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Productivity is measured by deeds and not words. The Coast Guard has adopted a new fitness report that defines productivity by measuring actual results against stated goals. For at least one sea service, then, advancement in rank will require more than the turn of a high-sounding phrase.
In large military organizations, a busy fitness report writer will often ask a junior officer to list recent accomplishments. Occasionally, it is an eye-opener. The reporting senior discovers that one of his most energetic officers has somehow run off on a pointless journey during the evaluation period. The enthusiastic officer dutifully reports accomplishing a job well done—a job completely unnecessary and unproductive!
So it goes in both military and civilian organizations. Fuzzy direction from the top, compounded with faulty communications, inevitably leads to crippled productivity; you could call this a leadership problem. Hence, leadership, direction-setting, and the development of subordinates must all run on parallel courses or risk collision. President Eisenhower once summed up this management challenge by defining leadership as “the art of getting somebody else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” While this may smack too much of manipulation for some readers, the simple truth is that most work in the armed forces is done by men and women who follow orders. And who can doubt that Eisenhower was a master at the productive organization of men and materials?
So we are interested in sea service productivity and how to measure it. That brings us back to fitness reports. Their purpose is to give a fair and objective evaluation of an officer’s performance over a specific period. Now, I will let you in on one of our worst kept military secrets: Any fitness report that does not use the highest descriptive traits to rate an individual may torpedo his or her naval career. Mark a Coast Guard lieutenant commander with a “very good performance, frequently demonstrates excellent performance, highly qualified,” and—competitively—you have placed him in the bottom 15% of all officers in his grade; most of us know what two or more evaluations like that will do.
Because there is this tendency for ratings to cluster on the far left side of fitness reports, “desired distribution” and other techniques are imposed to eliminate our rating bias. Serious thought is being given to the need for more modern management practice both in the military and civilian sectors. The search for fairness and objectivity in management and promotion systems is driven by the need to make sure the best-equipped leaders rise to the top of the organization. For example, the current Coast Guard officer fitness report system is being replaced in the regular service by a new reporting system which is phasing in on normal marking periods in 1982.
The Air Force has issued a 14-page document on how to use precise words in their officer evaluation system. It actually lists 362 descriptive words and phrases that make evaluations more “precise.” B is sort of a Rubik’s Cube, where you try to line up all the right words to match the emotional coloring of your rating.
What we should be recording on fitness reports is behavior and productivity. And productivity is measured by results, not superlatives. In addition to fairness and objectivity, a good management system must gain commitment to be effective; it also must close the communications loop with developmental feedback for participants.
Those caveats are my lead-in to describe the application of a thoroughly modern management theory in, of all places, a Coast Guard Reserve unit in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1978, we attempted to blend a new management theory into the daily operations of a 60-man reserve port security unit. In three years, we branched out to three additional units in St. Louis, Peoria, Illinois, and St. Paul, Minnesota. This program has no ties to the system being implemented in the regular service.
The practice we first used in St. Louis is called management-by-results (MBR). For those who are up to date on management philosophy, MBR is an evolutionary refinement of the management-by-objective (MBO) system, popularized by Peter Drucker. The MBR system creates a climate where the entire organization focuses on productive courses of action. (Remember, we can tolerate our energetic young officer occasionally marching off to a different drumbeat, but productivity requires him to eventually return to the unit’s cadence.)
The MBR system recognizes and rewards individuals for performance by objectively using shortterm measures to delineate top performers from average performers. While MBO has been practiced for more than 20 years by U. S. industry and many government agencies, MBR is a more modern variation.
The problem with most direction-setting is that it tends to focus on what people actually do; we call that activity orientation. Activities are sometimes productive, sometimes not. Filling out a monthly report is a common activity. Whether the time taken to fill out the paperwork is worthwhile or not is a question that frequently needs asking. Since our management system purports to create a climate where the reserve unit focuses on productive courses of action, let us drop the word “activity” and move to a more productive noun.
The next word to be defined in terms of MBR is "objective.” Only the Commandant sets formal objectives for the service. These are published in the Coast Guard Long Range View (Comdtlnst 16014.1). Objectives are statements of what the service is to accomplish over the long haul—i.e., aspirations.
As these objectives filter down through the chain °f command, senior managers develop means to accomplish them. These accomplishments are called "results” in the MBR vocabulary. Results then cascade from the top of their organizations to the lowest organization level. You probably do not need reminding that the lowest level is where somebody actually has to do the work that supports all the military managers.
Next, let us look at ‘ ‘goals. ’’ A goal can be defined as a significant target which is required to be met to achieve the full result. Goals come from the bottom of the organization and move up through the chain of command to achieve the full results. Goals generally are of one year’s duration and must be easily measurable. Tabulating progress against fiscal year goals can be timed to Coast Guard lieutenant commander and commander fitness report periods. That is where we add the ingredient of quantification and minimize the need for superlatives.
