Promotion and PRF Information

[Champ Kind]

I checked the list; I deduced that someone I knew that got kicked out of an inital skills training course for cheating was one of the DNPs.

That'll do it.

[Jughead]

THAT is how I know this pendulum with swing - Because of the butthurt and lack of focus that we grow in our junior officer corps.

Chuck, I absolutely hear you, and I share your sentiment.

But... can you (entirely) blame those captains?? I think the key words in your post were "...that we grow in our junior officer corps"; the problem isn't those captains, it's the environment in which they were brought up.

[Spartacus]

Chuck, I absolutely hear you, and I share your sentiment.

But... can you (entirely) blame those captains?? I think the key words in your post were "...that we grow in our junior officer corps"; the problem isn't those captains, it's the environment in which they were brought up.

I have heard multiple captains complain that their masters work is now for nothing. I agree with the CSAF 100% and hope these new policies stick. However, I call B.S. to anyone that thinks these captains are wrong. I am one of those captains and spent 4 years to get my masters done. I'm glad that officers don't have to worry about doing a masters degree as early as I did, but I sacrificed countless hours away from my family and went through a lot of pain to get mine. Now it's not going to do much until later on. That's fine and good, but damn I wish I had all of that time back now.

[Champ Kind]

I have heard multiple captains complain that their masters work is now for nothing. I agree with the CSAF 100% and hope these new policies stick. However, I call B.S. to anyone that thinks these captains are wrong. I am one of those captains and spent 4 years to get my masters done. I'm glad that officers don't have to worry about doing a masters degree as early as I did, but I sacrificed countless hours away from my family and went through a lot of pain to get mine. Now it's not going to do much until later on. That's fine and good, but damn I wish I had all of that time back now.

Well put.

I will never hold it against a younger guy for not being "required" to waste their time as I did. I will caution them that they may need to be ready to have to bang it out in a hurry when the rules of the game change again.

Plenty of blame to go around to the managers who, for years, used AAD status as a major determination for advancement. It sucks I was given the impression I had to do it. I'm glad guys no longer have to, and I hope they use their newly found free time wisely and get into the books and make their respective communities better.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Champ Kind

[guineapigfury]

I'll attack from the reciprocal. I have shitty OPRs, no master's and only did SOS in correspondence. I had three strikes against me, now I only have one. How am I supposed to get passed over and kicked out with a fat severance check now? My plan is ruined.

[nsplayr]

...mine was an actual MBA program that qualified for commission as a 1st Lt vs. 2d Lt so I actually got something out of it other than a filled square...

Shouldn't we all be so lucky! Realize that your perspective is not the norm re: your experience.

Hazing continues to exist in organizations because people are often too selfish to give a guy younger than them a better deal or an easier time than they got, even when it's eminently logical and better for the organization overall.

That being said, I for one glad the rules are changing even though I spent my free time time doing an online masters that I would not have pursued unless it was a "wink wink, nudge nudge" requirement to continue a career as an officer beyond O-3. Let's stop the hazing WRT stuff that doesn't lead to mission success at the lowest level possible and hope that the powers that be will stop what they can from the CSAF/Wing/Group/Squadron on down.

Edited July 20, 2014 by nsplayr

[Slander]

I'll attack from the reciprocal. I have shitty OPRs, no master's and only did SOS in correspondence. I had three strikes against me, now I only have one. How am I supposed to get passed over and kicked out with a fat severance check now? My plan is ruined.

The way it's "supposed" to work now, is your shitty OPRs reflect poor work performance. Shitty OPRs generate shitty PRFs and the board "should" see that your past performance is not indicative of successful future leadership potential at a higher rank and thus you will be non-selected.

[Guest ThatGuy]

I'll attack from the reciprocal. I have shitty OPRs, no master's and only did SOS in correspondence. I had three strikes against me, now I only have one. How am I supposed to get passed over and kicked out with a fat severance check now? My plan is ruined.

You definitely could have skipped doing SOS via correspondence if you had desired. Correct me if I am wrong but nobody can force you to complete the correspondence course.

[Chuck17]

Champ - I agree with you and I feel your pain.

Fellas... The truth of this matter is this - it is still a requirement, though just kicked a little further down the road.

In all of my time on active duty thus far, which isn't really all that much in the grand scheme, I have learned several things... Among those:

- Policies reverse, and the outcry from the "but, but, but" crowd is always loud. Be prepared.

