Principles of the Future Force
Mission First. We believe that at its core, the Department of Defense (DoD) is a purposedriven institution with a single, no-fail mission: defend the nation against those who would
threaten it. Anything that does not feed this core purpose is an unacceptable and untenable
luxury in our current environment of fiscal constraints, political trials, and strategic threats.
Humans Before Hardware. We believe that people, above technology, will win our future
wars, as they always have. We humbly adopt the mantra of the Special Operations Force,
“humans are more important than hardware.” We assume that DoD will reduce, though
maintain, technological superiority into the coming decades. As this advantage withers, we must
develop competitive advantages in areas we have neglected in recent decades. We must unleash
the talents of every individual in the DoD—military and civilian—in ways that allow our
technological advantages to augment our growing, and uniquely American, talent advantages.
This demands a strategic and deliberate reprioritization on the human element.
Constant Focus on the Next Generation. We value the voice of the future generation. Prior
generations of warfighters often find it difficult to effectively address the desires of subsequent
generations. The next generations, with one foot in the future, will have unique values, norms,
and demands that cannot be fully appreciated by an outsider. We recognize that the type of war
we fought yesterday will likely not be the type of war we fight tomorrow, and we will need broad
skillsets, creativity, adaptability, and agility to respond to emerging threats. The personnel
systems that recruit, develop, and retain talent must be capable of attracting and building this
diverse talent pool today and for generations to come.
Adaptive Personnel Systems. Our Defense Department is committed to continually evaluating
the efficacy and applicability of its strategies, tactics, and technologies as the operating
environment evolves. This perpetual process of research, modernization, and adjustment allows
us to best counter current and future adversaries. We must show the same commitment to
constantly improving our personnel systems and associated policies, which have become dehumanizing relics of the Industrial Age. By transforming our systems to be more responsive to
the Service member, we begin to end the practice of treating humans like interchangeable and
equivalent parts. It is time to move to the next generation of personnel systems that will better
find, retain, and support our warfighters.
Talent Is Everywhere. We believe there is unidentified, underutilized talent across the
Department. Defense leaders’ current challenge is to identify, develop, and leverage the
cognitive surplus of emerging leaders and resident human talent. Everyone must meet basic
minimum requirements, but not everyone will have the same talents, interests, and abilities; all of
which must align to improve Service and community value. DoD must connect with new forms
of talent that look different than just battlefield commanders. We must not limit our recruitment
to the traditional talent pools that have sufficed in the past. Increasingly, the best available talent
will be outside the military or even outside the government, and we need to provide our leaders
with tools that will allow them to match the best talent with institutional needs, regardless of
source.
Diversity Strengthens Us. We believe in the power of diversity to make us a stronger force.
The indicators given by the color of our skin, the shape of our eyes, or the accents in our voice
do not exclusively measure diversity. Our personnel system must go beyond these surface-level
perceptions and seek to promote diversity of education, experience, and perspective. Diversity
of thought challenges us and makes us stronger individually and organizationally.
Leader Control. We believe in giving leaders, both military and civilian, the autonomy and
authority to lead their organizations by selecting and developing the people within them. Our
current system emasculates leaders, gives them little incentive to invest time or resources in their
people, and leaves them at the mercy of a capricious personnel system. This closed system
design creates unique and precarious risk by dictating that the future senior Service leadership be
drawn exclusively from today’s junior enlisted and officer corps.
Individual Agency. We believe in giving people more agency to manage their own lives and
careers, while continuing to meet Service requirements. Though service to the nation demands
sacrifice and dedication, it should not sustain unnecessary suffering. Uniformed Service
members —enlisted and officer — and civilians should have the autonomy and resources to
answer their calling in ways that benefit themselves equally as much as the Service, while also
improving the lives of their families.
Trust Through Transparency. We believe in building trust through transparent processes and
decisions. A transparent system allows individuals to understand how the system works and how
they fit into it to best support the objectives of the Service. Black box personnel systems
encourage subversion and cynicism; consequently they must be resisted whenever possible.
Service members and leaders who understand how and why decisions were made are far more
likely to support those decisions, even if it was not what they requested, and open information
allows leaders and individuals to best match talent to requirements.
Power of the Market. We believe that the “managed market” is the principal technology
needed for the next generation of personnel systems. A managed marketplace will equally
accommodate both assignment types; those that are competitive and desirable, and those that
must be done but are traditionally hard to fil. The centralized personnel agencies need not be the
sole arbiters of assignments and promotions, but instead, can become talent management
specialists who manage individual talents to best complement the demands of the organization.
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Opportunity. We believe that technology offers future talent managers a set of tools that our
predecessors never had. Though current and previous generations of leaders have heroically
managed massive personnel systems without such tools, we recognize that there is now a
strategic opportunity to holistically integrate modern tools to the benefit of future generations
and a future Defense Department.
Recommendations Summary
Talent Ecosystem. Manpower reforms cannot be done in isolation. A new talent ecosystem
must be holistic, or else reform risks creating more harm than good. As the recent wave of
compartmentalized initiatives has shown, many high-performance participants will likely and
unknowingly end their careers.
Assignment Marketplace. Much like a housing rental market, leaders post their available
assignments, and individuals – enlisted, officer, and civilian – apply and interview for them.
Individuals can reapply to their position or voluntarily open it to the market. If individuals don’t
apply or aren’t accepted for assignments, then headquarters manpower personnel intercede to
either forcibly place them in an assignment or assess their performance for potential separation.
Leader Empowerment. Leaders have authority to select, interview, and approve applicants.
For high performers or hard to fill assignments, leaders have authority to provide customized
incentives (bonus pay, guaranteed follow on locations or assignments, flexible work schedules).
Leaders will have the authority to dismiss low performers to the market, allowing the leader to
remove non-value adding talent while also giving the individual an opportunity to find an
assignment that is a better fit.
Promotions Attached to Assignments. To enable merit-based promotions, individuals
promote to the rank of the assignment, whether it is up, down, or equivalent. In-rank, stepped
pay increases continue. Rather than focusing on boards, centralized personnel manage at the
authorization level, enabling control and efficiency.
Permeability. The marketplace makes all military positions available to active duty, reserve,
guard, and inactive reserve. Certain military positions are open to uniquely qualified civilians,
particularly technical specialties. Civilian positions are open to uniformed personnel, other
Service civilians, and non-DoD civilians.
Diversity & Retention. Removing barriers to improved retention and diversity requires flexible
work schedules, modern telework technologies, routine sabbaticals, a reengineered parental leave
system, expanded childcare resources, amended security clearance process to accommodate
foreign travel and relationships, stronger ties to minority schools, and better exit surveys for
departing personnel.
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Recruitment. Improving recruitment requires improving the multifaceted DoD value
proposition; in short; everything listed above. Targeted, personalized, recruitment will heavily
rely on social media rather than broad and disconnected marketing campaigns. Processes for
onboarding and offboarding will be streamlined. Veteran’s Preference must be redesigned to
open civilian positions to the diverse, non-veterans in society.
New Role of Human Resources Commands. The central feature of the talent ecosystem is
the managed market, and management is essential to ensure success. HR commands (e.g. HRC,
AFPC, M&RA) will shift from their current role as assignment & promotion arbiters to instead
become advisors, resource providers, and facilitators. They will also retain many essential roles
they currently fill, helping ensure that leadership decisions are unbiased and individuals
understand the impact of their career decisions. Most importantly, they will represent the needs
of the force overall, and ensure that market forces are shaped in a way that meets legal
requirements and also develops the specific talents we will need for the future.
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Contents
The Authors…7
Introducing the Defense Talent Ecosystem…10
Leader Empowerment & Accountability…14
Individual Agency, Flexibility, & Permeability…15
Professional Development…20
Systematic Transparency…22
Recruitment…23
Retention…24
Diversity…26
The New Role of Human Resources…28
Experimentation & Implementation…31
Appendix 1: Discussion on engagement with independent organizations…34
“To retain our warfighting edge, we are stressing innovative leader development across the All-Volunteer Force —
officer, enlisted, and civilian — through a combination of training, education, broad experience, and opportunity….
To enhance our warfighting capability, we must attract, develop, and retain the right people at every echelon. Central to
this effort is understanding how society is changing. Today’s youth grow up in a thoroughly connected environment.
They are comfortable using technology and interactive social structures to solve problems. These young men and women
are tomorrow’s leaders and we need their Service. Therefore, the U.S. military must be willing to embrace social and
cultural change to better identify, cultivate, and reward such talent.”
2015 National Military Strategy
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The Authors
We represent the future force. We are young, diverse, and passionate. Our group of enlisted,
officers, Department of Defense civilians, non-Department of Defense government civilians, and
non-government civilians humbly offer this report to the Defense Department leadership. Our
opinions are our own, and not those of our organizations or Services. This report was written
independently of the work conducted within the office of the Under Secretary of Defense,
Personnel and Readiness, and it does not reflect any official position thereof.
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Dave Blair – Major, USAF. PhD (Georgetown,) MPP (Harvard Kennedy,) BS (USAFA.)
Initial class, CSAF’s PhD Fellow. MQ-1B Evaluator Pilot, AC-130U Pilot, Experience in
Iraq, Afghanistan, HOA & Emerging Fronts. Currently serving as Operations Officer,
Acting, 3d Special Operations Squadron, Cannon AFB, NM.
