hamiltongs said:
... At the same time, decisions we like to believe are subject to rigorous staff-thrashing are thrust on them with little notice in response to political imperatives and they have to make decisions as well as they can with what they have available to them: for the most part, preconceived notions.
Concur. Sadly, over the last few years both in uniform and in my present role, I see more and more of this going on: otherwise intelligent, capable and well meaning GOFOs making poor decisions, hasty ill-founded decisions, (or no decisions at all...) because very clearly they have no real idea what is going on in their HQs, no time to breathe, and nobody is really getting a grip on some HQ staffs that are, (IMHO), utter train-smashes. :trainwreck:
One of the things I find missing more and more is any kind of thoughtful analysis based on first principles such as "Why are we doing this?" Not as an excuse to stop doing something, or as a buzzword "tick in the box", but as a true philosophical gut check. The answers could be anything from:
-"Because it's the guts of what we do, so we'll preserve it no matter what"; or
-"Because it's an investment for a future that we can't predict, so we'll keep it alive"
-"Because we have no choice: it's mandated, but we're not going to let it eat the important stuff"; or
-"Because it's just the way we've always done it, for no pressingly good reason, and we're going to stop it right now"
Not all HQs, by any means, but when you can see this happening it is both frustrating and saddening. I'm not really sure that Unification, De-Unification or anything else of a structural nature will change this. Maybe it is inevitable in today's modern, huge HQs that the Comd is really the prisoner of the staff.