- You NEVER have as much time as you do RIGHT NOW, or, "the higher you go, the more demands will be made of you." Ain't no O-5s out there knocking out their degrees after spending their days as the DO or Chief of Safety... Start it, finish it, get it behind you (though at a much more leisurely pace than I had to deal with).

- And finally, in the history of reduced budgets and drawdowns, I cannot think of an instance where "requirements" for commissioned officer promotion became LESS stringent. That's just not how it works.

As I have said, our sister services ARE looking at degree completion and PME as discriminatory, and oh by the way, they promote earlier and send their guys to school earlier... (As well as sending more guys to school)

So who is going to end up with an advantage in the DoD? Don't forget this is not all about you. The service cares about the aggregate. This is about the USAF, and it's about the service getting educated and successful people into Joint jobs to further the services goal of getting more of an ever shrinking pot of money. Cynical, but true.

Keep kicking ass, spend time with your family, fly the jets, do your chores (PME and AAD), and keep things in perspective.

Chuck

[Herk Driver]

Champ - I agree with you and I feel your pain.

Fellas... The truth of this matter is this - it is still a requirement, though just kicked a little further down the road.

In all of my time on active duty thus far, which isn't really all that much in the grand scheme, I have learned several things... Among those:

- Policies reverse, and the outcry from the "but, but, but" crowd is always loud. Be prepared.

- You NEVER have as much time as you do RIGHT NOW, or, "the higher you go, the more demands will be made of you." Ain't no O-5s out there knocking out their degrees after spending their days as the DO or Chief of Safety... Start it, finish it, get it behind you (though at a much more leisurely pace than I had to deal with).

- And finally, in the history of reduced budgets and drawdowns, I cannot think of an instance where "requirements" for commissioned officer promotion became LESS stringent. That's just not how it works.

As I have said, our sister services ARE looking at degree completion and PME as discriminatory, and oh by the way, they promote earlier and send their guys to school earlier... (As well as sending more guys to school)

So who is going to end up with an advantage in the DoD? Don't forget this is not all about you. The service cares about the aggregate. This is about the USAF, and it's about the service getting educated and successful people into Joint jobs to further the services goal of getting more of an ever shrinking pot of money. Cynical, but true.

Keep kicking ass, spend time with your family, fly the jets, do your chores (PME and AAD), and keep things in perspective.

Chuck

Chuck, I agree with most of what you wrote but...

Other services (at least the Army) do not send people to residence PME once those folks have completed correspondence PME.

There are people out there that did not get an AAD through TA but instead did what Jumper and now what Welsh is advocating. It is possible to follow the rules as written. Again, as you point out the requirement is still there just pushed well down the road. And you never have more time on your hands as you take on more and more leadership and responsibility.

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[Chuck17]

Chuck, I agree with most of what you wrote but...

Other services (at least the Army) do not send people to residence PME once those folks have completed correspondence PME.

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Valid point, HD.

Caveat: Ask anyone who's spent time at Branch at HRC (Army version of AFPC for those not in the know), and they will tell you that correspondence PME is still looked down upon when compared to in-res. I expect the same paradigm will manifest itself in the AF, sooner rather than later given this new guidance. The bureaucracy is not as simple as the CSAF is attempting to make it ('yes' or 'no' check on PME), and our sister service experience is proof enough of that as fact.

Since there's fewer ways for dudes to distinguish themselves from the pack, we will see that, as well as a decided upturn in other queep like additional duties, community service, etc., mattering even more. Job performance will still matter, but we are going to deal with the problem of separating wheat from chaff in a myriad of other ways that will in the end (IMHO) be just as painful as using/getting an AAD or doing timely PME was.

It's the nature of the beast. It is unstoppable. But please don't get me wrong - I am not a fan, nor am I defending this reality - I'm merely describing the lay of the land as seen from my FGO elevation.

Fight the fight, not the rules.

Chuck

Edited July 20, 2014 by Chuck17

[Karl Hungus]

Keep kicking ass, spend time with your family, fly the jets, do your chores (PME and AAD), and keep things in perspective.

Everything you said is true. However, you left out something a ton of my peers are doing- getting their ATPs, networking with guard/reserve units, polishing their airline apps, and counting down the days until they can leave this organization, all in part because of how we force people to check ridiculous boxes and cast them as pariahs if they dare to desire to fly for a career. To lots of people, going to school and working a joint staff job sounds absolutely miserable.

[11F]

IMO, residence vs. correspondence IDE/SDE is going to be HUGE now. They may block it in the education section of your SURF, but you can't hide it in the duty history! It is what it is, and I think it's better than the AAD insanery.