Corina DuBois
Nate Finney – Major, USA. BA, Anthropology from the University of Arizona and Masters
in Public Administration and Policy from both the University of Kansas and Harvard
University. Founding Member of the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum and the Military Writers
Guild, Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations, and an armor officer and
strategist with tactical and operational deployments. Currently serving on Headquarters,
Department of the Army.
Carl Forsling – Major (ret), USMC. Graduate of the Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania and Boston University. CH-46E and MV-22B instructor pilot. Now Flight
Officer with the Baltimore Police Department.
Jessica Gallus – PhD. Senior Research Psychologist; Talent management expert at the U.S.
Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI). Dr. Gallus has a B.A.
in English and Psychology from Manhattan College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in
Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Connecticut.
Rob Greiner
Kristen Hajduk – Defense Council Member of the Truman National Security Project.
Masters of Public Policy, International Policy, University of Chicago. Experience with the
Geneva Center for Security Policy, the Center on International Law and Politics, and the
National Defense University in Washington, DC.
Tony Johnson – U.S. Navy veteran, Truman National Security Project Fellow, and former
Advisor for Special Operations and Irregular Warfare in OSD Policy from 2011-2013.
Founder and Co-Director of the TruDiversity Initiative, focused on expanding participation
of America's underrepresented communities of color in the national dialogue about U.S.
foreign and national security policy.
Tim Kane – Author of Bleeding Talent, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and
veteran USAF officer
Kevin Kenney – Major, USAFR. BS, USAFA, MPP, George Washington University. F-15E
WSO with two tours in Afghanistan. Now IMA attached to HAF/A3 and Senior Consultant
at Deloitte.
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Jason Knudson – Lieutenant, USN. BA Physics and Philosophy. Naval Innovator, and
project lead for Adaptive Force Package Littoral Operations Center (AFP LOC). Former
Chief of Staff for CNO’s Rapid Innovation Cell - now CRIC Emeritus. Headed to Japan and
C7F Staff.
Christopher Kona – Government civilian, currently a warfare analyst for Naval Undersea
Warfare Center, Newport. Prior submarine officer for eight years. CNO’s Rapid Innovation
Cell member, project lead for Fleet Battle School. BS Physics from RPI, Masters of
Engineering Management from Old Dominion.
Miriam Krieger – Major, USAF. CSAF Ph.D. Fellow at Georgetown University. F-16 pilot
and Marshall Scholar with degrees in Global Politics and War Studies. Beginning position as
Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs September 2015.
Rick Kuehn – Major, USAFR. Currently serving on the Joint Staff, J8, in a temporary
active-duty assignment. C-17 Instructor Pilot, Contingency Response Operations Officer,
BE and BA (Stevens Tech), MBA (South Carolina), MMS (MCU). Civilian experience
includes startups and humanitarian leadership.
Jerry Lademan – Captain, USMC, 6 year infantryman with BA in Liberal Arts from
Thomas Aquinas College. served as platoon commander, India Co, 3/6 in Marjah 2011, and
Tolia (company) level advisor to Afghan National Army in 2012-2013 in Delaram, Nimruz
Province, Afghanistan. currently action officer for the CNO’s Rapid Innovation Cell in
Norfolk VA.
Mike Mabrey – Lieutenant, USN. U.S. Naval Academy and Cambridge University graduate
with degrees in International Relations and Aerospace Engineering. F/A-18 Pilot with
multiple CENTCOM deployments. Member of CNO’s Rapid Innovation Cell developing a
Talent Marketplace for the U.S. Navy.
Josh Marcuse – Senior Advisor for Policy Innovation in the Leadership & Organizational
Development Office of OSD Policy. He is on detail to the Office of Under Secretary of
Defense for Personnel & Readiness to work on the Force of the Future Initiative. He is the
founder and chairman of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.
JP Mintz – Lt Col, USAF. PhD (ABD) Air University, MPhil (School of Advanced Air and
Space Studies), MA (Naval War College), MS (Air Command and Staff College), BS
(USAFA). F-15C Instructor Pilot & Weapons School Graduate. Served in the CSAF’s
Strategic Studies Group and as a board member of the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum.
Currently serving as the 28th Test and Evaluation Squadron Director of Operations.
Roger Misso – E-2C Naval Flight Officer, currently working as a speechwriter in the
Pentagon. He is the Vice President of the Center for International Maritime Security
(CIMSEC) and a member of the Advisory Team at the Naval Institute. He is dedicated to
advancing the great naval debates by mentoring junior officers and enlisted in writing. He
graduated from the USNA in 2009.
Micah Murphy – LCDR, USN. He holds business degrees from Notre Dame and
Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Deployed five times aboard four
different ship classes and is currently a member of the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic
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Action Group. Previously served as the Legislative Fellow to Senator John McCain and
Executive Assistant to the Chief of Legislative Affairs. Founding board member of the
Defense Entrepreneurs Forum, first generation member of the CNO's Rapid Innovation
Cell, a Foreign Policy Initiative Future Leader Program alum, Energy Security Fellow at
Securing America's Future Energy, and term member at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Laura Odato
Christopher O’Keefe – LTJG, USN. Intelligence officer currently stationed at OPNAV
N96 and member of CNO’s Rapid Innovation Cell.
Lindsay Rodman – Captain, USMC. Currently serving as a White House Fellow, placed at
the National Security Council. Prior Service includes OCJCS Legal Counsel, HQMC, and
Okinawa, Japan. Deployed with 1st Marine Division to Afghanistan in 2010-2011. Duke BA
in Mathematics, JD & MPP from Harvard.
Ben Taylor – Major, USA. BS, Political Science from the U.S. Military Academy and MS,
Defense Analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School. Infantry and Special Forces officer
with multiple combat and operational deployments. Currently serving as the U.S. Army
Special Operations Command representative to the Army G-1.
Dave Uejio – Acting Chief Strategy Officer at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Dave previously served as the Bureau's first Lead for Talent Acquisition.
Chris Wood* – Captain, USMC. Intelligence Officer, Operations Research Analyst. His
passion for innovation has placed him on several USMC & Navy innovation-centric
projects. Member of the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum, and a Board Member for the
Center for International Maritime Security. BA, Political Science and MS, Operations
Research, Naval Postgraduate School
* For inquiries into the content of this report, please contact Chris Wood at [email protected]
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Introducing the Defense Talent Ecosystem
Defense Talent Ecosystem Mission
Win wars and secure the common defense by developing an agile and responsive force through
more efficient and effective use and management of talent.
Defense Talent Ecosystem Goals
1) Provide for the defense of the country now.
2) Build the next generation of leaders and thinkers for the challenges of the future.
3) Execute 1 and 2 in ways that present a compelling value proposition for current and future talent.
Holistic Challenges. The Department of Defense’s personnel management systems are best viewed as
an ecosystem of components. Managing the components in isolation has resulted in grossly harmful
and unintended outcomes as
individual components are
“I was among a cohort of Air Force officers who received a separation bonus in 2007.
Most of us desired to continue serving in the Reserve Component, and I have yet to
altered. A change in one
meet anyone for whom the money involved changed their decision. Interestingly, at the
component (assignments,
time the Air Force was also offering a retention bonus so that some of my colleagues
promotion, evaluation,
could pick either a bonus to stay or a bonus to leave. Even worse, within a few years, the
Air Force was again offering bonuses, to reservists and retirees who were willing to
development, compensation,
return to active duty.”
etc.) ripples through and
affects the entire system.
Accordingly, personnel system reform must be comprehensive. Knowing that bureaucratic inertia
will tend towards incremental change, it is critical to articulate a single, holistic, aim point to achieve
long-term success. Updating the DoD’s personnel management system will improve its ability to
recruit, retain, develop, and utilize top talent in defense of the nation.
The current military personnel system presents each individual with a “golden career path” based on
their Service and career field. This path is identified by a sequence of competitive assignments,
positions, and developmental opportunities thought to be necessary for producing effective senior
leaders. It also assumes every E-1/O-1 has a desire to achieve the General or Flag rank or E-9. It
rewards conformity and endurance, and results in a dearth of diversity at the highest military ranks.
Moreover, it unnecessarily punishes those who deviate from the path, even for reasons beneficial to
the Services.
Two well-intentioned programs that demonstrate both the rigidity of the golden path and the
interconnected nature of the personnel system are the Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands (APH) program
and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s Captains Prestigious PhD program. Both of these
developmental programs competitively selected high-performing and high-potential individuals to
fulfill either an immediate or long-term need of the military. In subsequent promotion boards and
assignment cycles, these individuals were penalized for having deviated from their standard “career
path.” Rather than providing broadening opportunities for the next generation of high performance
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leaders, these programs are forcibly segregating high-performers, putting them behind their peers for
tenure-based promotions and competitive career milestone assignments, and increasing their
opportunity cost for continuing in Service. When program participants return to line units, superiors
often display an attitude that if an experience was personally benefitting, it must have been bad for
the Service, despite the clear dual-use benefits of broadening. These are good programs, but their
lack of integration into the whole of the personnel system creates detrimental consequences for their
participants.
On the civilian side, career broadening assignments can also derail careers for different reasons.
