talent: implications for a u.s. army officer corps strategy

8/6/2019 Talent: Implications for a U.S. Army Officer Corps Strategy

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TALENT:IMPLICATIONS FOR A U.S. ARMY OFFICER

CORPS STRATEGY

Casey WardynskiDavid S. Lyle

Michael J. Colarusso

November 2009

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This monograph is the second in a series of six that analyzethe development of an ofcer corps strategy. The rst monographwas:

Towards A U.S. Army Ofcer Corps Strategy for Success: A ProposedHuman Capital Model Focused Upon Talent, by Colonel CaseyWardynski, Major David S. Lyle, and Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.)Michael J. Colarusso, April 2009.

ISBN 1-58487-412-0


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FOREWORD

In Towards a U.S. Army Ofcer Corps Strategy forSuccess: A Proposed Human Capital Model Focused uponTalent, Colonel Casey Wardynski, Major David Lyle,and Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Michael J. Colarussomade their case for the importance of accessing,developing, retaining, and employing talented leaders.In this current monograph, they go deeper and explorethe differences between competent and talented leadersas well as discussing what talents the U.S. Army shouldseek in its ofcers. More importantly, they examinethe consequences of failing to create an ofcer talentmanagement system.

As the authors point out, the Army is competingwith the private sector for the best talent Americahas to offer. It is therefore prudent for Army leaders

to consider the principles set forth in this second in aseries of six monographs analyzing the developmentof an ofcer corps strategy.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.DirectorStrategic Studies Institute


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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

CASEY WARDYNSKI is Director of the Ofce ofEconomic and Manpower Analysis and an AssociateProfessor of Economics at the United States MilitaryAcademy. In addition to creating the conceptsfor the Americas Army game and the Armysprecommissioning retention incentives, he haspublished in the area of military compensation policyand manpower. Colonel Wardynski holds a B.S. fromWest Point, a masters degree in Public Policy fromHarvard, and a Ph.D. in Policy Analysis from the RandGraduate School.

DAVID S. LYLE is an Assistant Professor of Economicsand Deputy Director of the Ofce of Economic andManpower Analysis at West Point, NY. He has

publications in the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Labor Economics, the Review of Economicsand Statistics, the American Economic Journal: AppliedEconomics, and the Economics of Education Review.Major Lyle holds a B.S. from West Point and a Ph.D.in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology.

MICHAEL J. COLARUSSO is a research analyst in theOfce of Economic and Manpower Analysis at WestPoint, New York. He is a retired U.S. Army lieutenantcolonel and has served in a variety of military positions,to include an Assistant Professorship of History atWest Point. Mr. Colarusso holds a B.A. in History fromSaint Johns University and a M.A. in History from the

Pennsylvania State University.


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SUMMARY

For years, the U.S. Army has given competencypride of place in its ofcer development doctrine. Inpopular usage, competent means having requisite oradequate ability, and in a labor market context, it isdened as an enduring combination of characteristicsthat causes an appropriate level of individualperformance.1

Recent operational experience, however, clearlydemonstrates the need for something more thanadequate or appropriate individual performance byleaders. In an era of persistent conict, Army ofcersmust embrace new cultures, serve as ambassadors anddiplomats, sow the seeds of economic developmentand democracy, and in general rapidly conceptualizesolutions to complex and unanticipated problems.

These demands require the Army to access, retain,develop, and employ talented ofcers, not competentones. This distinction is more than a mere parsing ofwords. In our view, talent is the intersection of threedimensionsskills, knowledge, and behaviorsthatcreate an optimal level of individual performance,provided the individual is employed within his orher talent set. We believe that all people have talentwhich can be identied and liberated, and that theycan dramatically and continuously extend their talentadvantage if properly incentivized, developed, andemployed.

To get optimal performance from its ofcers,however, the Army must rst acknowledge thateach has a unique distribution of skills, knowledge,

and behaviors. It must also acknowledge the uniquedistribution of talent requirements across the force.Doing so will allow the Army to thoughtfully manage


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the nexus of individual talent supply and organiza-tional talent demand, leaving behind industrial-

era assignment practices that treat leaders likeinterchangeable parts and creating a true talentmanagement system that puts the right ofcer in theright place at the right time.

