Marine Corps Gazette

: The Lions of Iwo Jima
By Fred Haynes & James A. Warren $26.00
(Member $23.40)

Active Duty Officer Promotion

Amend selection board policies to achieve equilibrium

by Maj Sean D. Griffin

Every year the Marine Corps convenes boards to select commissioned officers for promotion to a limited number of positions available in the next senior grade. In theory there is no official, expected career path. The selection board is to consider every billet occupied by a commissioned officer to be equally important. Moreover, experience gained in performance of duties other than those associated with a primary military occupational specialty (PMOS) is to be considered in light of the Marine Corps’ need to maintain the capacity to innovate. In short, the selection and promotion of too many people with the same experiences is not conducive to the Corps’ continued preeminence as “an adaptive, flexible and effective fighting force.”¹

In practice, the lack of an officially recognized career path and the wide latitude afforded board members in determining the best qualified candidates for promotions have resulted in a promotion system that rewards conformity and routinely fails to meet minimum manning requirements for lower density MOSs. The promotion selection policies currently in place contribute to an imbalance in necessary skills and do not conform to our warfighting doctrine for force planning and personnel management. In order to gain and maintain a more effective and efficient population of commissioned officers, these policies need to be revised.

Promotion boards that meet in Harry Lee Hall should have a required MOS manning end state. (Photo by Ron Lunn.)

The Demands of Doctrine
Maneuver warfare, our concept for waging war, is derived “from our understanding of the nature and theory of war and must be the guiding force behind our preparation for war.”² Maneuver warfare is defined in our doctrine as:

... warfighting philosophy that seeks to shatter the enemy’s cohesion through a variety of rapid, focused, and unexpected actions which create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which the enemy cannot cope.³

Maneuver warfare and Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1 (MCDP 1), Warfighting, owe an immense intellectual and conceptual debt to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Both MCDP 1 and Sun Tzu use similar mental constructs to realize the same intent—an individual better prepared to wage war by comprehending war’s essential characteristics. A fundamental mental construct in Sun Tzu’s thinking about war is harmony. He warns that the aims of the sovereign’s statecraft must be in harmony with his general’s military strategy. He predicts victory for the general whose decisions are in harmony with the moral, mental, and physical aspects of the situation and whose actions create situations that unravel his opponent’s harmony. The successful general balances indirect and direct forces (ch’i and cheng) in a manner that deceives the enemy commander into dispersing his own forces and dissipating his strength. The enemy, weakened by his own actions based on decisions that are not in harmony with the true situation, readies himself for defeat before battle is even joined.⁴

This mental construct of harmony is also central to maneuver warfare. We use commander’s intent nested two levels up the chain of command, mission-type orders designating main and supporting efforts, and task organization to build the harmony within our own forces, which enables us to observe, orient, decide, and act faster than our enemy. Harmony is inherent in implicit communications, planning and executing combined arms operations, minimizing the amount of self-induced friction, and overcoming external friction. Replace cohesion with its synonym, harmony, in the definition of maneuver warfare and you can restate our doctrine as an approach to waging wars that destroys the enemy’s harmony by creating chaotic situations that the enemy cannot handle. But before we seek to use chaos to shatter our adversary’s cohesion/harmony, we need enough of our own cohesion/harmony to “cope—even better to thrive—in an environment of chaos, uncertainty, constant change, and friction.”⁵

Board	Number of Maj 02XX Short of 85 Percent	Percentage of Maj 02XX Short of 85 Percent	Number of LtCol 02XX Short of 85 percent	Percentage of LtCol 02XX Short of 85 Percent

FY07	69	29 percent	57	50 percent
FY06	81	35 percent	48	45 percent
FY05	82	35 percent	49	46 percent
FY04	92	37 percent	38	35 percent
Table 1. Major and lieutenant colonel 02XX precepts FY04-07.

Organization is a key component of cohesion/harmony. Gen Samuel B. Griffith noted in his translation of Sun Tzu’s Book VII that “After assembling the army the first task of the commander would be to organize it, or to harmonize its diverse elements.”⁶ In other words, total manpower is organized with respect to the tasks assigned. Just as the sovereign tasks the general, the general creates and tasks subordinate organizations. Our own doctrine is consistent with this concept.

Force planning is task organization writ large. Force planning derives operational concepts from likely missions, identifies the capabilities required to execute those concepts, and then builds and maintains those capabilities. Doctrinally, force planning focuses (harmonizes) the “training, education, doctrine, organization, personnel management, and equipment acquisition” efforts to realize and perpetuate mission essential capabilities.⁷ Force planning is big business. Six of every ten dollars in Marine Corps obligation authority funds personnel. Effective personnel management puts the people with the right skills and experience in the billets—command or staff—that require those specific skills and experience. Done correctly, personnel management “fosters cohesion, teamwork and implicit understanding,”⁸ all essential elements to waging maneuver warfare.

LtCol Board	Above Zone Selects (Percent) 02XX v 0302	In Zone Selects (Percent) 02XX v 0302	Board Average (Percent) Above Zone v In Zone	Number or Percent of LtCol 02XX Short of 85 Percent Postboard

FY07	0 percent-10 percent	60.6 percent-67.6 percent	7.6 percent-62.4 percent	37 or 32 percent
FY06	0 percent-3.6 percent	71.4 percent-70.6 percent	2.8 percent-67.2 percent	38 or 35 percent
FY05	10.5 percent-6.6 percent	77.8 percent-75 percent	8.2 percent-61.8 percent	33 or 31 percent
FY04	11.8 percent-5.7 percent	47.1 percent-69 percent	5.4 percent-64.7 percent	28 or 26 percent
Table 2. Lieutenant colonel 02XX versus 0302 selections FY04-07.