High-potential civilians are often sent to career broadening assignments without a plan for how to
best integrate the employees’ new capabilities upon assignment completion. Moreover, civilians are
sometimes discouraged by civilian leaders from pursuing alternate career paths post-broadening as
agencies do not want to lose their best assets. This short-term focus on limiting civilian
opportunities fails to consider the long-term implication of losing high-potentials to agencies outside
the DoD. The civilian personnel management system is further mired by negligently bureaucratic
processes, outdated and incompatible technology systems, a labyrinth of hiring and firing authorities
which challenge even the most experienced human resources (HR) professionals, and nearly nonexistent performance standards.
Ecosystem Recommendations. The Department and the Services have a strategic opportunity. As it does
with next generation weapon systems and innovative tactics, the DoD should focus not on what is
wrong with the current system but rather what can be done tomorrow that is impossible to do
today? Just as we do everything possible to ensure tomorrow’s warfighters go into battle with the
very best systems, we should seek to provide tomorrow’s leaders and force managers with the very
best tools and technology that American ingenuity can provide. Technology now empowers decision
makers and force managers with tools that allow them to use information in ways that were
impossible only a few years ago. If people, not technology, are truly what wins wars, the challenges
and opportunities associated with developing the Force of the Future may represent the most
important set of strategic choices that this generation of leaders will make.
It is appropriate and necessary for each Service to clearly articulate what characteristics and
developmental milestones are required to lead at its highest ranks, but there need not only be one or
two narrow and rigidly defined paths. Instead, the Defense Talent Ecosystem is designed to attract,
retain, and capitalize on a diverse set of talents. Future talents must not only focus on commanding
troops, ships, and aircraft in combat, but also on thinking in radically different ways to lead and
support the DoD mission. We need an ecosystem that creates many alternatives to the golden path
and diffuses those paths throughout the DoD. Simply creating two paths, a “gold” command-track
and a “silver” technical track, is just as burdensome for the vast majority of individuals that will want
to continually transit between these two tracks throughout their career. There may be times in their
lives when an individual prefers the stability and specialization offered by technical job assignments,
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but there will also be times when that individual wants to pursue the less predictable and more
dynamic nature of leadership opportunities.
A revolutionary leap forward in DoD’s approach to talent management demonstrates commitment
to the future. This will increase the appeal of military service to large swaths of the population that
are currently unavailable or not motivated to join the Department of Defense, which results in
greater access to a more diverse population, both in terms of demographics and diversity of
experience. The ecosystem by its nature adapts over time, valuing and prioritizing the voice of the
future generation. By design, the personnel system of 5 years from now should not be the personnel
system of 25 years from now.
The Defense Talent Ecosystem recognizes that not all people are the same, each with different
educational levels, experiences, career aspirations, personal skills, and family considerations, all of
which will vary over the course of a career as life priorities or circumstances change. Similarly, the
ecosystem is designed around the idea that not all assignments and organizations are the same, each
carrying with it different responsibilities, unique talent requirements, and inherent sacrifices and
rewards.
The Defense Talent Ecosystem envisions a managed marketplace for Service members and civilians
comprised of the interconnected components necessary to effectively and efficiently shape the
fighting force of the future: individual agency and flexibility, leader empowerment and
accountability, professional development, and systematic transparency. This ecosystem will be a
generational advancement in how the Services recruit, retain, and achieve diversity. It shifts the
talent management paradigm to foster permeability and merit-based personnel decisions across
Services and at all levels, for both DoD civilians and military Service members.
The central component of the ecosystem is the talent marketplace (Figure 1). Shown in red, the
marketplace is overseen by Service priorities and force requirements in order to meet “fight-tonight”
constraints and the need to create exceptional leaders. Leaving critical vacancies unfilled is not an
option, and the needs of the force will continue to take precedence. Marketplace demand is created
by a leader’s organizational requirements (red), and supply is driven by individual talents and
preferences throughout the active and reserve components of the Services, DoD, whole of
government, and the private sector (green). Much like a housing rental market, leaders post their
assignments, and individuals apply to them. Individuals can reapply to their position or voluntarily
open up their current assignment. If individuals aren’t accepted or don’t apply for an assignment,
then the centralized managers either find them an assignment or review their record to assess for
mandatory separation/discharge. This marketplace isn’t limited to military assignments, and should
function identically for every civilian assignment. Leaders at all levels have an opportunity to work
within Service and organizational personnel requirements to build the most effective teams they can,
given the talent resident in their organizations and the greater marketplace.
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Leader Empowerment &
Accountability
Systematic Transparency
Professional Development
Individual Agency,
Permeability, & Flexibility
Talent Marketplace
Figure 1. Visualizing the Defense Talent Ecosystem
Figure 1 also illustrates that the marketplace is balanced on four pillars; disproportion in any pillar
will disrupt the system as a whole. The first pillar offers individual agency and flexibility within this
permeable ecosystem. The second pillar, professional development, centers on the ability of the
Department and Services to provide individuals with the right opportunity for promotions and
experiences to support national needs. The third pillar creates maximum transparency in every facet
of the marketplace. Transparency, the most essential mechanism in the future personnel system,
allows both individuals and organizations to understand, trust, and participate in the talent
management ecosystem. The final pillar focuses on the empowerment of organizational leaders to
have autonomy and accountability in selecting and developing the talent within that organization.
A managed market pairs opportunity with individual choice to enable a person, not an
interchangeable cog, to develop themselves in ways that meet the needs of the force. Their talents
and strengths, hidden in the current system, are now exposed to the market and able to provide
overwhelming value to their organization. Most importantly, the market does not rely primarily on a
“black box” process, career coercion, involuntary assignments, or adherence to a mainstream path.
It also removes the damaging and unnecessary barriers between the Services, intra-Service
communities, and civilian society. Such barriers have continued to amass over the past 30 years,
severely limiting the DoD’s ability to match the right talent with the right opportunity at the right
time.
The spheres on the top of Figure 1 indicate that valuable outputs (recruiting, retention, and
diversity) are at risk if the system falls out of balance. More meritocratic and transparent promotions
and assignments, combined with individual agency, improve the value proposition that military
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service can offer, and will result in improved recruiting and retention. Combined with elimination of
the damaging “up or out” system, these changes have the potential to reduce the recruiting
requirement by orders of magnitude. Diversity is fostered by flexibility and permeability, allowing
individuals to serve when, where, and how they are best suited, reducing stress on the system and
enhancing morale. Transparency establishes trust in the system, which improves the ability to retain
talent. Individuals can more easily forecast and actively manage their own careers rather than having
to choose between career gambles and opportunity costs.
The Services must have the freedom to distinctively define how their ecosystem functions, and these
systems must be interoperable and transparent across the Department. Therefore we recommend
that OSD provide the intent, standards, resources, and support to allow the Services to experiment
with, refine, and implement their unique ecosystems.
Leader Empowerment & Accountability
The system must provide leaders with increased ability to influence the people within their
organizations. Every leader should be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their
organizations and the people within it. The marketplace will now empower that leader to hire
individuals who can best mitigate the organizations weaknesses and add to the organizations
strengths. Additionally, the leader would be empowered to remove or reassign individuals that are
detrimental to organizational performance.
We recommend that leaders should be able to pull from applicants that do not meet
traditional assignment requirements. Their ideal talent may not be associated with a particular
occupational code or rank. We also recommend training and educating leaders on how to
properly employ the marketplace before allowing them to utilize the marketplace, and
providing local expertise after implementation. This is a critical piece to demonstrate the value
of the marketplace to the leader, not just the individual applicants. The Army’s Green Pages
marketplace pilot program demonstrated a worrying lack of buy-in from unit commanders and
administrative personnel.
Another advantage to the marketplace approach is the ability to fill assignments that previously
appeared hard to fill. Marketplace systems such as the National Guard and OEMA’s Green Pages
Pilot demonstrated that the marketplace actually made it easier to fill these assignments. This is
because of the increased transparency in the
“Air Force F-16 Basic Course: At completion of the basic course,
system and allowing individuals to align
the class of 15-20 new pilots are handed a bucket of assignments
themselves to an organization’s needs,
and told to “figure it out amongst yourselves.” In my class,
everyone got their first choice despite having the normal
rather than the other way around. Our
allotment of “bad” assignments: several opted for
proposed marketplace builds upon this
unaccompanied to Korea to get it over with while children were
behavior by empowering the leader with
young or before they got married; some chose overseas to see
the world while others opted for CONUS bases to preserve family
tools to influence individuals even further.
stability.”
The leader will be empowered to offer
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incentives for jobs that are difficult to fill. Larger incentives should be associated with
higher levels of authority. For example, a company commander could offer a flexible work
schedule, a battalion commander could offer additional leave, a brigade commander could offer
additional incentive pay or educational opportunities, and the personnel management agency would
offer guaranteed follow-on assignments or locations. The market may also allow individuals to
negotiate for the incentives that are most meaningful to them, from a list of possibilities available to
leaders at different levels. Lower level leaders should be able to request specific and additional
incentive authorities to bring on desired talent.
Change always begets critique. We first address the critique that this new marketplace will take the
leader’s time away from their primary duties. Cultivating people to make your organization more
effective should be a primary responsibility of any leader. Every Service could benefit from a
renewed focus on its people. Management and leadership literature suggests that 30-80% of a great
leader’s time should be spent on people. A leader is also free to share marketplace management with
trusted individuals in the unit. Potentially, a leader could even democratize the decision
whereby peers or subordinates would be able to have a voice on the selection of applicants.