Of course, talent management is a means to an end,not an end in itself. An ofcer strategy focused upontalent has but one purpose: to help the Army achieveits overall objectives. It does this by mitigating thegreatest risks: the cost of a mismatch between numbersof ofcers and requirements; and the cost of losingtalented ofcers to the civilian labor market.

Whether it likes it or not, the Army is competingwith the private sector for the best talent America hasto offer. The domestic labor market is dynamic, and inthe last 25 years it has increasingly demanded employ-

ees who can create information, provide service, or addknowledge. The Army cannot insulate itself from thesemarket forces. It must change the relationship betweenits ofcers and their strength managers from one thatis relatively closed, information-starved, slow-moving,and inefcient, to one that is increasingly open, richin information, faster moving, and thus far moreefcient.

We believe that thoughtful, evolutionary changescan produce revolutionary results. The Army cantransform its ofcer management practices from analmost feudal employer-employee relationship toa talent-based model through a series of relativelylow-risk efforts. Following our previous monographand this the second one, we shall continue with four

follow-on monographs for a total of six devoted to thesubject of talent in the Army Ofcer Corps. In the latterfour, we will examine in much greater detail each of


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the four components of our ofcer labor model, viz.,accessing, developing, employing, and retaining

talent. We will recommend specic, low-risk, low-cost,strategically important changes. Though evolutionaryin nature, they can collectively engender revolutionaryeffects and move the Army toward a viable ofcertalent management strategy. Only then will it be ableto access, develop, employ, and retain the ofcer talentit needs to manage risk in the face of uncertain futurerequirements.

ENDNOTE

1. Lyle Spencer in Lance A. Berger and Dorothy A. Berger,eds., The Talent Management Handbook, New York: McGraw-Hill,2004, p. 65. Our denition is derived from Spencers.


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TALENT:IMPLICATIONS FOR A U.S. ARMY OFFICER

CORPS STRATEGY

No two persons are born exactly alike. . . . All things will be

produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater

ease, when each man works . . . in accordance with his natural

gifts.

Plato, The Republic, 360 BC

INTRODUCTION

The U.S. Army has long cherished and consistentlytrumpeted the need for competent ofcers. One needsto look no further than the description in Field Manual(FM) 6-22, Army Leadership: Competent, Condent, and

Agile. The foreword begins with competent, theintroduction repeats it, and by the end of the manual,the word has been used another 63 times.1

Of course, few people would tune into a televisionprogram called Americas Got Competency. Call it

Americas Got Talent, however, and you have themakings of a hit show. A common dictionary denitionof talent is a special natural ability or capacity for

achievement. Competent, on the other hand, is denedas merely procient or having requisite or adequateability. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is littlewonder that talent has greater popular appeal.

Americans generally will not pay to see a com-petent comedian. They do not want their favoritesports franchises to sign merely procient outeldersor quarterbacks. They are uncomfortable leavingtheir retirement portfolios in the hands of adequate


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investment brokers, and they avoid auto mechanicswith mere requisite abilities. Americans want, and in

fact demand, talent.This demand becomes even more strident in

professions where anything less means life or death.Take, for example, the case of U.S. Air Flight 1549,which ditched in the Hudson River on January 15,2009, shortly after take-off from LaGuardia Airport.This successful water landing by Captain ChesneySullenberger saved the lives of all 155 passengersand crew and was quickly dubbed the miracle on theHudson. Sullenberger was lionized in the press andcelebrated in Washington.

Why all the fuss? It was because CaptainSullenbergers performance wildly exceeded anyreasonable expectation, and he did something a merelycompetent pilot simply could not do. In a matter of

seconds, he correctly diagnosed the ramicationsof a double bird strike, calculated the distance tonearby airports, factored in altitude and populationconcentrations, and applied the fundamentals ofphysics to safely land that plane. Training alone couldnot have assured such an outcome. In a highly complex,fast-moving, and uncertain situation, the talentedSullenberger was able to gure it out.

The nature of their profession demands thatofcers be able to gure things out just as well asCaptain Sullenberger did. The Army has alwayssought to develop technically and tactically competentleaders, and ofcer evaluation reports routinely assessthese competencies. Recent operational experience,however, clearly demonstrates the need for something

more. Ofcers must embrace new cultures, serve asambassadors and diplomats, sow the seeds of economicdevelopment and democracy, and in general rapidly


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conceptualize solutions to complex and unanticipatedproblems.

