I always find it amusing that the further away from action and
consequences I got, the more I was forced to give counsel to the fears
of others and provide them with a variety of alternatives to any given
decision they might feel compelled to make. As admirals and generals
become more and more remote from the actual consequences of any action
or inaction, their staffs were belabored to present them with a variety
of alternative 'Courses of Action' as the final slide in any decision
brief. We did not do this thing in ships in war zones, mobile units in
war zones, Middle East Force staff, Naval Forces Central Command staff,
Fifth Fleet staff but was it mandatory at Space and Naval Warfare
Systems Command and Naval Surface Forces Pacific and Navy Expeditionary
Combat Command? Oh my yes!
I
think I may best have been described as a Punk staff officer. No amount
of entreaty or unseemly begging and grovelling could compel me to
compose more than a single course of action for my presentations. "But,"
they'd agonize, "we must present 3 Courses of Action for the Admiral at
the brief." Well they might have to, but not me. Punk. The thing about
building a decision brief is that all of the facts are gathered in one
place. Each is presented as a bullet and discussed by the presenter.
When in possession of all the facts that the briefer has put into the
presentation there can really only be two possible courses of action
that make any sense. Execute the course presented as optimal or reject
the solution and demand something that is more seemly and pleasing to
the eye.
Why strain at gnats I would ask. The admiral
or general is perfectly capable of directing us to take action based on
his understanding of the facts and the situation and really doesn't need
to have 3 different wadis to wander down in the fullness of briefing
time. He can create his own Rift Valley in a microsecond. I used to
watch this in real-time and never saw a general or admiral at a loss for
words when standing a briefer on his head and telling him just how much
he didn't like the facts or the conclusions of the brief. Why give the
guy 2 more things to get upset about?
I regret to say
that I did give in when the Chief of Staff or some other great potentate
called me and insisted that when I prepare briefs I prepare them by the
Rules. So be it, I said, and could be relied upon to always present 3
COAs. Is it my fault if one of them was always:
- Invade Patagonia
4 comments:
- Invade Patagonia
Heh. And the reaction(s) was/were?
I started doing it while a Program Manager at SPAWAR briefing the Transition Executive Working Groups and Executive Steering Groups for Coastal Warfare. The commodores and type commanders usually got a laugh out of it. I put it in the brief I prepared to give to Admiral Nathman but we never got past the 4th slide (in an hour) so we didn't get to it. I would say it came out of one of my Integrated Process Teams.
It came in handy when I needed office space after I came back from Korea and found our office had moved. The new code didn't tolerate interlopers and kept tossing my stuff until I put a sign on the cube saying it belonged to the Dictator of Patagonia. Nobody ever touched it after that and I had that cube until we changed to OT4 a few months later.
Love this. I am heading out to the glorious world of staff duty in FDNF. I will have to remember your advice for COAs. . .
Best of luck out there in the FDNF. Fair winds and following seas.
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