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Flag Officers
- Thread starter Charles Edward
- Start date
I'll give you a break, because you don't have any experience working on a major staff and don't (yet) understand the role that an SES plays. There's no doubt that institutional bloat is a problem in government and DoD, but you can't throw the baby out with the bath water.
I can explain it to you over beers in the club tomorrow if you're in town.
I'll give you a break, because you don't have any experience working on a major staff and don't (yet) understand the role that an SES plays. There's no doubt that institutional bloat is a problem in government and DoD, but you can't throw the baby out with the bath water.
I can explain it to you over beers in the club tomorrow if you're in town.
I'm down, see PM
Yes . . .
As well as institutional inertia...
When a new GO/FO rolls into a division or project lead every 2-3 years, institutional inertia isn't enough. You don't get to be a Flag by being content to let the system run...they tend to be people with "show leadership, make changes" temperaments. The function of SES is to provide continuity and help offset the tyranny of turnover. 'We tried that five years ago, admiral, and here's what happened...' Just about every flag in the Pentagon has an SES counterpart - if there's a uniformed head, he has an SES deputy, or vice-versa. Outside DoD, they have the same function - they provide continuity when the political appointees leave with a change in administration or to go be a professor or think-tanker or corporate boarder.
It's easy to sneer at SES as Level One Bureaucrats, but the service was created for a reason and they do serve a definite function. That's not to say the structure of the service shouldn't be examined and revised occasionally, just like every big institution.
It's easy to sneer at SES as Level One Bureaucrats, but the service was created for a reason and they do serve a definite function. That's not to say the structure of the service shouldn't be examined and revised occasionally, just like every big institution.
I work in a relatively specialized office with an SES as the boss and a military deputy. The SES has well over a decade of experience in the field and is an expert in what we do while the military deputy, who is pretty sharp and very competent (and is a former AIO), couldn't even pronounce what we do correctly when he first showed up and will only be here for barely two years. Since our work includes stuff that impacts things 5-25 years down the road a senior person with deep knowledge of the subject is needed to help guide what we do and a GO/FO with little to no background and only here to punch his/her ticket would not be a good fit.
One man's institutional inertia is another man's attempt to stop churn.
Fair enough, perhaps I'm a bit disillusioned based on where I currently sit. Current experience: promote your best engineers to "management," and you lose twice.
AQ-AT-NAVCIV
Citizen Sailor, Gentleman Farmer
And they are needed to approve ALL travel during the next sequestration.
Actually, during the last sequester in 2013 when there was a minor shutdown, all the federal civilians (incl. SES) were gone from the office. In my PNT office, it was just the military personnel plus a few of us defense contractors whose contracts had been obligated in the previous FY.
We got a lot accomplished
But that staffing model is not sustainable for more than a couple months because military members PCS/rotate, and they don't possess all the various expertise needed in the organization.
Depends on the office and function, plenty of government civilians were at work if their billets were 'critical'.
Agreed. Thanks for the correction, sir. In my office, none were critical.