This is why Americas sons and daughters mustbe led by talented ofcers. When teachers lack talent,students do not learn; when car salesmen lack talent,their showrooms stay full; but when Army ofcerslack talent, Soldiers die unnecessarily and the nationssecurity is imperiled.

CONTEXTHUMAN CAPITAL THEORY

A thorough understanding of talent and itsimplications for a U.S. Army Ofcer Corps strategyis grounded within the broader context of humancapital theory. In his seminal book on the subject,Nobel Laureate Gary Becker argues that employeesgain human capital (the ability to produce value in the

workplace) through education, training, experience,and medical care, thus increasing their productivity.2This increase, however, presupposes two conditionsthat are not always met: rst, that the employees are

good ones focused upon being as productive as possible;and second, that the employees are working within acompetency area that aligns with their human capital.

Michael Spence, another Nobel Laureate, createda useful job-market signaling model. It concludesthat the rst condition often goes unmet due to bad(unproductive) employees, highlighting the needto continuously screen, vet, and cull for talent.3 Thisis particularly important in limited lateral entryorganizations such as the U.S. Army. The secondcondition, the misalignment of human capital with the

demands of the work place, also requires signicanteffort from large organizations with varied require-ments like the U.S. Army. We believe that market forces


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can dramatically improve that alignment and evenconvert many bad employees into good ones. And by

good, we dont mean competent. We mean talented.In most human capital literature, the concept of

talent is handled obliquely at best, with contendingnotions regarding which employees are actually inthe talent pool. One recurring argument makes talentsynonymous with an organizations highest worthindividuals. In their 2003 work, The Talent ManagementHandbook, for example, Lance and Dorothy Bergercharacterize these individuals as Superkeepers, just3 to 5 percent (by their estimation) of the credentialed,professional employee pool. Superkeepers merit highdegrees of investment and training so that they can risein their organizations to eventual executive leadership.In essence, this talent management concept is focusedlargely upon succession planning for a select few,

rather than upon maximizing the performance of allemployees. This approach is fairly common throughoutthe literature. Less common, but also present in the literature, isthe viewpoint that we advance here: that all peoplehave talent which should be identied and liberated,and that they can dramatically and continuouslyextend their talent advantage if properly incentivized,developed, and employed. Underpinning this vieware works such as Howard Gardners Frames of Mind:The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983), or ThomasArmstrongs 7 Kinds of Smart: Identifying and DevelopingYour Multiple Intelligences (1999).4

Armstrong, for example, denes intelligence asthe ability to respond successfully to new situations

and the capacity to learn from past experiences.5 Heargues that employees can increase their market valueand productivity if they identify and develop their


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talents within each of several native intelligence setsrst articulated by Gardner: linguistic; spatial; musical;

bodily-kinesthetic; logical-mathematical; interpersonal; andintrapersonal.

Our denition of talent is informed by theseelements, but takes a more comprehensive approach.We contribute to the existing literature on talent byintroducing a new structure that captures the variousdimensions of talent, seeing it as a distribution, andplacing it in the context of a strategic labor model.

Our Denition of Talent.

We dene talent as the intersection of threedimensionsskills, knowledge, and behaviorsthatcreate an optimal level of individual performance,provided the individual is employed within their talent

set. Figure 1 illustrates how the many views of talentboil down to these three key dimensions.

Figure 1: The Dimensions of Talent


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Moreover, we espouse the critical concept that eachpersons talent set represents a unique distribution

of skills, knowledge, and behaviors, and that eachorganization in turn has a unique distribution ofindividuals. For an illustration of this concept,consider Figure 2, whose inset shows one individualwith relative breadth of skills, depth of knowledge,and both depth and breadth of behaviors. Next, lookat the graph for the entire organization, which hasa distribution of individuals from A to Z. Person A,with a higher curve, has greater depth of talent, whilePerson Z, with a wider curve, has greater breadth oftalent. By seeking a distribution of ofcer talent withvarying breadth and depth, the Army essentially buysan insurance policy against the uncertainty of futurerequirements.

