Leadership: Rumbles from Below

Posted By Grim

We had a Roundtable call with Army Colonel Bruce J. Reider on the subject of the Army's new Muti-Source Assessment and Feedback system.  The concept here is, for the first time, to mandate that officers and NCOs -- as well as Department of the Army civilians, interestingly enough -- get formal feedback on how they do as leaders from their subordinates and peers as well as from their command.  While it won't be part of their performance evaluation, every single person in a leadership position will have to receive these comments.  COL Reider feels this has the opportunity to fundamentally improve Army culture by letting people know exactly where they are weakest in terms of the Army's leadership values.

Furthermore, everyone participating in the system will be submitting their comments on you anonymously.

One of the things that bloggers have a lot of experience with is the effect of granting anonymity to commenters.  The natural question, then, is:  Will you be editing out the profanity?

The Colonel says, "Actually, yes."  The concern for anonymity is such, however, that they will be doing so with an automated filter -- so that no human except the person being evaluated sees the comments.

Quite a bit more on this after the jump.

David Axe expressed some concern that the anonymous nature of the comment system could be damaging to the Army's goal of encouraging leaders to behave creatively.  Again, bloggers know something about this:  anonymous commenters who don't have to actually see (and deal with) your reaction to comments tend to lose their inhibitions against tearing you a new one.  We in the blogosphere have a term for this, as you all know -- "flaming" -- and Mr. Axe worried that this might actually suppress the creativity that is important in adapting to changing battlefields.

I think that's a good point.  COL Reider said that their test subjects had really only had praise for the system, which is probably true:  participants in the test were a small pool by comparison to "the whole Army," and as such had less confidence that anonymity was real for them.  I will be absolutely shocked if the Army doesn't find, when the system goes out into the wild, that they are getting flame bombs thrown -- particularly at superiors, but also those who just don't fit in as well. 

We all know that soldiers gripe constantly about each other, among other things.  One of the things that happens in a unit is that the soldiers come, through these complaints, to an understanding about what each person's weaknesses are -- and then that person is subtly moved to a position where those weaknesses are least dangerous for the unit as a whole.  We've all seen that happen.

What this system does differently is that it lets the people in on what's being said behind their backs.  The Army believes that this will fundamentally improve leadership qualities -- because you can see how the team feels you're doing badly (and also, how you're doing well), you can concentrate on firming up your weak areas. 

That may, in fact, be what happens.  If so, it will be a fundamental improvement.

However, David Axe is not wrong to suggest that it runs the risk of suppressing creative thinkers -- because what defines creative thinkers is that they push against the standard understanding.  That is the kind of thing that may come to be viewed as a flaw in those social behind-the-back discussions; the value of their thinking may take a while to become obvious.  To the degree that officers and NCOs of this type are suppressed, the Army will not benefit.

I asked after the assertion that this was a "scientific" system, and I want to take a moment to thank COL Reider and his team for responding to my question at length, and then to followup questions as well.  You can read the information paper they sent me here.  (A colorful, but useful explanation of why I was asking can be read here, thanks to a clever fellow who blogs under the handle "Geek with a .45").

Durling my training in experimental methodology and statistical analysis for the social sciences, our professor spent the first year entirely training us in discerning "science from voodoo". As far as human behavior goes, science, he asserted, looked like well constructed double blind studies of single, relevant factors.

What has been done here is not double-blind studies of a single relevant factor.  Rather, it is consensus building about multiple factors.  Some of that is obvious -- "focus groups" for example -- but some of it is less so.  The only hard reference to a methodology is "Q-sort," which you can read about here.

Q, on the other hand, looks for correlations between subjects across a sample of variables. Q factor analysis reduces the many individual viewpoints of the subjects down to a few "factors," which represent shared ways of thinking.

Q sorts, in other words, are looking for consensus views -- shared ways of thinking, as the article puts it.

What that means is that this is not "hard" science -- that is, science where you can actually disprove a claim, and even the fundamental model, with evidence that can be repeated as often as necessary.  It is not "soft" science, of the type the Geek was talking about, where you are testing the influence of a single relevant factor, with controls to ensure that no other factors are involved. 

It is, however, empirical.  There is nothing wrong with that, as there are some questions that science isn't structured to investigate.  Very many areas of human life simply aren't scientific questions.  I don't meant to suggest this is something the Army hasn't been careful about. 