Last, the marketplace gives the leader unprecedented freedom to put together their “dream team.” A
leader is now empowered to put together a strong team that gives the organization increased
effectiveness and efficiency, giving the leader more time to focus on essential tasks. This “dream
team” characteristic is subject to the critique that a leader may be inclined to perpetuate the “good
old boys club.” If a leader is seen abusing the marketplace in this way, the system will highlight
and address this negative bias.
The final critique to address is the potential imbalance between high performing and low performing
organizations. Particular leaders and organizations may have a unique advantage for attracting top
talent due to that organizations location or mission. This is a valid concern, but one that could be
mitigated using sports draft-style mechanisms (priority selection to low performing organizations) or
creative incentives. Leaders often receive “less than ideal” personnel, and now the marketplace can
provide leaders paths for individuals that are not performing up to capacity. We largely reject the
claim that a leader should only have one system-endorsed option for a poor performing individual;
to remove them from service. A broader spectrum of options will allow leaders to be more
creative in finding solutions that are both good for the Service and good for the individual.
The individual could be moved to another organization, conduct a lateral community move, return
to previous rank or assignment, or, as a last resort, be removed from service. Regardless, leaders
need to have these tools available to them in ways that make them easy to use and less burdensome
to the organization.
Individual Agency, Flexibility, & Permeability
Service members justifiably perceive pursuing educational, developmental, or even personal or
family matters early on in one’s career as high-risk and likely to result in an early and forced exit
from the military. These experiences can include early opportunities to pursue graduate education
13 | P a g e
and other exchanges, or fellowships that broaden the knowledge and experience base of junior
officers, teaching them skills and leadership lessons outside the military context. Other matters, such
as the career development of a partner, giving birth and raising very young children, or emergency
family matters such as serious family illness; all evoke similar and serious detriments to career
progression in a system that only operates at a single speed. While these life experiences are
increasingly understood and valued in the private sector, the current military system barely
accommodates them. Current and future generations of military Service members, like the rest of
American society, prioritize these experiences; and recruitment, retention, and diversity all suffer due
to the rigidity of today’s military personnel system.
While the military seeks to promote, and thus retain, the best and most qualified, over time
promotion milestones have morphed into a checklist for minimum qualifications required for
promotion to the next rank. This cookie-cutter approach means that those with a uniform body of
experiences and knowledge will be promoted before and above those with unique specializations or
talents. Experience or knowledge outside the military
norm must be acquired before enlistment, or during
Without clear follow-on and told by her F-16
community that return would be impossible, Maj X
free time. The few graduate and fellowship
pursued opportunities for her PhD follow-on using
opportunities afforded to officers (never enlisted)
her own personal network both inside and outside
actively work against the important “checks in the
the Air Force. Ultimately interviewed and hired to
work directly for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
box” toward promotion, and so must be sandwiched
approval still required 3-star intervention.
by career-enhancing billets, either through serendipity
or very careful tailoring, if those officers hope to remain
competitive for promotion. For career progression through the ranks, most occupational specialties
have coalesced around a mainstream path to success. Even if promotion can be achieved at lower
ranks, certain decisions made early on in one’s career can preclude future advancement. The
existence of these informal paths discourages officers from seeking opportunities to broaden, or
from staying in Service if they desire broadening. For civilians, broadening opportunities are also
viewed as threatening to a system that fears that exposure may lure them to another position; even
moving elsewhere within DoD is seen as disloyal.
The current mindset places value on a uniform set of experiences and thought. The inability to
pursue niche expertise or a broadening opportunity in a different field means that senior decision
makers have spent 30-40 years surrounded by people who look, think, and act like they do. Military
training provides tried and tested methods for solving old problems, but new problems likely require
new ideas. Diversity of education and experience helps ensure leaders and thinkers have the skills
needed to win future conflicts in an increasingly complex world.
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Permeability. Better use of the Reserve Components is key to increasing the flexibility of the military
personnel system. Statutory tools exist to move Service members into the reserves and back on to
active duty more fluidly than
the current practice.
“I served in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer from 2000-2004 and then left service to
Through a spectrum of
go to law school. Following graduation from Harvard I spent a year and a half working in
tribal development and economic capacity building in Western, Southern and Central Iraq
opportunities, including
and then in Afghanistan. After seeing the power of this program I determined that this was
drilling units, individual
the future of American force projection and the core of future counter insurgency.
My plan was to open my own international development and security consulting firm and I
mobilization augmentees
felt that rejoining the Marine Corps' Civil Affairs community would allow me to continue
(IMAs), or placement in
serving an organization that I loved (the Marine Corps) in a role where I felt uniquely
the Individual Ready
qualified (security through local community economic development). However after
spending a year and a half of prior service recruiters losing paperwork, not returning calls,
Reserve, Service members
providing inaccurate information on requirements and opportunities (including duplicative
can remain on the rolls
HIV tests and physicals) I determined that it was not worth it.
through periods of their
Instead I opened an innovation center for government technology that helps identify
promising technology with government applications, refine those products or services,
lives that require greater
develop their teams, and navigate the government sales process. Given the opportunity I
flexibility. Key to true
would gladly spend part of my time in uniform bringing my knowledge of the procurement
process and innovation to bear for the benefit of the Corps.”
permeability, and talent
Geoff Orazem, Founder, Eastern Foundry
retention, however, is the
promise that return to active
duty is not only possible, but that
individuals who return to active service will not be punished upon return.
The Career Intermission Program (CIP) aims to address some of these concerns. However, it is too
rigid to be a reasonable option for most facing these decisions. The 2-to-1 payback obligation seems
onerous and punitive for such a low cost
“I was unable to attend Test Pilot School because I spent 2
program. When the current system’s inflexibility
years at Cambridge University post commissioning. My
is often the reason for the need for
performance at Cambridge (4.0 in Aerospace Engineering)
intermission, owing that much time back to the
and a Masters in International Relations focused on the
Trans-Atlantic Defense Industrial Base is a net negative. If
military discourages utilization of the program.
we de-couple promotion timing (up/out) from opportunity
The military’s formulation of CIP mirrors the
we can allow members to pursue meaningful work...even if
it that work means forgoing promotion opportunities.
general military cultural approach to outside
"Best and Most Fully Qualified" actually translates to
experiences in general – only educational
"Minimum viable candidate with appropriate career
experiences, fellowships, or other opportunities
timing" for many of our boards.”
selected for the Service member by the military
itself are valued within the institution.
Embracing permeability would also be a boon to force planning. Return to Active Duty boards are
used infrequently, and only to plug gaps, not as a force shaping or force planning tool in themselves.
Without permeability, the military cannot make mistakes about the needs of the future force, and if
there are skills that are being better developed in the private sector, the military cannot capitalize
upon them. If it were possible to move more seamlessly from reserve to active component service
and back again, or from the civilian sector to military or government civilian employment and vice
15 | P a g e
versa, this problem would lessen and the force could adapt rapidly to changing environments and
needs. In the long term, active or reserve status should not be a defining characteristic, but rather a
descriptor of one’s current billet or utilization status.
One of the most often-cited reasons that military members leave the service is geographic instability.
Though Service members’ need for stability will
“In the F-16 community, it’s culturally “known” that pilots will
vary over the course of their lives, any one
have to spend an assignment, usually unaccompanied, in Korea.
moment where that need cannot be
Many pilots volunteer for this billet when they are single or when
accommodated by the military will drive a
children are young to get it out of the way. If this became a de
jure versus de facto requirement, it could be advertised to
person out of Service. For Service members
members and commanders for their application calculus.”
with partners or families, the career aspirations
of a spouse or stability for children may trump,
at least for a certain time, the desire to keep progressing along their specified path. Permeability
provides an opportunity for stability during times when Service members need more control.
Even concentrating primarily on the Active force, a talent marketplace would allow individual
Service members the autonomy and flexibility to address their own personal circumstances
and interests, thus effectively enabling them to retain themselves in Service. Just the fact of a
reserve option, with the promise of return to active duty, may serve as a valuable retention tool for
those who cannot predict future stability.
Service members may also capitalize on flexibility during other times in their lives and take hardship
posts, especially if they are considered career-enhancing. Individual Service members are best
equipped to understand how they value a job, taking into account career advancement in the context
of all the other things that are important to them. Those who choose to accommodate other life
circumstances or interests along the way may take a bit longer to achieve the same rank or position,
but would do so with additional perspective, knowledge and expertise. The military can be
simultaneously composed of many types of people, developing their careers at different
rates and in varying ways.
The increased autonomy and flexibility that Service members have within a talent marketplace and
true permeability, would likely result in increased diversity throughout the military. Currently,
military service can only be sustained by those who have robust support networks that can
accommodate instability and unpredictability. In communities where dual career families are
increasingly the norm, or for Service members from poor or unstable communities where the need
to return home may arise, the talent marketplace features needed autonomy and flexibility where the
current system does not. While the boon to female retention is more obviously predictable, this
system is also likely to result in better retention of Service members from more diverse
backgrounds as well .