Furthermore, carefully managing the intersectionof these distributions can dramatically enhance organi-zational efciency and success. Integrating this talent

Figure 2: Distributions of Talent


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concept throughout strategic-level efforts to access,retain, develop, and employ people can create incred-

ible synergy. It is as if the team suddenly gets smarter,faster, and more cost-effective, and productivityzooms.

Although our views have been formulated withinthe context of the Armys ofcer labor model, we believeour distillation of talent into three equally importantdimensions, distributed across both individuals andorganizations, is widely applicable. Understandinghow organizations can integrate these concepts intotheir own human capital strategies requires a deeperexamination of the three dimensions of talent. Skill.In our previous work on the subject, we de-scribe skill as ranging from broadly conceptual orintuitive to deeply technical. We place a premiumupon aptitudes for rapid learning and adaptation,

reason, perception, and discernment, plus the abilityto conceive solutions to unanticipated challenges.6We also argue, however, that people manifest theseaptitudes most powerfully in the elds to which theirintelligences draw them.

For example, people with a high degree oflogical-mathematical intelligence may be drawn tocivil engineering, where they will be able to thinkconceptually, learn rapidly, and respond effectivelyto unanticipated challenges, just as those with highlydeveloped linguistic intelligence might perform in theeld of journalism. Ask two such people to exchangeprofessions, however, and their productivity mayplunge as the journalist wrestles with structural tensionand the civil engineer struggles with split innitives.

As Bruce Tulgan writes in Winning the Talent Wars(2001), the unique talent of every employee highlightsthe need for creating as many career paths as you


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have people.7 No two people possess an identicaltalent distribution, and as a result employees cannot

simply be treated like interchangeable pegs to slotanywhere. Each persons talent set is unique andmultidimensional, more like a jigsaw puzzle piecethan a peg. While it takes longer to t the puzzle pieceinto its proper position than it does to stick the pegin a hole, the up-front effort is worth it. Puzzle piecesare interlocking, creating powerful bonds within acohesive whole (see Figure 3).

The size and scope of the U.S. Army workforcemake it a complex puzzle indeed, and to accomplish itsmission, it needs a broad distribution of talent. Breadthaffords the Army the exibility it needs to adapt to anenvironment with ever-changing requirements. Breadthis only one dimension of talent, however. Organiza-tions require depth as well. Take, for example, Mariano

Rivera of the New York Yankees, one of baseballspreeminent relief pitchers, and Albert Pujols of the St.Louis Cardinals, power hitter extraordinaire. Each has

Figure 3: Work-Force Talent Matching


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a unique distribution of talent that must be alignedagainst his teams requirements. Other than being

consummate professionals, they bring fundamentallydifferent talents to bearRivera could no more leadthe league in home runs than Pujols could in saves.Each of these athletes possesses highly specialized anddeveloped talents that are central to the success of theirorganizations.

While each professional baseball club clearly needsspecialization, each also needs broadly talented utilityplayers. Imagine the results if a team elded ninespecialists like Rivera and Pujols, or nine utility players.Such an approach would land them squarely in lastplace. To make a run at the pennant, a team needs arich distribution of talent, both deep and broad, and themanagement strategy to t the puzzle pieces togethercorrectly.

This talent distribution concept is somewhatforeign to the Armys ofcer management culture.Standardized training and promotion gates aredesigned largely to create ofcers of one type. Giventhe uncertain requirements of the future, however,the Army needs a rich distribution of broad and deeptalent.

Knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge rep-resents the further development of a persons severalintelligences, and is thus an extension of their talentadvantage. While some knowledge is, of course,acquired via training and life experience, educationprovides the most important source of knowledgebecause it also bolsters mental agility and conceptualthinking. It allows people to extract MORE knowledge

from their life experiences. Education teaches peoplehow to think, not what to think. They more rapidlyassess unanticipated situations and formulate courses


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of action leading to desired outcomes. They gaindecisionmaking courage stemming from increased

condence in their own cognitive abilities. In otherwords, one of the best defenses against uncertain futurerequirements is an educated labor force.