I also don't mean to suggest that the Colonel was anything less than honest in his appraisal of it as science -- I merely wish to disagree that this is, in fact, science.  I assume his honesty and honor as an officer of the United States.

With that understood, there's another point about the use of consensus methodologies, which is that it underlines David Axe's original concern.  So I wrote back to ask about that:

Would you ask the good doctor if the use of Q-sort methodology to develop the questions increases the probability of the problem David Axe asked after -- social crushing of innovation -- given that Q-sort methods function around consensus?  It seems to me that's likely to lead to a question pool that reinforces consensus understandings of 'the right way to do it,' rather than one that points to innovation (as the COL suggested was his goal).  If you build questions along those lines, you'll more likely get answers of the type that Axe was worrying about.

Of course, since I don't know what the question pool really is, that may not be right -- it's possible there were efforts to mitigate against that problem that are not clear in the answer given.

The Colonel wrote back, rather patiently:

MSAF is an innovative leader development practice in that it provides a method for obtaining feedback from multiple sources, not just the individual's rater and/or supervisor.    

The items or questions are not so much about the right way to do something  as the right thing to do.  That is what the leader competencies in doctrine establish - what are the right leadership behaviors.  Having experts judge what good leadership behaviors are was not only an important step but a necessary one. The Q-sort was done with individuals who are expert in leadership theories and research.  The leader competency model was similarly built through a deliberate analytic effort.  The method of development also focused on identifying the most important behaviors and behaviors that can differentiate among individuals.  Do we have the instruments as good as they can be? Probably not, but we have done more to develop the instruments for MSAF at its outset than I would guess the typical professional firm does when they consult with businesses to build a customized 360 degree assessment prorgram.  The Army MSAF program will continually review the results of the instruments and refine them as necessary; a special staff position has been established to do this.

Once again, I want to thank the Colonel and his staff for the time they've given me, to help me (and, hopefully, you) understand all this.  I'd like to reiterate that my disagreements are meant to be respectful ones.

They should also not be viewed as an attack on the MSAF system.  I agree with the Colonel that what is needed at this stage is more experience -- continual review and improvement, as he puts it.  That is the mark of a successful empirical approach.  What we hope to do here at BlackFive is only to add some concepts -- and something of our own experience with 'anonymous review.'  So long as the potential dangers are recognized and accounted for, the system could very well evolve into something tremendously useful.

I likewise agree that giving subordinates more of a voice is something the Army could really use.  Most of the officers I've dealt with have been good officers, whose concern for their enlisted was carefully balanced with their duty to carry out the missions assigned to them.  There are some who have treated their enlisted without the slightest consideration, however; and now, at least, they'll have to face up to some comments about that.

Even with the profanity edited out, that has the potential to be a very good thing.  There are also some perils.  I trust the Army will indeed watch carefully how the system plays out, and will be interested to hear what their further experience with it brings.

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Comments

[Laughing Wolf]

An interesting project (and good questions!). It will indeed be interesting to see how it plays out.

LW

[Tim Oren]

A similar practice is fairly common on the civilian side, where's called 360 (degree) performance review. A Google will turn up a lot of information; unfortunately the wikipedia article reads like an advert.

I've been in a couple of organizations where this was used, as review, reviewee and next level supervisor. I felt it worked fairly well at getting a more complete picture of the individual involved. This was in R&D organizations where creativity in execution or even task definition was at a premium, and span of control was seldom above eight. YMMV.

Based on that experience, I'd say that anonymity is a bit over-rated in Grim's post. Unless you're really out of touch as a leader, you can usually take a good guess at the origin of any really 'out there' comments, or at least narrow down the candidates. And the troops can figure that out, so there's more of a stabilizing effect that with a truly anonymous Internet world.

The somewhat hidden gotcha is that the results from below will reflect a combination of the leader's capabilities and the amount of stress being put on the organization at the time. A good next level supervisor will factor that in, having help apply any stresses, but you're vulnerable to his/her skills. Which is nothing new.

[Chuck Ziegenfuss (TCOverride)]

Leadership is NOT a popularity contest. The toughest leaders are seldom liked by their men, until after the fact, when the men realize how much they learned, or how much more squared away, or how good life was before you were replaced.

So a 360 review would have the following utility for me: If I receive glowing reviews from people under my charge, I'd know I wasn't challenging them enough, or pushing them hard enough.

If I receive reviews saying how much I suck, or am a pain in the buttocks, etc. I'd either gauge that as just right, or determine that if they had enough energy to do performance appraisals in their free time, I wasn't working them hard enough.