MBR theory says that results are accomplished hy teamwork and rarely by individuals. In other Words, “joint accountability” (the teaming together °f people) is an important component of the new management system. If a team has been delegated the responsibility and knows its performance will he measured, the stronger members will correct the Weak links. A “united we stand, divided we fall” mentality begins to stimulate teamwork.
What we are after with this modern system is tight organizational linkage from top to bottom. We do not want the troops off doing a wonderful job on a task that is not essential. If MBR works properly, everyone from the commandant to each reserve unit division officer works toward the same objective, hut may pursue different goals to get there. Correlatively, every seaman should understand how his °r her efforts relate to a Coast Guard mission.
For purposes of our management system, the commandant sets objectives for the Coast Guard. A reserve unit commanding officer must decide how he can support those objectives, then write down lhe results to be achieved by his unit. Unit officers Propose the goals they have set for their staffs and divisions to the commanding officer. It is in this Participatory direction-setting environment where commitment of all managers is solidified.
Enough theory. Let us see how MBR works in the field. The commanding officer fills out a form with results that support applicable formal objectives of the commandant. A typical unit result in Group Upper Mississippi River dealing with mobilization readiness would read: “The primary mission of this unit is to maintain a ready force of men and materials for war or national emergency. This unit will achieve a C-l readiness evaluation.” That obviously supports the commandant’s direction for the Coast Guard Reserve program.
Both the unit administration officer and mobilization officer (a collateral duty) commit themselves to a goal that supports the command imposed result. On the unit work program, a notation is made as to where the documentation of success or failure will be found. Six months into the annual work program, progress against results is recorded. This six-month report enables the command to assist junior officers in accomplishing their goals. It is not the time for the commanding officer to jump in and do the juniors’jobs. Rather, the six-month review is a system for the commanding officer to counsel and perhaps reallocate more resources to assist the junior in getting the goal accomplished.
At the year-end completion of the work program, the junior reports his degree of accomplishment. His or her performance judged against annual goals is the moment of truth for recording that achievement and personal productivity. This work program, like any good management system, must have the means to recognize achievement, to separate the average performer from the outstanding achiever. The place to reward and document high performance is on the fitness report.
Great care must be taken by the senior officer to ensure that a goal is realistic and has the proper stretch in it. Let us face the fact that some people set easy targets in life; others set very difficult ones. As in most things, the commanding officer has the final say in approving the goals, but should use the goal-setting process to encourage his juniors to set tough standards for themselves and their crew.
Units benefit from the MBR program since it:
►Allows an understanding between commanding officer and subordinate officers as to what is essential and what performance will be measured
►Shows a current job description of newly assigned officers
►Focuses attention and resources on essential results and not activities
►Promotes understanding of and pinpoints the place of every unit member in the pursuit of Coast Guard missions
►Promotes teamwork through joint accountability and quickly identifies weak links
►Allows managers to form their own yardsticks for measurement and gains personal commitment
►Ensures more objective, quantitative comments in fitness reports
In the case of the sample mobilization result given, one unit did not receive a C-l evaluation of mobilization readiness. However, this will not appear as a negative comment in the fitness reports of the officers jointly accountable because the C-2 rating received was very satisfactory for this unit. In fact, unit mobilization was improved by bringing unit strength up to authorized level from an undermanned position the year before.
If, however, this unit had attained an unsatisfactory mobilization readiness rating, this fact would have been noted in the appropriate fitness reports. Numbers are not an end in themselves. Sometimes we must fall back on common sense and look beyond the numerical quantification.
A typical Coast Guard Reserve Unit has 10 to 12 major results worth concentrating on. A unit that lists 30 to 40 major results has lost focus on what is really important. A commanding officer must be able to separate the wheat from the chaff for his unit.
We started this article by admitting that people in the military as well as other walks of life will occasionally fill up their time with unproductive activity. A suggested management theory was advocated to bring leadership, direction-setting, and a climate of improved communications to the sea service work place. The key to officer evaluation is behavioral in that it must recognize dedication to achieving results. If we evaluate our people on how well they perform against jointly agreed upon goals, we will be contributing to a more fair and objective evaluation system.
Commander Isham is commanding officer of Coast Guard Reserve Group Upper Mississippi River and director of advertising and public relations for a manufacturing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.
Generation Gap
My father came to Annapolis when I was a plebe to lecture me on the related topics of conduct and demerits. Hoping to divert his attention to a more congenial subject. I asked him what the girls of the South Seas were really like in the old days.
He looked at me, paused, and said, ‘‘Son. you are too young."
Many years later, when it was obvious that my father was failing rapidly. I said, "Dad. surely now you can tell me what the girls of the South Seas were really like."
He looked at me, concentrated, and finally said. "Sorry, son. now you are too old.”
Admiral Robert B. Carney, USN (Ret.)
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