Consider, for example, an emergency in which aperson requires immediate medical assistance, yetonly a veterinarian is available. The vet is likely to belogical-mathematical, with a talent advantage extendedby years of education. His medical talents might not beideal for the situation, but his ability to conceptualizemedical problems and extrapolate solutions to un-anticipated circumstances could save the day. Seemfar-fetched? Tell that to Ian Bennett, an English farmerrecently saved by his veterinarian, Dr. Ed Bulman, aftersuffering a heart attack while the two of them tendedto a ock of alpacas on a remote farm.8

Popular culture abounds with stories showing theimpact of education and knowledge acquisition upona persons talent set. A useful example is the AdamSandler movie, Happy Gilmore. In the lm, Happy isdrawn toward several jobs requiring bodily-kinestheticintelligence because he possesses it in good measure.After striking out as a janitor, gas station attendant,plumber, and construction worker, his innate in-telligence eventually draws him toward hockey. Hefails to make the team, however, and ends up movingin with his grandmother while contemplating his nextcareer step.

An accidental encounter with two lazy moving menhelps Happy to nally discover one of his abilitiesheis a talented golfer and can drive a ball farther and truer

than anyone on the PGA tour. Despite this, Happydoes not become an above average performer until


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organization seeks behaviors that t its culture, it is alsoseeking teamwork behavior, marked by the respectful

sharing of goals and knowledge with others.Jody Hoffer Gittell, a professor at Brandeis

University, denes teamwork behavior as relationalcompetencethe ability to relate effectively withothers.10 By others, she is referring not only to fellowemployees, but to an organizations partners andcustomers. In the U.S. Armys case, others obviouslyinclude fellow Soldiers and the American citizenry, aswell as host nation populations and joint, interagency,intergovernmental, and multinational partners.

Gittell describes teamwork behavior as criticalto relational coordination, a mutually reinforcingprocess of interaction between communication andrelationships carried out for the purpose of taskintegration.11 This process is particularly critical in

an age of increasingly complex, highly interdependenttasks. In other words, the right behaviors lead to timely,accurate, and problem-solving communication which,when coupled with the right skills and knowledge,creates higher-performing organizations.

Gittell developed and tested her relationalcoordination theories in the context of health care,long-term assisted-living care, and the airline industry.The test case perhaps most useful to our discussionis her study of Southwest Airlines. This company ofover 31,000 employees enjoys industry-leading successin workforce quality (measured via protabilityand customer satisfaction) and workforce retention(measured via annual turnover rates). It is a talent-focused organization looking for highly skilled and

knowledgeable employees, yet it routinely screensout highly credentialed applicants lacking relationalcompetence. It does this not simply because It wants


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a happy workforce, but because it wants an efcientand productive one. Southwest believes it is difcult to

make up for hiring mistakes in the training processteam players are needed.12

As teamwork has always been a core componentof the Armys institutional culture (I will never leavea fallen comrade), it is critical to access, develop,employ, and retain ofcers with behavior that ts theArmy. By t, we emphatically do not mean an Armyof clones who behave identically and with robotlikeefciency. Shared values and teamwork behaviorstill leave plenty of room for individual styles andpersonalities.

Aligning the right mix of skills, knowledge, andbehavior against each work requirement can shift theproduction possibility frontier of an entire organizationup and out. Figure 4 shows how the Army can increase

its production of repower and humanitarian assistancewith no increase in costs. Conversely, by aligning talentwith requirements, the Army can continue to maintainhumanitarian assistance and repower along the oldfrontier, but with cost savings.14

Figure 4: Talent Management Can Leadto Increased Production


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We can summarize our discussion of talent thus faras follows:

1. Talent is the intersection of skills, knowledge,and behaviors, and everyone has it.

2. Each individual has a unique and evolvingdistribution of talent (his/her talent set)some deepand some broad.

3. Optimal production occurs when organizationsthoughtfully manage depth and breadth of talent overtime.

MANAGING TALENT

Assuming that an organization is doing a good jobof bringing in talented people, those making signicantcontributions are most likely working in the rightpositions on the right tasks. Those who are producing

less are probably in the wrong place, doing the wrongthings. Instead of disposing of them, the organizationmay benet by nding a better t for them. Gettingthe right person in the right place at the right time isnot an end in itself, however. Talent management hasbut one purpose: to help an organization achieve itsoverall objectives.15

Leading management scholars argue that thefundamental challenge facing employers in todayseconomy is the misalignment of talent supply anddemand and the risks associated with it. Peter Cappelli,a professor at the Wharton School, describes theproblem in terms of cost:

The greatest risks in talent management are, rst, the

cost of a mismatch in employees and skills (not enoughto meet . . . demand or too much, leading to layoffs)and, second, the cost of losing your talent developmentinvestments through the failure to retain employees.


