReplyDeletePlus ça change. Basil Liddell Hart warned of this over half a century ago:
ReplyDelete"As a young officer I had cherished a deep respect for the Higher Command, but I was sadly disillusioned about many of them when I came to see them more closely from the angle of a military correspondent. It was saddening to discover how many apparently honourable men would stoop to almost to anything to help their own advancement. [p19] A different habit, with worse effect, was the way that ambitious officers when they came in sight of promotion to the generals' list, would decide that they would bottle up their thoughts and ideas, as a safety precaution, until they reached the top and could put these ideas into practice. Unfortunately the usual result, after years of such self-repression for the sake of their ambition, was that when the bottle was eventually uncorked the contents had evaporated. [p20]"
It's not just the British Army (though I suspect it's far worse because the US Army appears to have overcome many of its failings). Chaplain (Colonel) K D Johnson, US Army, writing Ethical Issues of Military Leadership in 1974, quoted Liddell Hart’s observations about ambitious officers in sight of promotion bottling up their thoughts and ideas for the sake of their ambition, only for those thoughts to evaporate, and drew a clear link between such officers’ thoughts and ideas and their ethics. Colonel Johnson warned:
"What Hart is saying should not be limited to promotion to general. The process starts much earlier. What is devastating to ethical judgments is a subtle and disguised form of ethical relativism practiced frequently in the military setting... I call the loyalty syndrome. This is the practice wherein questions of right or wrong are subordinated to the overriding value of loyalty to the boss. Loyalty, an admirable and necessary quality within limits, can become all-consuming. It also becomes dangerous when a genuine, wholesome loyalty to the boss degenerates into covering up for him, hiding things from him, or not differing with him when he is wrong... This is confirmed in a study entitled The United States Army's Philosophy of Management... the report said:
'From the statements concerning fear, one can conclude that the use of fear is perceived by a majority of respondents, especially the lower ranking respondents, to deeply pervade the Army's organization structure. Lower ranking respondents generally believe that managers are unwilling to admit errors and are encouraged to stretch the truth because of how fear operates within the system. They believe that fear itself and the life-and-death power of [appraisal] reports are the primary means used by their superiors to motivate subordinates' performance. When lower ranking officers are afraid to tell superiors about errors, embarrassing situations for the individual, the manager, and the organization can arise when the errors are finally disclosed. The persistence of fear as a stimulator of performance can have repercussions.'
Colonel Johnson concluded thus: ‘Before being sentenced for his Watergate role, Jeb Stuart Magruder testified: "Somewhere between my ambition and my ideals I lost my ethical compass. I found myself on a path that had not been intended for me by my parents or my principles or by my own ethical instincts." In the Army, we must ensure that the ambition of the professional soldier can move him along the path of career advancement only as he makes frequent azimuth checks with his ethical compass.
Ajax is a recent example of moral failure/dishonesty. Who knew what, when did they know it, and what did they do about it? The results of current lawyer-led investigation will be interesting. A more serious example is the de facto 'gross negligence manslaughter' of infantry on Op HERRICK, when senior officers kew or ought reasonably to have known that there was no prospect of 'success' (i.e. see this list of warnings compiled in 2012: https://web.archive.org/web/20120525202900/https://sites.google.com/site/miscellaneousafghanarticles).
The following comment was written in 2010. The TPL character limit precludes citation in full, but the URL is below. It echoes the point you made about OJARs:
ReplyDelete"UK Armed Forces: Plummeting International Reputation Deserved? Does it Matter?
My glorious military career was a two-parter with a considerable interlude between the parts. Initially nurtured by the old BAOR and in the post-Falklands glow, the British Army was very different to the beast I rejoined ten or so years later. [...] the OJAR process seems to have been refined and elevated to a remarkable degree. I'm sure the originators intended this to make things more equitable but they actually delivered a method to winnow out the invaluable awkward squad to those so inclined; the weaker souls who were more managers than leaders and valued conformity above performance. In the wrong hands, it is a system which can make moral cowards of anyone with the slightest bit of ambition and the greatest flaw is that it is an appraisal by superiors only - an open invitation to the vilest sort of careerist. It is not a system which encourages reflective and constructive criticism of the system and yet no organisation can progress, let alone maintain standards, without that questioning thoughtfulness.
In terms of reputation, even back in the Eighties, I often felt that large chunks of the Army, myself included, were clinging to the coat tails of better men. Sandhurst seemed hellbent on convincing the cadets that they were some sort of supermen and a cut above everyone else without any real basis for this. Even if it was true, it is an appalling state of mind to go soldiering with. Perhaps it was meant to instil confidence but, more often than not, it simply instilled arrogance. It was almost as if we lost sight of the fact that Goose Green, the Iranian Embassy etc happened, not because of who we were, but because of the dedicated effort of the units and individuals involved. As the British Army basked in the reflected glory of the achievements of certain units, perhaps we forgot what it took to get to the top and stay there.
[On Op TELIC] [...] the British Army was an uncoordinated mess. Div HQ abounded with Lt Colonels (a frightening amount of whom were temporary appointments - why?) cutting and slashing about the place and the only war they seemed interested in fighting was a turf war with other Lt Colonels. Specialist units were commanded by non-specialists with little idea of what they should be doing or how they should be doing it but who were determined to stamp their authority on their little fiefdoms. [...] we ended up slinking out of Basra behind a smokescreen of blather just in time to repeat the whole sorry mess in Afghanistan.
[...] I have wanted to write something like this for seven years but I have not enjoyed doing so. I loved my time with the Army and I consider commanding soldiers to have been the greatest honour and finest experience of my life. To be where we are today is heart-breaking. I hope that when the fighting's over, we retain and promote enough of those officers who have seen hard frontline service, regenerate and restructure intelligently and show the humility required to learn the lessons as our American cousins did after Vietnam. The innate quality of the British soldier is demonstrated daily. I hate where we are today but I believe that it can be turned around and, as a humble former fyrdman, I fervently hope that it is."
https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/uk-armed-forces-plummeting-international-reputation-deserved-does-it-matter.153802/#post-3522071
Well said, Sir H! This is precisely the point I have made about career management failures in my time in Service. It is easier for the Career Damager to say 'no' to anything that does not fit the sausage pipe, because they would have to justify it to their 1 up and the risk to their own promotion would be too great.
ReplyDeleteI can also confirm what another comment says about Div HQ in Basrah - A hive of half-colonels playing politics, whist the 2* openly chuckled about their antics.