What's wrong with the Air Force?

[Ram]

Rumor has it that this kid is a giant douche who had a history. This was just the last straw...

[pawnman]

1 hour ago, Ram said:

Rumor has it that this kid is a giant douche who had a history. This was just the last straw...

Maybe they should have documented some of the history, instead of threatening to wash a kid out for riding one of these admittedly ridiculous hoverboard contraptions.

[herkbum]

Well it sounds like someone at Eglin may soon be able to shed light on this dude. If he's a douchebag now, he's unlikely to change very quickly.

[SuperWSO]

5 hours ago, herkbum said:

Well it sounds like someone at Eglin may soon be able to shed light on this dude. If he's a douchebag now, he's unlikely to change very quickly.

... But now he is 2Lt Douchebag!

[HuggyU2]

Why is any of this relevant... to anything?

A 2Lt that's unpopular with the status quo. 

Newsworthy. 

[GKinnear]

The Pentagon's plan to hire military leaders off the street

 

The shoe clerkery has gone full retard. WOs, oh hell no; but O-6 hired off the street is acceptable? WTFO...

 

EDIT: yes it's more of a DoD issue, than just AF specific. I really hope this is just polite consideration since Carter is name dropped in the article and not serious.

Edited June 19, 2016 by GKinnear
background

[Jaded]

Um, why is that a bad idea? 

[guineapigfury]

Let's take people with zero miltary experience and start them as Group Commanders, what could possibly go wrong?  There is a much better fix mentioned in the article: filling these hard to fill spots with GS personnel.  That solves the pay issue and mitigates the lack of military experience by keeping them out of uniform.

[Jaded]

I guess I don't understand how opening up leadership positions to a bigger pool is a bad idea. If a civilian wants to be the mission support group commander, I say let him or her interview against whatever O-6 was "groomed" for that position. I think this organization would be improved with some outsider perspectives in positions of authority.

[bluedevil]

The military is not a profit maximizing entity. It will never run like one because it's a part of the insanely bureaucratic gov't. I'm all for hiring some intelligent and successful dudes off the street but they simply won't be able to achieve anything without systematic change throughout the DoD. Until big blue realizes how powerless a Sq or even a Gp CC is, nothing will change. Although maybe bringing these dudes in and watching them spin their wheels for two years will shed light on that fact...

[GKinnear]

1 hour ago, Jaded said:

Um, why is that a bad idea? 

Two quick thoughts

 

1) We have to remember that our ultimate "end product" is to lead Airmen in combat. IMO, the assumptions that DoD leadership is basing that idea on is one of a peace-time, business model. It seems like they think that any goober an come in and order troops to their death to take some random hill. If it is primarily to stand-up a Cyber MAJCOM, or other specialty fields, GS and contractors already fit that bill. Or create another professional Corps (JAG/Medical/Chaplain). 17Ds are already LAF guys, it'd be a slippery slope until the direct commission is opened up wide. It's a disconnect between the civilian/military leaders. It's been stated before, this is just another example.

2) On the basis that it fly's in the face of Big Blue's insistence that in-res grads from IDE are the "chosen ones", maybe it's not so bad.

[Jaded]

Fair enough. I guess I've just seen a lot more of group commanders sitting in meeting after useless meeting, and not a lot of ordering troops to their death.

[matmacwc]

We want to hire you as an O-6, but first.....

2.5 years of PME, 1 year Masters and a frontal lobotomy.  Yeah, that'll go over well.

[Champ Kind]

1 hour ago, Jaded said:

Fair enough. I guess I've just seen a lot more of group commanders sitting in meeting after useless meeting, and not a lot of ordering troops to their death.

100% agree.  I get more inspiration out of watching a TedTalk on youtube than I do listening to the same old, tired rhetoric of a kool-aid spewing O-6/above.

[pawnman]

4 hours ago, guineapigfury said:

Let's take people with zero miltary experience and start them as Group Commanders, what could possibly go wrong?  There is a much better fix mentioned in the article: filling these hard to fill spots with GS personnel.  That solves the pay issue and mitigates the lack of military experience by keeping them out of uniform.