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A marketplace has the ability to recognize value in experiences that a checklist or cookie-cutter
approach cannot. The value of a graduate degree, a fellowship experience, or outside civilian
employment may include technical expertise, new approaches to problem-solving, connections,
better analytical minds, specialized knowledge of an industry, and other potential benefits to the
organization. Service members would be in a position to advocate for themselves, articulating how
and why the sum of all of their experience is of value to the gaining command. Over time, the value
of these experiences will
“An officer, central to the budding innovation movement in the Navy, reported to his
become apparent.
department head tour, where his crew required an officer who was able to effectively enforce
Commanders who
the status quo. The shift from innovator to enforcer marginalized his personal strengths. By
contrast, a department head with a very successful tour reported to a command which is
value outside
renowned for its innovation, and provided him with an opportunity for creative solutions to
perspective and the
problems which have long plagued the Submarine Force. However, he expressed frustration
skills that civilian work
that the job was too ambiguous; too hard to understand where to apply himself. He longed for
a straight-forward emergency or task on which he could focus. The detailing process has no
experience, graduate
account for the personality type required for a particular task when they are detailed.”
education, or
fellowships provide,
will benefit from Service members who can bring that perspective to the table. Much like in the
private sector, for those whose experiences are not valued as highly by the military, they may have to
take a remedial job assignment and prove the value of their experience before moving into another
role; the marketplace would enable them to do so without having to leave service entirely for lack of
competitiveness. Certain high profile assignments, such as Congressional fellowships or corporate
fellowships, are currently seen as diversions rather than bringing value to any job within the
organization because the homogenous path and minimum qualification mindsets undervalues them.
A talent marketplace creates an opportunity for Service members to demonstrate the skills
these experiences bring back to the military, and commanders will begin to value them and
seek them out.
The talent marketplace should produce a force that better mirrors the rest of American society.
Service members would learn skills such as resume building, interviewing, and career
management early on, in contrast to the jarring experience many have upon leaving Service
and entering the workforce for the first time. The traditional career model of the company
loyalist is now rare, with most younger professionals collecting a variety of experiences and skills
throughout their 20s, and seeking to plug gaps during their 30s, many involving lateral moves and
challenging, but potentially unrelated jobs. Most graduate schools today are populated by people in
their 20s, with a minority in their early 30s. (Military graduate attendees are very often the oldest in
their class, based upon when the military will contemplate sending people to school.) Military
Service members will see their civilian peers and their friends in a workforce that values that career
model, and many would potentially be turned away by the rigidity of the current system. Many
Service members envision 20 years or more of Service, but do not want to be severely disadvantaged
in their eventual next career, either, for example, by having to get their MBA at age 45 instead of age
28, or by lacking the skills to effectively advocate for themselves in the competitive market.
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Professional Development
The military is known for its ability to produce leaders that stand out amongst their civilian peers.
This ability stems from a strong cultural focus on professional development within the Services. In
adapting the Services to the talent marketplace, we must continue to ensure that leadership
development remains a hallmark of our organization, but also ensure that management priorities do
not become overly paramount. Currently, promotion is
“For the past 4 years I've been in O-5 billets (three
the only way to measure merit in a system inherently
separate billets, at the same duty station). But I had
to be moved to my next assignment as an O-3,
built on providing everyone equal opportunity to
which in terms of responsibility, is the equivalent of
progress to the top ranks. A year-group promotion
demotion.”
process demands an up-or-out behavior and
simultaneously prevents rapid progression of top
performers. This furthers the perception that the armed forces are not truly a meritocracy. In the
proposed talent marketplace, promotions are tied to assignments.
We instead recommend that each position in the marketplace has an associated rank, and
Service members who apply for and attain the
LT Tyson Meadors shifted $750M of cyber security
position will earn the associated rank,
investments within the Navy with his CRIC project and yet
whether it is higher, lower, or equivalent to
will not promote any faster than the next LT. He will
continue to be paid the same as the LT next to him
their current rank . Similar in style to the
punching a time card.
General Schedule government civilian jobs and
even the State National Guard system,
assignments will now have the dual function to also promote, replacing “up or out” with “assign and
promote.” And like the DoD civilian and National Guard models, those who seek to progress and
advance in rank are offered the opportunity to do so, through a competitive application process, and
those who seek to specialize and stabilize are allowed to do so, with mandatory term reapplications,
and pay step increases for expertise and time in service.
Personnel will still rotate through the promotion and separations system, but likely at a much more
controlled rate, as dictated by the central personnel commands. This controlled, and potentially
slowed, rate has strategic implications for lessening the
DoD recruiting targets, which would allow the DoD
AT1 Rich Walsh is set to save the Navy hundreds of
millions in maintenence costs for the F-18, and
to become much more selective of the talent it brings
hundreds more if his project is applied to other
into the service. While both of these systems are not
programs - still an AT1. Still earning E-6 pay and
perfect, the centralized personnel commands would
hoping the Chief’s board works out.
retain control over the market by instituting mandatory
and periodic “shuffling” of particular positions and
ranks as necessary. The current grade caps detailed in DOPMA would not have to change; indeed
the management of rank by position makes the meeting of these caps easier. Since every position in
the armed Services would have a rank attached, the ceilings dictated by DOPMA would be managed
at the authorization (position) level rather than at the individual level. By reducing or even removing
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the increasingly burdensome and untenable promotion board process, we achieve immediate savings
in manpower, labor hours and monetary costs.
A common critique of the “assign and promote” system is that it would pose an administrative
management issue—if an O-2 is hired to an O-4 position, subsequently fired, and is hired to an O-3
position, his pay will fluctuate several times. In this same vein, retirement calculations may become
more cumbersome if someone serves in ranks that are not linearly increasing. The current Defense
Finance and Accounting Service is ill-prepared to deal with this type of fluctuation. Finally, this
system provides less predictability to the individual as they transition between positions and ranks.
However, reduced predictability is countered by an increased ability to carve your own career path,
without fear of being forcibly removed due to poor alignment with the golden path. The product is a
Service member who is more engaged in their profession, more highly skilled, and provides more
diverse benefit to the Service.
The marketplace promotion also challenges the assumption that military members constantly seek
ever-increasing rank. The talent marketplace recognizes that some within the system do seek this—
and will have the ability to compete for it at a faster pace—but also recognizes that others seek
periods of specialization and stability in their careers over promotions. To account for those who
seek specialization, GS-type stepped pay increases are a necessary element. If someone chooses to
remain in O-3-level positions for 10-12 years, there must be some pay increase associated with their
increased level of expertise and value to the organization. It can be argued that the administrative
burden of tracking individuals’ rank and associated pay as they move from position to position is too
great. With current system and processes, this is a valid assumption. However, large multinational
corporations manage the pay and benefits of their fluid employee pool everyday with current
technology and databases. DoD must benchmark HR administrative functions with large
multinational corporations and acquire updated data management systems to support this
recommendation.
Possibly the biggest implementation hurdle is within the Services themselves. The talent marketplace
shifts away from the current “faces-to-spaces,” transactional, centralized assignment process to a
commander-led, executive officer-managed hiring/firing process. It also shifts the pay and benefits
system from a centralized, year-group system to a decentralized, HR-managed, system for pay and
benefits that is akin to civilian companies. If rank is associated with position, then so are pay and
benefits. Therefore, unit-level HR managers must be able to validate when a person began a job that
determines the higher rank, pay, and benefits. More autonomy must be given to lower-level HR
managers and/or comptrollers to either manage pay and benefits within the unit or validate an
individual’s rank, pay and benefits in a centrally-managed system that executes payment. Finally,
Service policies must be developed for individuals not in an authorized position with an associated
rank—known as Trainees, Transients, Holdees, Students (TTHS). The development of these
policies must be done to support the other tenants of the talent marketplace—to motivate those
high-performing individuals with the ability to achieve rank or specialization faster, while allowing
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them to broaden themselves through civilian education and fellowships with no adverse effect on
their pay and benefits.
This revolutionary, not evolutionary, approach to promotions would convert and potentially reduce
the administrative role of centralized Service personnel commands to instead serve as strategic
human capital managers. Also, the reduced administrative requirement for these commands may
allow manning structure to be shifted to where the manpower fight is; lower level units that are now
responsible for human capital management (discussed in subsequent sections) and managing the pay
and benefits for individuals as they transition between ranks by position. As with technological
needs, a study of current industry best practices will inform this transition.
Systematic Transparency
Transparency is the foundational currency of both the talent-to-opportunity marketplace as
envisioned and talent management more broadly. Opaque or “black box” systems disempower both
individuals and commanders and propagate negative pathologies. If members do not understand
how the system adjudicates promotion and reassignment, there can be little trust that, a) leaders are
the best leaders possible, and b) that high performance will be rewarded. Establishing this trust
requires a more transparent system where inputs clearly correlate to output.
Without clear information on what characteristics get people promoted or top assignments,
members will assume and impute rules on the
system that may not be there. Those assumed
“It is clear we are not selecting for talent, at least not for
talent alone, because everyone at the top looks the same.
rules may or may not be what the force needs
When I was selected for a Joint Staff assignment, one of my
or wants, but they become de facto ingrained.
mentors called me to let me know that I now had a 96%
chance of making my next TWO promotions, not because of
Systems that successfully manage talent actively
my skill set or potential for higher command, simply because
strive for individuals to take ownership of their
of the boxes I checked.”
own careers. A black box system discourages
ownership and thus increases an individual’s
propensity to resent and blame the system for undesired outcomes. Improved ownership and
transparency provides a continuous feedback loop, causing an individual to look internally when
undesired outcomes occur.