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These risks stand in the way of the ability of yourorganization to meet its goals.16

Over the last 2 decades, the Armys Ofcer Corpshas certainly confronted these two risks, the formerduring the draw-down period of the 1990s and thelatter from the late-1990s to today.17 The Army still reliesupon talent pipelines to develop organization men andwomen who will remain with the Ofcer Corps for theirentire careers (see Figure 5). This practice is increasingly

difcult in todays labor market, however. As the lastdecade has clearly shown, talent pipelines designedto take ofcers from company grade to general ofcerlevel will inevitably leak talent, sometimes severely.

Of these risks (overproduction, underproduction,

and leakage), Cappelli identies talent overproductionas most dangerous. In his view, overproduction llsan organizations bench with employees who become

Figure 5: Army Ofcer Human Capital Model


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increasingly disgruntled and seek opportunities toget in the game elsewhere, creating a negative work

environment that depresses productivity everywhere. Inother words, overproduction can create talent leakagethat becomes contagious within the workforce. TheArmy may have experienced this phenomenon withthe recent over-accession of lieutenants, as shown inFigure 6. As lieutenants receive less time in key anddevelopmental jobs such as platoon leader, they aremore apt to nd employment outside of the Armywhere their talent sets will be valued.

Cappelli feels that underproduction, also a genuine

risk, is a lesser evil, as companies can always turn tofree agent talent to ll labor gaps (in short, poachingtalent from other organizations, or buying talent).He concludes that in the current labor market,

organizations can mitigate risk in two ways: rst, bycombining internal talent development and just-in-time talent buying to ll unexpected gaps; and, second,by becoming far better at forecasting talent demand.

Figure 6: Authorized Strength and Inventoryfor All Ofcers


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Of course, the Armys competitive category ofcerscannot be purchased from outside because the very

nature of the profession makes lateral entry to itscore competencies infeasible.18 General Electric andInternational Business Machines are not producing rieplatoon leaders or cavalry troop commanders that theArmy can hire into its ranks. Faced with this reality, theArmy turned to internal talent poaching, pulling moreand more senior noncommissioned ofcers (NCOs) intothe Ofcer Corps via Ofcer Candidate School (OCS),with a potentially deleterious effect upon both its NCOCorps and its Warrant Ofcer Corps.19 The Army hasrecognized this problem and is actively taking steps toend its over-reliance upon internal talent poaching.

The quandary remains, howeverif the Armyoverproduces ofcer talent, it risks engendering job dissatisfaction that accelerates talent ight. If it

underproduces, it is again short of talent with nowhereto turn. Therefore, the Army must attack its talentmanagement risks with a thoughtful and effectivemitigation strategy that keeps its talent supply anddemand in careful balance at all times. Beyond relyingon education and broad talent sets to mitigate risk, theArmy must also make signicant changes in ofcermanagement policy, practice, systems, and culture.

REVOLUTIONIZING THE ARMY OFFICERCORPS

We believe that thoughtful, evolutionary changescan produce revolutionary results. The Army cantransform its ofcer management practices from those

of an almost feudal employer-employee relationshipto a talent-based model through a series of relativelylow-risk efforts.


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First, the Army needs to create an internal ofcertalent labor market. In our follow-on papers in this

series, we will provide specic recommendations onhow the Army can meet this need. Second, the Armyshuman resource culture must change. It shouldstop managing ofcers as interchangeable parts,acknowledging that each possesses unique talentssuiting them to a particular position at a particulartime. Embracing this concept requires the Army tomove away from its current industrial-era rotationalemployment concepts. It must develop exiblemanagement practices that capitalize upon the uniqueskills, knowledge, and behaviors of each ofcer ratherthan expecting each ofcer to adapt to the constraintsof an inexible system.

These changes cannot take place until the Armyaccurately determines which skills, knowledge, and

behaviors currently reside within its ofcer corps. To dothis, new information technology systems are neededto capture very granular insights into each ofcerstalent set, which in turn will reveal the distribution ofofcer talent across the Army. Current personnel datasystems may be able to tell us that an ofcer attendedNotre Dame and studied anthropology, but they do notreveal that while in college, the ofcer also participatedin a semester abroad program in Saudi Arabia andwrote a thesis on tribal ancestries in Middle Easterncountries. Furthermore, current Army informationsystems contain scant information on an ofcers skills,knowledge, and behaviors.