I just don't see how subordinate performance reviews can really help a leader. A manager, sue. there's reams they could glean from such reviews. But not a leader who may have to make life and death decisions. The last thing I want is a leader who is worried about winning a popularity contest.

I posit this:

Remember high school? an you name the teachers who forced you to work hard, achieve more, and do better? odds are, you learned from them, but didn't think too highly of them while you were in school.

Now, can you name the teachers you had who were easygoing, easy to pass, not much work? Can you name one thing you learned from them?

Subordinates can review/assess all they want. Until they fill my shoes, how are they qualified to measure success?

[Grim]

Chuck:

I may be different from some, but I always liked the ones who challenged me. I mean, I admired and respected that, and I recognized that I was learning and improving, so I both liked them and liked what they were doing.

Your point is one that I think a lot of officers will have, and it's well taken on board as far as it goes. On the other hand, an NCO understands quite a bit about leadership; and even if he's never been a captain, he's seen captains come and go. He knows which ones were good, and which ones weren't -- which ones left the organization stronger, and which ones broke it.

So if he says to you -- anonymously or otherwise -- "You work everybody hard and they hate your guts," that's fine. But if he says, "You're a [censored] who doesn't give a [censored] about your troops, and never lifted a [censored] finger any of them, but you found a way to extend your own leave and tie a TDY to the back of it, just at the time when a whole extra load of work that was really your [censored] job was coming due," that's probably something an officer ought to hear.

[Fenris]

a special staff position has been established to do this.

This alone tells me that the whole thing is probably ganked up, 'cuz that's what the Army needs, is yet another staff position.

[defendusa]

Well, I tend to agree that a bittching soldier might be learning more than one who sucks up. I have been privileged to serve under some great people. Of course, there are always bad leaders. My pet peeve would be those that do not lead by example.
Now, the point about subordinates and how it can help- I think it's important. Most people can take the constructive criticisms and make the best of it. I was flying on a plane, happened to be sitting next to an ETS'ing soldier. He did two tours, both in Iraq. Apparently he had bad leadership or wasn't helped to understanding that some of the missions, however redundant, still accomplished something for the Iraqi's they were helping to train. He was getting out and this was his reason- because he didn't like the way people in his unit got promoted and his missions sucked. I asked him what he thought was unfair and there were no coherent answers, other than it was very apparent that he felt short-changed. He was defintiely a whiner/ complainer type. One would think that his NCOIC would catch wind of the attitude,lack of knowledge or cohesiveness because "alot of the guys in 2/325 were getting out" because they said the leadership sucked. This is where commnents would help evaluate what is missing or needs to be taken care of. Have a bittch session and try and hear what people say. We used to do it on a regular basis back in the day with the CO. Maybe he was an exception, but it certainly maintained morale and cohesiveness in my experience. "Sometimes, ya gotta step in their shoes, sir." Best line I ever got from an E7 who eventually went to the dark side...Every little bit helps if you are gonna lead troops, and don't be so full of yourself that you can't take a step down every now and then...

[douglas]

Ideally, these comments would not only go from direct subordinate to direct supervisor, but also to the next level above. A review of those directly under you by feedback from those two steps down the ladder.

THAT would be useful information.

[ParatroopRN]

I was a PFC/Spec 4/ Sergeant in the 2nd Bn/325 ABN INF Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division back in the 1980's. Our BEST Platoon Leader was a 2nd LT who came to us from OCS after reaching E-7 promotable in the Ranger Regiment. It didn't matter if we were in garrison, in Panama, at Fort McCoy, in Uwharrie National Forest, area J, or stumbling around in a foreign country drunk off our a$$, he drove us to meet and then exceed all goals set for us. He got dirty with us in the pit during PT, told the IG to go to he77 when TA-50 was serviceable and functional but not "pretty enough" for the garrison crowd, and suffered with us when we suffered.

He used the, "come to Jesus meetings," to honestly evaluate our performance AND his performance. All areas were open to discussion, and what happened in those meetings stayed in those meetings. The Company commander and XO were never allowed in these meetings, and the one time the XO "insisted on attending," NOTHING WAS SAID.

Outside the "CTJ" meetings, the chain of command was rigidly followed, and we moaned and bi###ed when, "at rest." But we were the best when we were PUSHED AND RESPECTED. Not babied, not managed, but shaped and led.

2 cents worth from an older paratrooper.