Bleeding Talent: How the US Military Mismanages Great Leaders and Why It's Time for a Revolution

risk-averse bureaucracy?

In theory, the armed forces could reform one or more of the five core issues described earlier incrementally rather than adopting wholesale change.

Almost all of the operations of the G-1 and HRC are subject to laws and requirements passed by Congress, so their room for innovation and change is essentially outlawed. In other words, even if the central planners know that the central planning is a failure, they can’t change it.

just 3 percent of the US population has served as an officer in the military, nearly 8.4 percent of chief executives of Standard and Poor’s (S&P) 500 companies are veteran officers, according to a 2006 Korn-Ferry study.24

To this day, the largest example of an innovation with a military pedigree is not NASA or positioning satellites but America’s interstate highway system, which stretches nearly fifty thousand miles and touches every major American city. President Eisenhower promoted its development and construction after witnessing Germany’s autobahn network during

The overriding factor is that pay is not linked to performance. The most dynamic, hard-working lieutenant in the navy is paid exactly the same as the least inspiring, laziest lieutenant.

“On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days and other fields will bear the fruits of victory.”31

the AVF is not exactly all volunteers, or at least not all the time. A better name is probably the “first-day volunteer force,” because after men and women take their oath of office on the first day in uniform, the volunteerism ends.

Army Force Generation and which includes these steps: “recruit, organize, man, equip, train, sustain, mobilize, and deploy units on a cyclic basis.”34