Cataloging available talent is not enough, however.The Army must also know what its current and future

talent requirements are. While requirements forecastsare never going to be foolproof, the Army has to tryto make them far better than what others have done,


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that is, to forecast talent demand dynamically andaccurately, and to keep supply in sync with that

demand. As Cappelli has pointed out, dynamicforecasts, which are continuously updated, have asmaller margin of error than long-range forecasts.Information technology solutions, accompanied bythe appropriate changes in operational policy, can domuch to create both accurate forecasting and a robustinternal market. When forecasts are wrong, as theyinevitably will be, previous investments in educationwill help the organization adapt quickly to ll gaps.

Once the Army nally knows the talent it possesses,it must continuously assess it. An effective mix of skills,knowledge, and behaviors is not static in individualsnor in organizations. The theoretic construct ofscreening, vetting, and culling for talent, introducedby us in the rst monograph,20 plays a central role in

this continuous process. It provides the Army with amechanism by which it can continually prune its talentto meet evolving requirements. Such a mechanism forcontinuous assessment is particularly necessary in theArmys Ofcer Corps for at least three reasons.

First, many of the skills, knowledge, and behaviorsthat make lieutenants most productive will not besufcient to make them talented colonels or generalslater in their career. For example, colonels and generals(the Armys strategic talent segment) require a greaterbreadth of competencies than eld grade (core talentsegment) or company grade (requisite talent segment)ofcers. In one of the follow-on monographs, we shalldiscuss ways to develop talent across the continuum ofa career.

Second, the global operating environment is dy-namic, continuously demanding new competenciesfrom the Armys Ofcer Corps at all levels of employ-ment. An equally dynamic domestic labor market


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compounds the challenge. The last 25 years havewitnessed a dramatic increase in the U.S. demand

for employees who can create information, provideservice, or add knowledge. The Army cannot insulateitself from these changes. It must convert the relation-ship between its ofcers and their strength managersfrom a relatively closed, information-starved, slow-moving, and inefcient relationship to one that isincreasingly open, information rich, faster moving,and thus far more efcient.21

Third, the way that each generational cohort learnsand performs, as well as what it values and how itbehaves, is as distinct from the one preceding as it isfrom the one following. As ofcers rise to leadershipwithin the Armys strategic talent segment of colonelsand generals, they will successfully manage thetalents of their junior ofcers and Soldiers only if

they understand, and make adjustment for, thesegenerational differences.22

If the Army rst understands the dynamic nature ofthe changing market for ofcer talent, it can thought-fully decide which developmental programs best llthe gap between the talent it has and that which itrequires. In so doing, the Army can begin to employits talent with an eye towards productivity and futuredevelopment of every individuals talent set.

CONCLUSION

We believe that talent is something possessed byeveryone. It is the intersection of three dimensionsskills, knowledge, and behaviorsthat can optimize

the performance of every individual,provided they areemployed within their talent sets. Each organizationhas a unique distribution of individuals who in turn


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possess a unique distribution of skills, knowledge, andbehaviors (their personal talent set). Achieving optimal

organizational performance entails managing talent sothat the organization attracts the right talent, developsit, retains it, and employs it most efciently.

In a series of four follow-on monographs, we willexamine each component of our ofcer labor model inmuch greater detail: accessing, developing, employing,and retaining talent. We will recommend specic,low-risk, low-cost, evolutionary practices that cancollectively engender revolutionary change. Suchchange is necessary to move the Army from industrial-era personnel practices to information-age talentmanagement practices.

Whether it likes it or not, the Army is competingwith the private sector for the best talent America hasto offer. Remaining competitive in this labor market

requires an Ofcer Corps strategy that can access,develop, employ, and retain the talent the Army needsto confront future uncertain requirements.

ENDNOTES

1. Field Manual (FM) 6-22,Army Leadership: Competent, Condentand Agile, Washington, DC: Department of the Army, October 12,

2006.

2. Gary Becker, Human Capital, Third Ed., Chicago, IL:University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. 40-41.