Weird...plenty of companies can succeed by hiring CEOs from outside the company, or even outside the industry, but there's no way the military can possibly make it work...

Doesn't this also neatly circumvent the problem of the box-checking, risk-averse micro-managers getting picked up for these command slots?  Might be nice to have some folks willing to take a risk because 1. they don't have 20+ years already invested and 2. they have a cushy fall-back position if they fail.  We constantly piss and moan about the wrong people being placed in leadership positions, due to the incentives the Air Force puts into place.  Is it so outlandish to think that people who have not been subjected to the same incentives their entire careers may come up with different solutions?

[guineapigfury]

I think it would aggravate the problem of risk aversion.  If you start hiring CCs off the street you're reducing the number of slots for career officers.  Now they're squabbling over an ever shrinking piece of the pie.  The rational response is to micromanage your people so nothing ever goes wrong on your watch.  Why develop your people, we'll just hire leaders from Facebook.  YGBFSM.  If you want to see how this concept would work out, look at the nonstop clown orgy that is the MQ-9 community.  Good people flying the line with little to no hope of career advancement led by shiny penny outsiders without relevant experience ... it's going as well as the retention numbers indicate.

[Jaded]

You are reducing the number of slots for career officers, but opening up those slots to officers who say, served for 6 years, got out, got an advanced degree, worked in the civilian world for a while, and who want to serve in the military again. That potentially actually reduces pressure on officers at all levels, because a single bad promotion board doesn't end your career (since you could get out and back in again.)

I don't really think that the MQ-9 community is a very good example. It's a horrible train wreck of a disaster for so many reasons that simply blaming it on outsiders really paints an incomplete picture IMO.

It would be cool to have more commanders who simply wanted that job, rather than see it as a stepping stone to the next job.

[guineapigfury]

I think letting people come back in from civilian life to take what maybe the single most important job in the USAF (SQ/CC) would breed enormous resentment.  If we want people to gain experience and come back, we should expand the sabbatical program.  If the sabbatical becomes normalized and valid path for high performers to take (analogous to a school slot), I have no objection.  If that took the form of going in residence to a top notch civilian school to get a relevant degree, that could be an amazing benefit for the Air Force.  However, I'm not sure that separating and reentering would or should give people any extra looks at promotion other than slipping a couple yeargroups to the right.

You're right that MQ-9s are dysfunctional for a multitude of reasons, but outsider leadership is one of the very few variables we can actually control.  RPA commanders of any sort should have to be 11Us or 18Xs with at least 1000 RPA hours.  Also, to the max extent possible they need to have some blood on their hands (N/A for Global Hawks).

[SnapLock]

1 hour ago, guineapigfury said:

I think letting people come back in from civilian life to take what maybe the single most important job in the USAF (SQ/CC) would breed enormous resentment.  If we want people to gain experience and come back, we should expand the sabbatical program.  If the sabbatical becomes normalized and valid path for high performers to take (analogous to a school slot), I have no objection.  If that took the form of going in residence to a top notch civilian school to get a relevant degree, that could be an amazing benefit for the Air Force.  However, I'm not sure that separating and reentering would or should give people any extra looks at promotion other than slipping a couple yeargroups to the right.

You're right that MQ-9s are dysfunctional for a multitude of reasons, but outsider leadership is one of the very few variables we can actually control.  RPA commanders of any sort should have to be 11Us or 18Xs with at least 1000 RPA hours.  Also, to the max extent possible they need to have some blood on their hands (N/A for Global Hawks).

"2"

By hiring from the outside you will create resentment, especially from the guy who was right there ready to take over and then didn't get the job.  I know that might not be bad but I think the resentment and back biting that would occur would undercut the "O-6 wonderboy" from the civilian world.  Either way I also think credibility would be an issue.  The first misstep or not knowing what ### acronym means would surely create a lack of trust and confidence in the leader who was already at a disadvantage.  I can't imagine how many people would be talking about their O-6 who just isn't "one of them" or who "just doesn't get it" because they came from the civilian world.  

Overall this is a really bad idea.  

I think the key to fixing the leadership problems is making leaders based off of credibility, i.e. job performance in their primary duty and demonstrated integrity and leadership ability.  NOT automatically choosing the IDE in-res grad who has been away from the jet for the last 3-4 years. 