The Results of ‘Best Qualified’ Boards
Every selection board starts with a precept that identifies the MOSs that are short of a required manning goal. Historically, the required manning goal is 85 percent of the total billets requiring that MOS at the grade to which the board is selecting. Once the selection message is released, a statistical report is released showing the demographics of those considered and those selected. This report illustrates how well the best qualified selection process responds to critical shortfalls in required skills. Table 1 shows how the 02XX intelligence occupational field fared over the last four fiscal year (FY) selection boards for lieutenant colonels and majors. Tables 2 and 3 show the results for those same boards for 02XX lieutenant colonels and 02XX majors compared to 0302 infantry, which remained above the minimum manning requirement during this period.⁹

Maj Board	Above Zone Selects (Percent) 02XX v 0302	In Zone Selects (Percent) 02XX v 0302	Board Average (Percent) Above Zone v In Zone	Number or Percent Short of 85 Percent Postboard

FY07	20 percent-0 percent	86.5 percent-90.7 percent	2.7 percent-86.5 percent	36 or 15 percent
FY06	100 percent-55.6 percent	85.1 percent-95.1 percent	3.2 percent-86.7 percent	39 or 17 percent
FY05	0 percent-0 percent	88.9 percent-88.8 percent	4.8 percent-85.2 percent	50 or 21 percent
FY04	0 percent-66.7 percent	97.4 percent-100 percent	3 percent-87 percent	55 or 22 percent
Table 3. Maj 02XX versus 0302 selections FY04-07.

The true indicator of the health of any occupational field, and thereby the effectiveness of the personnel management system, is not found in a comparison of selection percentage for that field to a board average or to any other occupational field. Instead the best measure of effectiveness is the degree to which the promotion system selects the people with the specific qualifications required to eradicate skill deficits. Table 4 integrates Table 1 with the right-hand columns of Tables 2 and 3 to illustrate the inadequate progress made toward eradicating the skills deficit despite years of precepting the 02XX field.

Board	Number or Percent of Maj 02XX Short of 85 Percent Precept	Number or Percent of Maj 02XX Short of 85 Percent Postboard	Number or Percent of LtCol 02XX Short of 85 Percent Precept	Number or Percent of LtCol 02XX Short of 85 Percent Postboard

FY07	69 or 29 percent	36 or 15 percent	57 or 50 percent	37 or 32 percent
FY06	81 or 35 percent	39 or 17 percent	48 or 45 percent	38 or 35 percent
FY05	82 or 35 percent	50 or 21 percent	49 or 46 percent	33 or 31 percent
FY04	92 or 37 percent	55 or 22 percent	38 or 35 percent	28 or 26 percent
Table 4. Major or lieutenant colonel 02XX precepted and after-board deficits FY04-07.

Determining fully qualified is relatively simple. Compare performance evaluations to what the MOS manual says the holder of that MOS should be able to do. Determining best qualified when so many candidates are fully qualified is much harder. Every board has different voting members with their own opinions on the best way to determine best qualified. Judging from the boards’ selections and discussions with mentors on the subject of promotions, boards give greater weight to performance evaluations written and reviewed by Marines. Therefore performance in command, in Operating Forces PMOS billets, and in non-Operating Forces PMOS billets have precedence. Since board members are those officers selected by past boards using similar criteria, boards select candidates who mirror the boards’ own career paths. This both creates a de facto career path and perpetuates an MOS imbalance.

The Way Ahead
We promote staff noncommissioned officers, warrant officers, and limited duty officers by best qualified in an MOS. That population is four times that of the lieutenant colonel and major populations and double that of the captain through lieutenant colonel population. The proposed revision would direct unrestricted officer boards to promote the best qualified candidates (and members may interpret best qualified according to their own judgment) within an occupational field to alleviate shortfalls. The precept would become a directive rather than a consideration. The boards’ desired and required end state would be no occupational field short of its minimum requirements. If there are insufficient fully qualified candidates “in zone,” then move above or below. No quotas may be moved from one occupational field to another until all fields are at their minimum manning requirements. All other statutory requirements and policies would remain in effect to ensure equal opportunity.

Excepting promotions, the needs of the Marine Corps are the deciding factors in all aspects of unrestricted officer personnel management. Class standing at The Basic School or in the aviation pipeline determines the order an officer picks an MOS from the quotas available. Those quotas are derived from the needs of the Marine Corps. Any individual billet is ultimately filled by a monitor meeting the Corps’ need for that MOS, at that time, in that billet. The needs of the Corps by skill should also take precedence in promotions.

Our doctrinal force planning concept is sound. Our inefficient personnel management—indicated by sustained deficiencies in an occupational field critical to the successful implementation of our warfighting philosophy—needs to change. No legislation—only policy—bars this change.

Notes

1. FY07 Lieutenant Colonel Selection Board Supplemental Guidance, p. 6, appended as Enclosure (1) to the FY07 Lieutenant Colonel Selection Board Precept. This supplemental guidance is common to all precepts for majors and lieutenant colonels from FY04 to FY07. Available via the Manpower Management Promotions Branch Promotion Boards site at http://www.manpower.usmc.mil.

2. MCDP 1, Warfighting, Headquarters Marine Corps, Washington, DC, 1997, p. 71

3. Ibid., p. 73.

4. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. by S.B. Griffith, Chapter V, “Sun Tzu on War,” Oxford University Press, New York, 1982.

5. MCDP 1, p. 80.

6. Sun Tzu, p. 102.

7. MCDP 1, pp. 53–54.

8. Ibid., p. 64.

9. Precepts and statistics; see note 1.

>Maj Griffin is the Director, Commanders’ Program, Professional Development Division, Marine Corps University. This article was his Chase Prize Essay Contest entry.