Headquarters Room, Southwick Park, Portsmouth, June 1944: A view of the interior of the busy Headquarters Room in Southwick Park, Portsmouth during preparations for the D-Day landings. There is a huge map of southern England, the English Channel and northern France mounted on the far wall, with various annotations being added by a man in naval uniform standing on a step ladder. Another man is busy doing the same thing on a map on the wall to the … Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/10043

While much has been written about the challenges of serving as a Field Grade (FG) officer at the Battalion and Brigade level, much less is available about the echelons at which you will spend most of the second half of your career. Put simply, there are more ways to fall short than there are to succeed, yet no one tells you the rules when you arrive. Consider a large Headquarters (HQ) to be at the Division level or above and a “boss” to be any of the large numbers of senior leaders, principal staff officers, advisors, and influencers in the HQ, whether in your chain of command or not. While not comprehensive, here are six big ideas.

Justice is Silent and Merciless

Large HQs are characterized by the vast scope of their responsibilities and the pace of their battle rhythm. The only acclimation time you get will be the time it takes to learn the battle rhythm, language and equities of that particular organization. It is simply assumed that you are fit, and will remain so, that you know how to write and brief, and that you work well with peers and seniors. There is neither time for, nor interest in, teaching you how to do things everyone thinks you already know how to do. Rather, you will simply be sidelined. No one will take you aside and tell you that you did a bad job, you just won’t be given another task. Write poorly, nothing you write will go to a boss. Severely blow a brief, you may never brief in public again.

A Grievous Sin:  Wasting the Boss’ Time  

Only Commanders can make decisions or accept the risk, so Staffs exist to increase the Commanders understanding to get the best possible visualization, description, and direction. Staff Officers have a constant dilemma. You know more than the boss about the topic at hand, or you wouldn’t be the one briefing, so it is your job to split the difference between saying too much or too little. It’s a precarious balance that changes with every boss and every briefing. Staffs have a bad habit of needlessly reciting the entire history of a problem. While context is critical, the boss likely knows a lot of this already – once classified by a former boss as “discussing history with the historian”. Conversely, the boss is coming from something important and going to something important so “purpose” and “agenda” slides, which seem extraneous to staff officers who live the topic, are necessary and useful to bosses with limited time. Those slides must also describe the desired outcome for the meeting. Something like “Sir, items (a) and (b) are for the decision, and item (c) is for information and guidance ahead of an anticipated decision on date X”. Brevity and precision are critical skills. Define the bottom line or “so what” for your boss and convey it clearly as a BLUF or a “bumper sticker”. If you can’t concisely define the “so what,” maybe you don’t understand the issue as well as you think you do, or as well as you need to. Beyond the “so what” you need to have a “therefore” which denotes the way ahead and sets the stage for future briefings and decisions. Finally, the decision-maker will want to review your work long before you’re ready to present it. Work to find the right balance between producing quality staff work and getting it to the boss early enough to iterate often.

Drive Decisions: Model, Process, Product, and Communication

It sounds dire, but every time you undertake a new task, there are a series of actions that lead to a good resolution. If any single action falls short, the whole thing is probably a wash. For me, the process looks like this: Model, Process, Product, and Communication. First, develop a model. Have we tackled a similar problem before? What can we use to inform our process? Is there a relevant document that guides or drives this thing I’ve been told to do? Next, apply a process. Whether it’s MDMP, the Staff Comment Matrix process, or a General Officer Steering Committee, there is a relevant process that must be navigated. Whatever process you decide on, it almost certainly results in a product. The product must be clear and concise. It must stand alone and speak for itself. Real decisions are made in small groups of senior leaders, and your products must tell the story for you, as you likely won’t be in the room. Finally, prior to the decision, you must clearly communicate the product to the boss. You are not only answering the original question, but you are also equipping the boss to explain it to other bosses. When you submit a product, you are staking your professional reputation on it and you have to get all four right to succeed once.

Listen to Write

You will frequently write documents FOR your boss, but as you gain experience and trust, you will likely be called to write AS your boss. The construction of “ghost notes” or “tear-line” emails will be a routine part of your day. You have to listen to not only what your boss says, but how they say it. Understanding the larger narrative of the organization and your specific leader is essential and any specific artifacts they would normally include will be expected.

Early Consensus = Success

Bosses don’t disagree in public, but they have very clear opinions and desires about tasks from higher HQs. The best way to satisfy both the boss and HQ is by writing the task yourself. This is a duty of the larger network of staff officers that exist within (and between) HQs and is a large part of the expectation that you work well with others. Tasks are very seldom a surprise between large HQs, and there are always conversations prior to the publication of OPORD/EXORDs, etc. Similarly, higher HQ staff officers will almost always welcome input from lower HQ counterparts.  If you call me and say, “We would like to be told to do this” and it accomplishes my boss’s intent, we all win.

You Still Exist to Lead

An old boss once told me “We can’t all be Commanders, but we can all be leaders”. Your ability to model and live the behavior you expect in others will be essential. Whether a young or old FG, your professional reputation is always in play, and you are either adding to it or taking away from it. Later in your career, you will be hired, or not, for positions based on little more than your reputation. Your reputation extends to the way you treat your family as well. No one is going to tell you to prioritize your family, so don’t expect it.  Do not choose to stay at work to achieve the perception you are working.  Manage your time wisely and ensure you take care of your family while working in this complex environment.  Prioritize personal and family events the same way you would work tasks and you should be okay.

Service in a large HQ is an opportunity to make an impact on an entire organization, and potentially, the entire Army. It’s demanding and, if you do it right, thankless, but rewarding in a way I didn’t expect or experience until the latter half of my career.

COL David Meyer is currently the G35, Future Operations, at the Futures and Concepts Center at Ft Eustis VA. He served as a G3 FuOps Officer in 4 ID in Baghdad in 07-08 and as a NATO Staff Officer in HQ Resolute Support in Afghanistan in 16-17. He is a two time graduate of SAMS (07, 18) and a former SAMS Seminar Leader (19, 20).