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[MSCguy]

A piggyback to 11F's post-can't hide AFIT or other in-res degrees from the duty history either.

[Liquid]

Karl, don't be so dramatic. Nobody forces anybody to check boxes or get AAD/PME done. And we don't make pariahs out of someone who just wants to fly. They just don't tend to get promoted. I had plenty of passed over, continued Capts, Majors and Lt Cols in my units who were outstanding pilots, navs, and officers. They volunteered to deploy multiple times, worked long hours, and were incredible mentors for the young flyers. Some did not want to be promoted and did not do those things that clearly made them competitive amongst their peers. Some accepted continuation, some retired, some separated when the time was right for them. Many regretted not getting the things done (PME/AAD) to be competitive and mentored young officers to just do it. If you only want to fly the line like a Lt or Capt, and don't want to broaden your experiences and skills with education and non-flying jobs, why would you expect to be promoted into ranks and positions of different responsibility and authority that require joint PME, education and staff experience? Granted, as a passed over officer, wanting to fly for the rest of your career, you may be separated to make room (flying time) for younger Lts and Capts. There are no guarantees for flying positions in the service, we all know that. Force structure, funding, requirements, retention and force management policies all change. If you are not suited for advancement or promotion, for whatever reason, the service should consider whether it is best for the service for you to stay, or go. When airlines are hiring and retention is low, continued officers can usually stay as long as they want to. When there are more young pilots then we have flying time to sustain, continued officers will normally be separated (the 157). By law, 100% promotion is not permitted for FGOs. Unless retention is severely low, people will get passed over. No hard feelings, just the law or the reality of resource constraints.

Some people over-inflate their own value to the service when the reality is their mediocre record of performance, limited experience and low potential to perform at the higher grades make them less valuable than other officers being considered. In my experience, the promotion board to Maj and Lt Col usually gets it right and promotes the most deserving. I've studied the records of those above and below the line, and I've compared many records to my assessment of their job performance and promotion potential. I've personally counseled dozens of passed over officers about what was weak in their record and explained why they were not competitive. YMMV, and sometimes we tend to value the wrong things (AAD at Major being go-no-go) but I think it is a decent system that usually gets it right. CSAF is fixing some shortcomings now.

It is a good thing we are letting people separate who actually want to separate, even with ADSCs, since we need to reduce the force. The airlines and ARC will be better off with this talented hiring pool. For the sake of the AF's future, they should not pollute too many young minds on their way out. We need talented and dedicated active duty officers of all ranks to fly our aircraft and fight our wars.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Liquid

[pbar]

I was always amazed when I was in a flying squadron how many dudes bitched about pme, AAD, addition duties, etc. and claimed they just wanted to fly and yet they didn't even take the flying part seriously. Maybe it's just the aircraft I was in but I saw plenty of pilots and WSOs treat it like a flying club and seemingly could care less about employing the jet as a weapon. Never saw those dudes in the vault studying and they knew just the bare minimum tactically to get by a checkride. I can think of a dozen guys like that of the top of my head that I wouldn't get in the jet to go to war with. I didn't like the queep anymore than anyone else but I sucked it up and did it. And I also spent lots of time in the vault and sim trying to be better at my primary job.

I'm with Liquid; from what I've seen over the last 20 years the promotion system is by and large fair but one must recognize how much luck and timing plays into promotion. From what I've seen that's like 50% of the equation right there. Also, remember you don't get promoted, your records do and if they don't paint an accurate picture because you had poor writers for raters...

[Azimuth]

The people I've seen who bitched about the queep and just wanted to fly were the ones instructors/evaluators were against upgrading in TRP because they sucked at flying.

[matmacwc]

Thanks again Liquid, nailed it at even at the FGO level.

Edited July 21, 2014 by matmacwc

[MooseDriver1]

Most recent start matrix I had to fill out required not just the standard 1, but the last 3 PT scores. You can't make this shizz up. As soon as they remove one variable from the equation, they just start measuring another unimportant one to make up for it.

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[AnimalMother]

Two thoughts:

First, the waste of time created by useless masters degrees and double PME, is only half the coin. The other side of the issue is the use of a system whereby people are offered what amounts to free points for essentially accomplishing and demonstrating nothing-potentially making up for failures in other, more vital areas. So, instead of strictly earning promotion through hard work, success, and competency, we subsidize it to some extent with busywork (I'm generalizing a bit). Second, (and I'm not just trying to split hairs here) I think we should work towards a system that gets it right more than just most of the time. We're talking about deciding who will progress to assume positions of potentially massive responsibility, we owe it to ourselves to be as discriminating and selective as we can. Is it sufficient if we stop most of the sexual assaults in the military? Is it okay if I don't break my taxpayer-funded aircraft most of the time? Of course not. And while these two examples are certainly more easily measured than successful promotion outcomes, I don't think it necessarily absolves us of the responsibility to critique the system to the most exacting standards that we can and improve on it whenever possible.