3. Michael Spence, Signaling in Retrospect and the InformationalStructure of Markets, Nobel Prize lecture, December 8, 2001, pp.410-413, available from nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2001/spence-lecture.pdf. Spence posits that because

educational credentials send a positive signal to employers(generally viewed as correlating to higher ability), bad employeeswill occasionally seek and gain educational credentials. While the


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credential itself may do little or nothing to increase an employeesproductivity, the opportunity costs of obtaining the credential aresignicantly lower for good employees, and therefore educationretains its usefulness as a positive signal of employee potentialmoregood employees will have it.

4. For a comprehensive overview of Gardners work, see hisMultiple Intelligences after Twenty Years, a paper presentedat the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL,April 21, 2003. See also Thomas Armstrong, 7 Kinds of Smart:Identifying and Developing Your Multiple Intelligences, New York:Penguin Group, 1999.

5. Armstrong, p. 8.

6. In Winning the Talent Wars, New York, W. W. Norton & Co.,2001, p. 37, Bruce Tulgan argues that a wealth of these conceptualor intuitive powers creates the brains killer app[lication] judgment. He refers to judgment as the new gold standardfor talent, because there is no technology other than the humanbrain which can exercise it.

7. Ibid., p. 12.

8. Vet Saves Farmers Life After Collapse, available fromwww.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/3689578.Vet_saves_farmer___s_life_after_collapse/, July 23, 2009.

9. Edward L. Gubman, The Talent Solution, New York:McGraw-Hill, 1998, p. 63.

10. Jody Hoffer Gittell, The Southwest Airlines Way, New York:McGraw-Hill, 2003, p. 5.

11. Jody Hoffer Gittell, Relational Coordination: Guidelinesfor Theory, Measurement and Analysis, June 22, 2009, p.3, available from www.jodyhoffergittell.info/content/download/Relational_Coordination.doc, July 27, 2009.

12. Gittell, The Southwest Airlines Way, p. 99.


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13. A production possibility frontier depicts the feasibleoutputs given inputs, thus showing the trade-off between varyingoutputs given resource constraints. Expanding the frontier occurswhen inputs are made more efcient, or when there is an increasein overall inputs.

14. As described by Becker, there is another dimension thatcan virtually zero out the talent advantage of an employeepoor health or physical tness. The efcacy of the Armys healthcare system is beyond the scope of this monograph.

15. Peter Cappelli, Talent on Demand, Boston, MA: HarvardBusiness Press, 2008, p. 5.

16. Ibid.

17. For a detailed statistical analysis of these problems, seethe previous monograph by Casey Wardynski, David S. Lyle, andMichael J. Colarusso, Toward a U.S. Army Ofcer Corps Strategy forSuccess, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army WarCollege, April 2009, available from www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/download.cfm?q=912 .

18. Competitive Category ofcers in the U.S. Army arethose comprising the majority of the Ofcer Corps in specialtiesorganized around conducting or supporting direct combatoperations. These include branches such as Infantry, Armor,Field Artillery, Engineers, Aviation, Military Police, MilitaryIntelligence, and many others whose core competencies aregained via a high proportion of military education and training.Such training and education are normally not available outsideof the Armed Forces. Ofcers in this category all enter the Armyas second lieutenants and have reasonably consistent careertrajectories across their branches. Non-Competitive Categoryofcers, a relatively small proportion of the Ofcer Corps, are inhighly specialized or technical elds that do permit lateral entryinto the Army and whose professional competencies are oftenobtained outside of the Armed Forces. These include doctors,lawyers, and chaplains. Their promotion criteria and timing differsignicantly from that of Competitive Category ofcers, hencethe reference to them as Non-Competitive Category ofcers.


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19. Wardynski, Lyle, and Colarusso, pp. 7-10.

20. Ibid.

21. Tulgan, pp. 23-25.

22. For a thoughtful discussion of generational differences, seeNeil Howe and William Strauss, The Lifecourse Method, availablefrom www.lifecourse.com/mi/method.html. For an examination ofgenerational differences specic to the Armys Ofcer Corps, seeLeonard Wongs Generations Apart: Xers and Boomers in the OfcerCorps, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army WarCollege, 2000, available from-- www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/download.cfm?q=281 .

talent: implications for a u.s. army officer corps strategy

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