The sailor that developed the concept
for an innovation unit in Silicon Valley
(later known as Defense Innovation Unit
Experimental, DIUx) and convinced the
Navy’s top Admirals of the idea, applied
to and was rejected to be a part of the
actual unit.
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The prime antidote to cronyism is transparency. In an opaque
system, people who know how to “work” the system are
disproportionately empowered and able to help their chosen
few. Additionally, a black box forces commanders not “in
the know” to help talented individuals by operating around
the system instead of through it. Regardless of whether
those work-arounds are nepotistic or meritocratic, the
perception of those not advantaged will be that of a crony
system. More importantly to the force, these work-arounds are circumventing the existing system,
and thus are inefficient and may or may not conform to system desires.
Many of the most senior leaders of our organization were fortunate and skilled enough to have
networks of mentors who brought them through their careers and provided them with critical,
challenging, highly competitive, and highly visible assignments and experiences. This behavior
unfairly advantages individuals who are able to establish senior mentor networks early in their
careers, particularly those that have pre-established family or relational ties. We identify this as one
of the leading contributors towards a demographic distribution of Service leadership that has proven
very slow to change. The senior-to-junior leader mentor network must be deliberately provided to a
more diverse set of individuals, particularly those that show early signs of future potential. The
Force of the Future should enable all Service members to connect with the mentors that are
so crucial for leadership and career development, especially those who do not have a family
history of military service and join without an existing support network.
Recruitment
The Department has continued to rely on an increasingly outdated approach to talent acquisition by
employing broadly targeted campaigns to fill its recruiting funnel. It has failed to evolve with the
marketplace for talent, and risks losing out on a sufficient share of top-tier talent that will be so
critical to ensure continued mission success. We are not overly concerned for the military’s ability to
attract the requisite volume of candidates; we are concerned that the military may be losing the battle
for the right candidates.
Without significant reform to professional development, empowerment, agency, transparency, and
flexibility, the Department will not achieve success or diversity objectives. No amount of branding,
marketing, or social media amplification can overcome fundamental barriers created by the existing
product. By employing a broad-based, “trapping” model reliant solely on candidate interest, the
Department is missing or dissuading diverse candidates (gender, race, diversity of thought) at all
levels.
The military markets to candidates using a brand and messaging that do not meaningfully reflect the
actual experience of serving in the military (e.g. commercials with a focus on combat and high
technology). These campaigns distort expectations and should be refined to better convey the actual
experience of military service to reduce the “bait and switch” effect. There is little if any targeted
recruiting for civilian roles, missing talented individuals that may not be comfortable putting on a
uniform but are open to DoD service.
Improving Defense Talent Recruitment: We must first rethink the DoD’s value proposition. The
Department should invest in tools that assess a candidates talent potential, vice simple
measures to assess minimal qualifications, to holistically measure the quality of candidate
or hire. We recommend a shift away from a “trapping” mindset towards a prospective, digitally
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driven “hunting” approach of marketing time-limited targeted digital employment opportunities.
This approach should focus on the many attractive “brand anchors” (e.g. cutting edge
technology, leading edge skills, ability to contribute, etc.) of military and civilian service.
Rather than continuing to present the department as an ideal employer, we recommend that the
Department boldly acknowledge its failings, and the steps it is taking to improve the
employee experience through Force of the Future initiatives.
Also, the Department should find ways to phase out brick and mortar outposts and pursue more
tailored and individualized recruiting strategies. Prior service and Reserve Component military
represent a powerful recruitment tool that could be compensated with finding bonuses. The
Department should provide additional flexibility to recruit individuals at different junctures of their
careers. To this end the Reserve Components can be better leveraged to hire veterans with key skills.
We recommend transforming the candidate (recruit or civilian) experience. The Department should
endeavor to educate prospective applicants about the hiring process, and to engage candidates from
first contact, prior to key dates for application, and through onboarding. The Department should
identify and correct self-imposed barriers to hiring, streamlining processes, maximizing use
of flexibilities, and creating common-sense workarounds to pursue maximum flexibility of
existing authorities while still complying with Federal hiring regulations and laws. Where
outdated laws present roadblocks, the Department should seek legislative action, but most talent
management initiatives do not require changes to the law.
While we admire the intent of Veterans Preference, it is the “elephant in the room” when it comes
to some of the most systemic problems in our civilian workforce. It contributes to a civilian
workforce that is generally homogenous to the military and works against any non-veteran outsider
civilian trying to enter into DoD and is thus a mechanism designed to suppress diversity. We
recommend that VP be reengineered in order to improve the diversity in our civilian
workforce. VP should only provide a veteran an equal opportunity to have their resume considered
for an interview, but must be weighed against the Department’s critical present need for individuals
that bring valuable and diverse experiences and perspectives.
Retention
“Our military and civilian professionals are our decisive advantage. They are the foundation of our operational
excellence and our ability to successfully innovate.” ~National Military Strategy 2015, pg 13
The departure from service of civilian and military professionals represents an unrealized return on
investment while presenting a commensurate and duplicative cost in time and resources for the
training of replacements. Though attrition is expected and is in some cases healthy for the
organization, it must be managed as deliberately as possible. To remain competitive in the war for
talent will necessitate policy and program reform that recognizes multiple paths to career success
and provides greater autonomy for individuals to decide how best to navigate such paths. This is
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especially the case for military leaders, given the expansive resources invested in developing leaders
from time of entry to the time they exit the service.
Challenges to retention. Attrition occurs for a number of reasons in both the civilian and military
populations – from dissatisfaction with aspects of one’s job (e.g., training to lowest common
denominator, limited opportunities to innovate) to changes in personal, professional, or
organizational priorities. Though the reasons vary, one of the biggest pain points for many high
performers is the DoD’s inflexibility in managing civilian and Service member goals while ensuring
Force readiness. For many Service members, an “up or out”
Multiple members of the CNO’s Rapid
system coupled with the tyranny of year group management
Innovation Cell were unable to convert
often disadvantages a large segment of top performing
their enhanced skill sets at the completion
of their CRIC tour and, to the frustration of
individuals that do not conform well to a “Commander”
the Navy, subsequently left the Service.
mold. As they explore diverse experiences and priorities
Several of them are now involved in
outside the golden path, they knowingly risk their
Stanford business school and other
business ventures, but would have not left
opportunities for promotion and career longevity. For both
if opportunities were available within the
military and civilian personnel, antiquated policies that fail
Service.
to address family planning and support are non-starters for
continuing or even beginning a career in the DoD, as those entering the workforce expect these
policies and use them as a cultural barometer of an organization they are considering joining or
remaining in. The inability of the current system to offer flexibility creates a context in which many
high performers who desire broadening experiences or career pivots feel they have no option other
than to leave the DoD.
Recommendations to retain talent. We recommend expanding the use of sabbatical policies that
emphasize flexibility and provide the opportunity to off-ramp for personal and professional
reasons. As in the Army, sabbatical programs should leverage the Individual Ready Reserve and
take advantage of Active Component/Reserve Component permeability for individuals to take time
off to pursue personal goals or needs. The system must provide a ramp back in, particularly
from parental leave periods. Though the DoD may not be in a position to match parental leave
incentives offered by corporate America, allowing greater flexibility in on-ramping may yield
significant gains in retaining top talent. For example, a phased leave policy could include a small
period (1-2 weeks) of full leave, a longer period of part-time leave (3 days a week for 6
weeks), and a final period of minimal leave (1 day a week for 8 weeks). As mentioned
previously, the part-time reserve assignments could also be a resource for parents who need more
flexible assignments for a longer period of time.
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We also propose to institutionalize the
“I personally left the active-duty because I couldn’t get the assignments I
systematic capture of data on
wanted. I volunteered to be a liaison officer in Afghanistan, remote tour to
individuals’ motivations to separate.
Korea, and a bunch of other stuff they were forcing other people into. Instead I
Exit interview and/or surveys should be
got offered to transition to a UAV pilot or flight instructor at the Air Force
Academy, great assignments that would totally derail the career I wanted to
conducted upon (or shortly after)
have. So I left for the reserves, and some other poor souls got assignments they
separation from service and must be
didn’t want. My second reserve assignment was a lateral move into a unit that
wasn’t popular with my peers (it looked like, and was, a lot of extra work) but
done in a manner that precludes
uniquely fit my skill set and civilian experience. After making that move, my
command retribution. These surveys
career took off like a rocket.”
should be supplemented with additional
research aimed at predicting attrition. Data
from these efforts could provide insights into areas of job dissatisfaction and may inform
interventions for reducing attrition of the DoD’s best and brightest.
Diversity
The racial, ethnic, and cultural makeup of the United States is changing with expectations of a
dramatic increase in the U.S. minority population by 2040. Projections suggest that minority
populations of ages appropriate for military Service will increase in the next century, while the nonHispanic white population will decrease. It will be essential for DoD to adapt so that it may draw
from this growing pool of talent and from groups whose experiences and perspectives will differ
significantly from the status quo. Not only will this enhance performance, but it will also contribute
to a DoD that more closely represent the American public whose trust provides the foundation for
our military’s success.