[sqwatch]

Is it sufficient if we stop most of the sexual assaults in the military? Is it okay if I don't break my taxpayer-funded aircraft most of the time? Of course not.

Ok? No. Realistic? Yes.

[Liquid]

Animal, getting a useless, box checking master's degree is a personal choice. You shouldn't use the wide latitude the AF tuition assistance program gives you to get a master's degree in a subject that you care about, from a university that you choose, in a place and time that fits your needs, to bash the program for being a waste of time. If you want to use a program that teaches you nothing, takes little time and still meets the minimum standard required to qualify as an advanced academic degree (busywork, as you call it), that is your choice. A master's in business, military studies, international relations, history or government will help you be a better senior AF officer. The last thing people should want is commanders and boards discriminating the quality and location of your AAD for promotion to O-6. Setting the minimum standard relatively low for a subjective requirement prevents alma mater discrimination and bullshit assessments about how hard you worked to get your degree, or how often you were published, like we see in the academic world.

Hard work, success and competency are important at promotion boards, but an assessment of the ability to succeed in the next grade is also required. This assessment is subjective because it is predictive. We use stratifications and push lines to explain this assessment. Businesses don't promote merely based on hard work and success at current job. They may pay more to those with experience and a good record (like we do with pay increases in the same grade every two years), but they don't promote to upper management without considering whether they have the skills to succeed at upper management. Agree, we should be discriminating and selective about who gets promoted and I would argue that we are. But I also think the senior leaders need to be the people who determine how to discriminate and select, not the CGOs. What CGOs value at the time may not be what makes them successful at FGO responsibilities.

The best critiques we can make are to point out how our system needs to be improved and how we selected the wrong leaders should be based on the specific leader's shortcomings and leadership failures. When morale is low, unit performance is below standards, resources are wasted, and the mission is not being accomplished, there is an obvious failure of leadership (possibly at many levels) that must be corrected. I think AF senior leadership is trying to correct that rotten core of leadership in the missile community. We should reassess what we got wrong at promotion boards and command screening boards that predicted these officers would succeed when they clearly did not. A useful way for senior leaders to evaluate the performance of their subordinate commanders is to read the anonymous but honest opinions of that commander's subordinates and peers. Unit climate assessments, IG/congressional complaints, face to face feedback, informal feedback (including social media) can all give indications of leadership failures. 360 feedback should be implemented immediately for all commanders. I'm not sure why we are so reluctant to do this. Commanders and senior leaders should be held to higher, more stringent standards and their leadership abilities should be more formally evaluated.

[Karl Hungus]

We need talented and dedicated active duty officers of all ranks to fly our aircraft and fight our wars.

Wasn't trying to be dramatic, and I agree with your points. I've honestly seen a shift in the mindset of our best and brightest, at least in my small corner of the AF. More talented, PME/AAD complete, high strat folks are leaving or actively planning on leaving than even a few years ago. That should be a concern.

Maybe that's not the case AF wide, and it will be years before AFPC has the data to back up that observation. Maybe Welsh's changes are going to cause the fence-sitters to re-think their plans. Maybe the drawdown will coincide perfectly and it'll all be seemless. Maybe it won't and we'll see a stop loss in a couple years. Either way, the machine will keep chugging along.

[Disco_Nav963]

Wasn't trying to be dramatic, and I agree with your points. I've honestly seen a shift in the mindset of our best and brightest, at least in my small corner of the AF. More talented, PME/AAD complete, high strat folks are leaving or actively planning on leaving than even a few years ago. That should be a concern.

"Two." In the last six months, two school selects and a Wing exec I know all applied for VSP or Palace Chase. The good kind too, not pepper grinders. Definitely influenced my own decision matrix.

[Lord Ratner]

"Two." In the last six months, two school selects and a Wing exec I know all applied for VSP or Palace Chase. The good kind too, not pepper grinders. Definitely influenced my own decision matrix.

The absolute biggest factor I've seen driving "fast-burners" to surprise everyone and quit are 365s (or other similar bad-deals), or the expectation of getting one soon.