We Don’t Reward Top Performers – And It’s Costing Us

I completely disagree with the claims that we do not adequately reward top performers, that we do not adequately distinguish studs from duds, and further add that the author overlooks the real problem: that we do reward duds. Admittedly, I throw out a lot of anecdotal evidence, but it is more for illustration purposes.

The problem is not that we do not adequately reward our top performers. We do.

– They are paid extremely well. Don’t think so? Separate and see how much you earn. I obtained 2 advanced degrees after ETS and I’ll be overjoyed if I can find a job that pays 75% of what I earned 4 years ago as an Army Officer.

– They are put into positions of either greater responsibility or opportunities for development to prepare them for greater responsibility. Is that slow? Sure. So what? Again, venture out into the civilian world and see how much responsibility you get. I’m currently searching for a job and have zero expectation that the level of responsibility I get in that job will be even remotely comparable to leading an Infantry Company in combat.

– Advancements in the private sector may come sooner, but that is in large part due to businesses being leaner organizations with less of a bench to draw from and less need/ability to maintain a large bench. The military does not have a bottom line and must be prepared to field a large bench of officers. Thus, the military dumps costs into continually developing a large number of leaders, in case we have a war where a bunch of them get whacked and need to be quickly replaced. The effect of that is to have a promotion and career advancement process that seems a bit slow.

The problem is not that we fail to differentiate between top and bottom performers. We do.

The author writes:

It would shock our private sector CEO to learn that, as a military leader, the best he could offer his top performer in this situation is a strongly written fitness report, and perhaps a decoration. In the long run this will give the rising star a marginal advantage over his average peer when they are both considered for promotions and increased responsibilities at the exact same time, years in the future.

That’s nice. Let the CEO be shocked. What makes a business model an ideal comparison for a military bureaucracy? The military is a service-based institution. If you can only motivate others or be motivated by higher pay or rapid promotion, then you are missing the point. It is SERVICE, not SELF. But, leaving that aside, the author downplays the degree to which top performers are distinguished from bottom performers, and the degree to which those distinguishing marks give one an advantage over the other.

– When my Bn/Bde commanders were concerned about the quality of leaders commanding line units, they put the dud in charge of HHC. Typically HHC was a 2nd command, a reward for good performance. Not in my Bde. Duds were given HHC as a first command so that they wouldn’t endanger troops’ lives.

– Command tenures were modified prior to OIF I to keep experienced leaders and good leaders in place (stop move). They were modified again in later OIF deployments for similar reasons – to give the duds command as the unit was going home or once it got there. Whose OER looked better? The dud who commanded successfully in garrison? Or the stud who commanded successfully from a remote patrol base? “Met all training requirements at gunnery” doesn’t have quite the same ring as “masterfully led his company through a year of counterinsurgency operations in an extremely violent AO.”

– Some officers get more coveted positions. All of my Bn and Bde commanders were, at one time, Generals’ aides. What a coincidence. Most of them went to SAMS. Prior to that, most were Scout Platoon Leaders or Support Platoon Leaders, and did most of their staff time in operations. On paper, those positions can be filled by duds of equal rank. But they usually get filled by the studs. Opportunities like serving in the Ranger Regiment also distinguish top performers, if your timeline matches up. And, on that note, woe is the Infantry Officer without a Ranger tab. It does not go on your OER, but those guys get different treatment.

The real problem: we reward our duds.
The author fails to address this. The problem is not inadequately rewarding studs. The problem is rewarding duds.

As noted above, timelines can be adjusted to accommodate the duds getting their turn. Any command is a reward. The least desirable staff jobs can be filled with duds. Any staff position is a reward (even though it doesn’t seem that way). If you are permitted to continue serving, that is a privilege. If you did not earn it, then it is an undeserved reward.

Duds cannot simply be let go without cause. There needs to be a leader who tries to develop the dud, rather than pass him along. There needs to be a leader who counsels and accurately evaluates the dud, rather than give him an OER full of faint praise. We are awful at that. That is one reason why we tinkered with center mass and above center mass, senior rater profiles, and similar gimmicks.

Commanders don’t like to tell poor performers, “You’re a dud. Sorry. Maybe you should find a different career.” That is the problem. An unwillingness to promote MAJ Takeaschmidt directly to Brigadier General is not the problem. An unwillingness to jettison CPT Cluster is the problem.

We do reward bottom performers. And that is what costs us.