The cultural and intellectual diversity needed for high performance requires a focus on diversity at
the earliest stages of the talent management lifecycle, starting with recruitment and commissioning.
Because military leaders are grown from time of entry, a diverse recruit population is critical for
providing future generations of leaders with diverse role models. The focus on increasing diversity
should also be reflected in civilian hiring; the recruitment of civilians with a diversity of experiences
and perspectives better positions the DoD to meet the demands of the future operating
environment and win in a complex world.
Changes to the security clearance process would dramatically improve the Department’s
ability to attract and retain individuals with intercultural skills and experience, while
refocusing investigations on legitimate threats. Future conflicts will continue to require close
collaboration with the Department’s many stakeholders, including international partners, and will
also demand greater foreign language, regional, and cultural skills. As such, the Department should
seek to leverage currently underrepresented communities with these skills, and reduce barriers to
service for those with extensive international or cultural experience.
Women in the DoD. Women at all levels of the military share a number of challenges: a lack of female
role models, limited flexibility to effectively manage motherhood, barriers to promotion, and an
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overwhelmingly masculine workplace climate. Though the inclusion of women into roles not
traditionally open to them is a leap forward towards equalization, a great more work needs to be
done to address inflexible personnel policies. These policies permit undercurrents of hostility and
distrust which do not allow for the best and brightest women to develop and provide value to the
DoD.
The Services should develop pregnancy and postpartum physical training programs, based
on the best available science, to allow women to transition back to full physical participation
as soon as possible after childbirth. The program should include pregnancy and postpartum
guidelines for exercising and nutrition to be used by the mother in consultation with their
obstetrician. Women Service members should be given options to delay physical fitness
testing for more realistic lengths of time that provide them adequate time to return to their
pre-pregnancy fitness levels.
We recommend expanding access to childcare services to meet the needs of families living
in areas where on-installation military childcare is unavailable or waiting lists for care are
excessive, or assigned to positions in which traditional child care is inadequate (e.g.
overnight shifts or frequent TDYs). Early childcare is essential during the time period when
parents are transitioning back to work on a part-time basis and/or returning to work after parental
leave. Child Development Centers (CDCs) hours of operation should match the operational
pace of the units they serve, to include up to 24-hour operations. By providing increased
options for military parents who unexpectedly need to work late, travel, or are responsible for
overnight duties, CDC funding shifts from a morale and welfare expense to an investment in
readiness, retention, and future recruiting.
For women and men who seek to take
“I am a 34 year old woman, and engaged to an officer in the Royal
parental leave, the military should
Canadian Air Force who has been in for 17 years. I asked to stay in the DC
have a standardly accepted parental
area, where my husband could also be stationed with me for the 3 years
leave policy that is not doled out by
(or even a portion of those 3 years) until he could retire with a pension and
then follow me for the remainder of my Marine Corps career. Instead, I
exception only through a special
received orders to Camp Lejeune, which would require us to be apart for 3
sabbatical program. For parents who
years, during the time I was hoping to start a family. I was selected as the
first active duty Marine White House Fellow in 10 years, and was featured
seek extra time to raise small
in a Marine Corps social media recruiting campaign last fall. I was
children, the Services should more
devastated to leave service, but 3 years apart at this time in our lives
flexibly use Reserve Component
seems untenable.”
tools such as the IRR or IMAs. In
the private sector, women have been shown to most successfully integrate back into careers after
having children by starting part-time and using a ramping up process, slowly taking on more work
rather than jumping into full time work immediately. Again, use of the Reserve Component and
incorporating tools like job shares using two reservists could lead to better success in
retaining women with families.
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We support the ongoing initiatives to open military occupational specialties to women, under the
intent that women should have equal opportunities to meet rightly-designed physical and intellectual
requirements of any military position. Without a level playing field of opportunity, women will never
have a chance of participating or being respected as equals. And if men and women serve together,
they should be trained together.
Minorities in the DoD. Recruitment of qualified minorities to the military and civilian Service in critical
roles is lagging. The absence of minorities in key roles within the Department creates a strong visual
cue for minority employees of the Department who wonder why they see so few people from their
communities working alongside them. For potential applicants, this serves as a negative deterrent
that gives the impression that minorities do not stay or succeed in the DoD.
DoD often overlooks the recruitment potential of academic institutions that don’t have strong
traditional ties to the defense community, particularly those that serve underrepresented minority
communities. DoD’s Historical Black Colleges and Universities/Minority Institutions (HBCU/MI)
Program has been cut dramatically in FY 2015, likely hampering recruitment of qualified, careerready, minorities attending universities serving underrepresented communities. We should
strengthen the Department's research and education program for HBCU/MI. It not only
expands the talent pool to include more diversity, but also creates opportunities for minority
students to gain practical experience at DoD research labs. Similarly, ROTC programs should
seek to bring in diverse officers, and ROTC should be focused in urban settings where more
diverse candidates can benefit from the program.
We must engage the force we want in the future with a focus on diversity of all kinds—gender, race,
sexual preference, ethnicity, religion, education, and experience. A modernized talent management
ecosystem will attract a more diverse group of individuals that can identify themselves in the DoD.
Our military culture must move beyond the hyper-masculine culture of the past to a professional,
innovative, and creative professional force of the future; a force in which the talented Millennials
want to serve.
The New Role of Human Resources
Human Capital Management within the Department of Defense faces an array of challenges. Among
them: the enormous size of the workforce; the level of variance in requirements across Services,
components, and functional areas; the necessity to rapidly respond to changes in mission
requirements; highly competitive market for critical skill sets; competing fiscal priorities involving
force structure, readiness, and modernization; archaic and incompatible information technology
systems; dated and bureaucratic policies and governance; and a workforce consisting of five different
generations with distinctly different expectations and preferences. Few of these challenges are
unique to the military, and there is much that could be learned from high performing organizations
in the civilian sector. To ensure we maintain a cadre of the best and brightest talents, we must
revolutionize DoD’s concept of Human Capital Management, based on best practices from the
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broader world of talent management, and using the best possible tools to enable human resources
managers to easily access the information they need to make well informed decisions. The Talent
Ecosystem of the Future requires a strategic, integrated, continually evolving, and tech-supported
approach.
Strategic versus Transactional. The Department of Defense’s HR community has long been viewed as a
transactional workforce, directed to track and document personnel-related actions. A quick review
of Joint Publication 1 illustrates this point. It’s entitled "Personnel Support" and emphasizes the
community’s responsibility to account for forces and track their placement. Therefore, the
subordinate Service doctrines similarly describe transactional capabilities with no mention of broader
talent management, force shaping, or any of the other competencies routinely expected from a
corporate HR function. As a result, the DoD and Services rarely develop holistic assessments of the
total force ability to recruit, develop, and retain the best and brightest. Adjustments to today’s HR
policies and procedures would be short-term and non-sustainable without a complete reform of our
HR doctrine. The force of the future requires HR staff proficient in both transactional and strategic
human capital competencies, connected to industry best practices, and capable of ensuring we have
the right Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines necessary to win tomorrow’s war. HR must be
considered an essential partner during war-gaming and future force discussions. Similarly,
HR should be an integral part of each commander’s decision making team for all personnel
decisions, just as the Judge Advocate General is an essential part of the team when legal issues are
involved. This approach should be empowering for human resources professionals in the DoD,
allowing them a greater impact on the overall force, better tools to help identify and develop top
talent, and an opportunity to develop and implement innovative solutions, rather than simply
matching faces with spaces. Without this approach, we will continue to bleed talent and lose in the
competitive market place for human capital.
Our previous recommendations on leadership empowerment may be seen as placing leaders in a
singularly responsible position supporting all traditional HR functions such as hiring, firing,
evaluating and promoting. This is a myopic and granular approach to holistic human capital
management across DoD, and does not reflect private sector best practices. As stated elsewhere in
this paper, we advocate that leaders should be delegated authority to fill vacancies from qualified
candidates and remove poor performers. They should also be appropriately resourced to motivate
and reward best performers. That being said, leaders should not be granted unlimited authority.
HR must continue to ensure a fair playing field and ensure that commanders are making
decisions based on talent and qualification, not any form of bias. Even more importantly,
however, is the value of strategic HR and the importance of prioritizing resources, recognized by
benchmark companies in all industries. Demand for talent will always outstrip supply, and the
strategic importance of each unit within the DoD ebbs and flows as we adapt to varying
opportunities and threats. Leaders, especially at the most senior levels, must be fully supported and
empowered by a strategic HR department that considers not simply what is best for a single
individual or unit, but what is best for the force overall.
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Integrated Approach. All too often, the Services take a segmented, piecemealed approach to solving
HR-related challenges. Over the past 20 years, we’ve witnessed unsynchronized reductions in force
on both the civilian and military side which resulted in gamesmanship in position conversions to
minimize overall reductions. A reduction in one category led to the use of increased contracts, overhires, and the use of pseudo billets in other categories. Further, the DoD spent $3.3M to develop a
civilian-specific Strategic Workforce Plan for years 2013-2018, then spent an unspecified amount
supporting Service-specific Congressionally-mandated National Commissions on Air Force and
Army Structures. Neither effort provides a comprehensive sight-picture of total DoD requirements
or prioritized staffing levels. In an era of constrained resources, we cannot afford continued
pursuit of a plethora of isolated and non-transferrable initiatives, when we could reduce cost
and increase both reliability and functionality by developing configurable platform based
technologies that could be deployed across the Department. Consistent technological solutions
would also dramatically enhance the ability of HR managers to understand the needs and health of
the force, through access to more and better data. Moving beyond today’s spreadsheets, tomorrow’s
HR staff must implement an integrated, synchronized approach to solving DoD’s HR challenges.