[busdriver]

I actually really like the idea of the sabbatical program.  LIkewise, being able to leave active duty and move the the reserve and back again.

I think the biggest thing is killing the golden path, early or on-time, up or out system.  

Then again, O-6 pay is shit compared to what a comparable job pays working for Lockheed

[Ram]

The funny thing about making a competent leader with 15+ years of experience is that it takes 15+ years.

[Clark Griswold]

I'm glad that someone is interested in change that is sorely needed (pension reform, the end of "up or out", fighting the idea of only one ideal career path, ease of movement between active & reserve status, etc...) but I don't think this (direct lateral entry at O-6 level) could happen except in some limited career fields (some cyber, medical, legal, maybe some intel, etc..) but in terms of operations (kinetic but also direct support to kinetic capability missions) I think that is a disaster waiting to happen.  

It has an odor of desperation to it, not a strong one but I can smell it.  Our institutional culture is sick and therefore we have to call in true outsiders, insert them directly into senior rank structure and hope that somehow their talent is universal and that will fix it, just seems like naive hope and that is not a COA.

The real solution is to "fix the glitch" and that glitch is a huge swath of officers and senior NCOs that have little operational experience / perspective / concern but high administrative focus & authority.  I realize that there are lots of other parts of the AF that are not operations and they are important, important that they support and not hinder operations.  One way they hinder operations is by growing excessive amounts of leadership in their fields which will give them an outsized influence in the policy and strategy of the AF as an institution.  

[disgruntledemployee]

6 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

The real solution is to "fix the glitch" and that glitch is a huge swath of officers and senior NCOs that have little operational experience / perspective / concern but high administrative focus & authority.  I realize that there are lots of other parts of the AF that are not operations and they are important, important that they support and not hinder operations.  One way they hinder operations is by growing excessive amounts of leadership in their fields which will give them an outsized influence in the policy and strategy of the AF as an institution.  

For some institutional change, perhaps start with AFIs.  Cut/chop/eliminate.  Some have plenty of useful guidelines like an MEL, some are used as ammo against one another.  For example, the uniform AFI can change to, "Wear a uniform.  Here are the ones we have."  Take away the shoe ammo.

Lower the waiver level of all AFIs after they've been chopped of the stupidness.  Why the fuck a multi-star general is listed as the waiver level of so much stupid shit is well beyond me. Again, removing shoe ammo.

That's all for now.

Out

[Clark Griswold]

14 hours ago, disgruntledemployee said:

For some institutional change, perhaps start with AFIs.  Cut/chop/eliminate.  Some have plenty of useful guidelines like an MEL, some are used as ammo against one another.  For example, the uniform AFI can change to, "Wear a uniform.  Here are the ones we have."  Take away the shoe ammo.

Lower the waiver level of all AFIs after they've been chopped of the stupidness.  Why the fuck a multi-star general is listed as the waiver level of so much stupid shit is well beyond me. Again, removing shoe ammo.

That's all for now.

Out

Not a bad place to start.  Cut, clarify and simplify to prevent the Shoe Clerk game of obscure rule making / quoting when they find it convenient to prevent the use of common sense.

 

[pawnman]

On 6/20/2016 at 7:31 AM, disgruntledemployee said:

For some institutional change, perhaps start with AFIs.  Cut/chop/eliminate.  Some have plenty of useful guidelines like an MEL, some are used as ammo against one another.  For example, the uniform AFI can change to, "Wear a uniform.  Here are the ones we have."  Take away the shoe ammo.

Lower the waiver level of all AFIs after they've been chopped of the stupidness.  Why the fuck a multi-star general is listed as the waiver level of so much stupid shit is well beyond me. Again, removing shoe ammo.

That's all for now.

Out

When Gen Creech took over what was TACC at the time, he directed his staff to scrap at least half of the AFIs.  He believed the AFIs were stifling innovation and creative problem-solving.  Whenever one of his staff would protest, Gen Creech would tell them that he had faith in the judgement of his subordinate commanders.

See, I did learn something useful from the online ACSC.