They must balance diverse stakeholder interests to implement comprehensive policies that are
standardized enough to provide transparency and ease of implementation yet flexible enough to
support the full HR life-cycle across Services, categories, components and functional areas. Further,
HR staff must be transparent and vested partners for leaders at all levels, able to effectively advise
and direct HR initiatives that support a variety of unique functional requirements. HR managers’
ability to provide leaders with strategic recommendations, backed up by accessible and reliable data,
will enhance the value that HR commands provide to the force, and increase trust in the system.
Services may have concerns that Department-wide synchronization will result in less Service,
Component, category or functional area flexibility. In actuality, collaboration, interoperability, and
standardization more often lead to improved practices than restrictive results, and do not preclude
Services or Components from tailoring the implementation of the technology to their particular
needs. For example, the Air Force recently began a 3-to-1 integration initiative to create uniformity
in personnel policies and procedures across the active, reserve and guard components. The resulting
changes enable greater transactional automation, reduce barriers to permeability, and provide
increased predictability and service to our Total Force Airmen.
Continuous Validation. Most units qualify, according to existing manpower standards, for more
personnel than authorized, while simultaneously being manned at levels far below authorizations.
Our manpower validations can largely be seen as benign exercises in staff planning if they do not tie
to a real and effective influence on staffing levels. Many functional area force managers recognize
the critical need for this work, but lack the proper tools and training. Forced to operate antiquated
systems just to keep the system running rather than investing in these strategic necessities, we
imagine a future HR profession that is freed from the burden of managing data manually. They are
empowered to continually scan the human terrain and, in partnership with each of the functional
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communities, forecast the required skills necessary for tomorrow’s force. They must also become
strategic partners in future wargames to identify the skills necessary for tomorrow’s warriors and
then ally with senior leaders to prioritize limited manpower resources to deliver maximum human
capital advantage.
Technology enabled. Tomorrow’s HR staff must use advanced technology to improve the reliability and
accessibility of personnel data to decision makers at all levels. To date, the HR community at large
has used various technologies to make incremental improvements to existing HR practices. For
example, many current “streamlining” efforts simply computerize paper forms, rather than taking
advantage of opportunities to automate records management, or make data more accessible to
decision makers. If you can print out the computerized form and lose no functionality, technology is
being poorly leveraged. New capabilities allow for targeted versus mass recruiting, adaptable
performance evaluations, and continuous modular-based training versus centralized
sequential training. Technology also provides for advanced data analytics, new forecasting
methods, and the ability to leverage new sciences to better match people and positions.
Imagine an HR staff that has access to a comprehensive database of skill sets, a complete personality
profile of individual candidates coupled with their core motivator index, and an accurate
understanding of a unit’s culture, existing staff competencies, and any foreseeable challenges such as
a restructure, deployment, or inspection. This type of real-time, holistic strategic support will likely
result in improved person to position matches, yielding higher mission performance and individual
job satisfaction with lower strain on the HR function or unit leadership.
Force shaping should be approached strategically, consider the full needs of the Department, and
enable opportunities to switch Services, retrain, transition from full-time to part-time status, and
other efforts which will offer a spectrum of DoD service options to the Service member or civilian.
Experimentation & Implementation
Every leader, particularly one that has a bias for disruption, is acutely aware of the immense
challenge to changing their organization. A disruptive leader will nobly challenge his or her
organizations to develop new solutions to hard problems. However, very few leaders challenge their
organizations to create this change using new and untried methods. American industry has spent the
past four decades building up entire fields of study around innovation and organizational change.
We feel that DoD leadership, writ large, has failed to adopt these new techniques.
Because of its overuse, the word “innovation” has lost meaning, particularly within DoD. Rather
than focusing exclusively on technology, true innovation places the customers of the decisions in a
position to influence the outcome. Our leaders have recognized and declared a need to better
challenge the status quo. Those challenges often come from those closest to the problems, who are
unfortunately too distributed or junior to have the requisite authority or opportunity to change the
system. We suggest embracing these “change agents,” empowering them with time, funding,
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decision-making authority, and top-cover so that they may begin high-frequency, small-scale,
temporary duration, experimentation across the Services.
Senior Service and DoD leadership must directly sponsor experimentation and encourage
the inherent failure in experimentation. We fully expect (and have already received) rejection of
certain Force of the Future recommendations from the larger organization. It is important to
remember that most of these changes will be resisted, but that shouldn’t undersell their potential
value to the national defense mission. One popular mantra in the innovation community is, “Fish
don’t call it water.” In order to successfully undergo transformation on the scale that is necessary,
DoD leadership must accept – patently, publically, and patiently – this fact. They must protect the
early-adopter leaders that sponsor the experiments, and they must be willing to bear the following
political and institutional storm.
We recommend resisting the temptation to conduct experimentation on the fringes of the
Services, in vitro. It is often more palatable to conduct experiments in areas that are new or have
low-impact to the main organization. Such experimentation often falls prey to being dismissed as a
“unique case” that would not work elsewhere. These experimentations may be easier for prototyping
and convincing leadership to initiate the experiment, but it does not go towards changing the heart
of the Service’s culture. This experimentation, and its intended change, must occur in situ.
We also recommend that Service leadership be urged to conduct this experimentation in
fundamentally different ways. It is often assumed that it takes too much time and money to do any
experimentation in the DoD; and it nearly always does. We instead recommend that
experimentation be done with a hand selected team, mostly outside the traditional
stakeholder stovepipes (though not exclusionary to those stovepipes), on extremely short
timeframes, with constrained funding. Leadership should be routinely meeting with these
teams to remove inevitable barriers. These changes are, by definition, revolutionary and
disruptive. With serious concerns for the “wait ‘em out” mentality, our group assesses a low
probability of success should the Services respond to the Secretary’s Force of the Future
recommendations by adopting traditional methods for experimentation and implementation.
Leadership should develop ways to encourage individuals and organizations to be the first
to step out in support of Force of the Future experimentation and implementation,
particularly in the time immediately following Secretary Carter’s announcements. This could
involve direct and public senior leader acknowledgement (directly from the Secretary of Defense or
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), increased organizational funding or manpower structure to
conduct the experimentation and implementation, or arranging ‘competitions’ between the Services
in a race to create the Force of the Future. Though these recommendations may make it sound like
we are advocating for rapid change, we acknowledge that our bureaucracy will, as it is designed to,
ensure that change happens in its due time.
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We also strongly recommend opening up the change process to the outside. This includes
bringing in the future DoD generations, as Mr. Carson has done with us, but also may
include bringing in civil society through industry partners, think tanks, and universities.
One way of doing this is through Hackathons. These 2-5 day events focus on narrowly defined
problem statements and anybody can put together an ad-hoc team to begin to solve those problems.
They traditionally involve computer programming or data science, but they could be a great tool to
develop truly innovative solutions to the Services Force of the Future initiatives. They also provide a
great strategic communications event that demonstrates DoD’s new philosophy of openness and
societal collaboration.
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Appendix 1: Discussion on engagement with independent organizations
We’d like to take this opportunity to advocate for senior leadership to expand direct engagements
with independent organizations that exist outside the routine and internal DoD ‘stakeholder’ groups.
Non-profit organizations, many of them local to the national capital region, house highly passionate
and talented individuals who are ready and willing to confidentially provide their expertise in service
to the Department’s future.
These nationally and globally distributed organizations extend into several industries, geographic
regions, and nontraditional communities. Going beyond the “leader to leader” connections that
traditionally and currently serve as the primary mechanism for DoD outreach into civil society, these
networks allow collaboration at the more appropriate “expert to expert” level. DoD action officers,
the individuals responsible for generating recommendations from which decisions are made, will be
directly connected with unaffiliated industry and academic experts. This provides high velocity, high
impact, avenues of communication that can be used to assemble a “team of teams” to be used as a
powerful tool for improving DoD decision making.
Using methods that look more like the operations of an insurgency network than a military unit,
we’ve applied our network against the problem of talent management. Our group reached out
through informal networks, powered by the boldness of individuals, to get precisely the right people
on our team (they almost always exist outside the traditional stovepipes) and more importantly,
receive the top cover of leadership. The DoD should recognize that it is often its own worst enemy
when it places self-imposed and artificial barriers between itself and independent organizations.
Our work in supporting the Acting Under Secretary of Defense, Personnel and Readiness, serves as
just such an example. At no cost to the government, this report was developed, start to finish, in just
over two weeks. It is the result of over 30 individuals from across the DoD, government, and civil
society. Upon our first briefing with the A/USD, P&R’s office, just 8 days after we first began the
project, we were told several times that our results nearly matched and even went beyond the results
of several weeks of work from other talent management initiatives. Beyond just matching other
groups though, we hope that our recommendations offer novel solutions that fill gaps within other
Force of the Future recommendations.
We humbly offer our continued support in this or any other Defense Department initiative. Our
network has already identified ready and willing support in the areas of readiness, cyber policy,
acquisition reform, and innovation.
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