Monday, August 26, 2013

What happened to 'completed staff work'?


Early in my military service I was introduced to the concept of 'completed staff work'.  Wikipedia has a useful definition of the term.

Completed Staff Work is a principle of management which states that subordinates are responsible for submitting written recommendations to superiors in such a manner that the superior need do nothing further in the process than review the submitted document and indicate approval or disapproval.

In Completed Staff Work, the subordinate is responsible for identifying the problem or issue requiring decision by some higher authority. In written form such as a memorandum, the subordinate documents the research done, the facts gathered, and analysis made of alternative courses of action. The memo concludes with a specific recommendation for action by the superior.

The most useful summary I've found of the concept and what's involved is a military memo issued during the Second World War.  It's short, concise and to the point.  I recommend reading the whole thing - it's worth it.

The way it was taught to me in the South African military was that any memo to one's superior officer(s) should be no more than one page in length (plus supporting documentation if necessary, but only if absolutely necessary).  That one page should include:

  • a statement of the problem;
  • possibly (but not necessarily) a list of potential solutions;
  • a recommended solution;  and -
  • the reason(s) for recommending it.

If one couldn't fit all of that onto a single page, one went back and edited for conciseness until one could.  If the material was simply too much to fit into one page, one broke the problem down into sub-problems, each of which could be expressed on one page, complete with recommended solution(s).

The one-page limit was critical.  More than once I was accused of 'sloppy thinking' when handing in more verbose submissions, which were usually tossed back at me unread.  It was an invaluable education in how to be accurate, concise and to the point, cutting out all extraneous concepts and verbiage and sticking closely to the issue at hand.  To this day, when preparing important analyses prior to making a decision, I try to do the same thing.  Sure, I'll have long in-depth analyses of issues when needed, but those don't belong in the decision-making stage.  They're background material, to be consulted if and when the need arises.  The core structure is always problem - possible solutions - recommendation - why it's recommended, and always concise.

I fear the concept of 'completed staff work' is honored far more in the breach than in the observance today.  Many people can't write to save their lives, and resort to Powerpoint as an alternative to the typewriter or word processor.  (There's a reason they speak of 'Death by Powerpoint'.)  Others waffle around all over the place without ever getting to the point, or make recommendations without specifying why they propose the selected alternative, so that one has no idea why it's superior to other possibilities.  All too often they leave out supporting documentation, or include it selectively, so that it's impossible to gain an overall, unbiased impression of the field so as to make an informed decision.

Am I missing something?  Is 'completed staff work' no longer taught or used today?  And if not, how do we bring it back?

Peter

10 comments:

CarlS said...

I would beg to differ. "Death By Powerpoint", in MY lexicon, refers to the number of troops killed because of some poorly thought-out but successfully sold plan created by those seeking promotion. Or Perfumed Princes (http://www.hackworth.com/9aug99.html); though that may be a redundancy.

Glen said...

Ronald Reagan restored this system to the White House. Jimmy Carter had favored long documents, and required his staff to study speed reading.

Reagan was mocked by the press for his "one page mini-memos". The system became less fashionable at that point.

The massive "discovery" process in Iran-Contra investigation brought the traditional staffing process to an end.

There are (in the US)strict requirements for document retention by both business and government entities. The clear paper trail of proper completed staff work is considered to constitute an unacceptable legal risk.

If instead one has tens (or better, hundreds) of thousand pages of electronically prepared background documents followed by oral presentation and agreement one is at very little legal risk.


Currently in fashion is the preparation of large "Briefing Books" with options and conclusions presented orally. Perhaps an agreement and actions memo is dictated and signed at the end of the meeting. More often agreement and actions are agreed to orally.

This also discourages use of the Freedom of Information Act by individual scholars. A request for executive level documents on a subject will not return a single page memo. Instead, the requester is told that the documents in question number many thousands of pages, for which he will be required to pay reproduction cost.

As an example: The Hague Convention of 1899 (Which the US Did *NOT* sign) forbids the use of expanding bullets. A FOI query for documents related to "What ammunition was SEAL Team 6 using on the Osama Ben Laden Raid" returned a polite reply that reproduction cost for those documents would be more than $10,000.

We may see a day when clarity returns both in business and in government. I would not hold my breath waiting for that to happen.







Peter said...

@Glen: Thanks for the 'Perfumed Prince' article. Good stuff. It explains a lot I hadn't previously understood about Gen. Clark.

Anonymous said...

What happened to 'completed staff work'? IDK about the military, but it's alive and well in the business world. It got re-branded and re-buzzworded into 'Executive Summary'. The guidelines for creating an 'executive summary' may not be the exact same as 'completed staff work', but the founding purpose for both are the same and the end results are identical.

Peter said...

I'm not sure that an 'Executive Summary' is the same thing as 'completed staff work'. An ES is simply a summation of a mass of more detailed material included in the same document. Any executive taking a decision based solely upon the ES would probably be pilloried - if not fired outright - if anything went wrong, because he'd be expected to wade through all the supporting material before making his decision.

I may be wrong, however. My military and business experience were in another country and culture, and as such may not dovetail precisely with US praxis.

Anonymous said...

Best class I ever took while working at IBM.

PapaMAS said...

"Completed staff work" is still in existence in the USAF. Sometimes an officer needs to be, uh, shall we say, mentored, into the appropriate method for that HQ. Mentoring is usually more gentle these days then when I started out.

Anonymous said...

I recall reading somewhere a German Army General remarked about Powerpoint along this line.

"We would not have gotten out of Poland."

Retired Mustang said...

Let's look at not just writing, but communication in general. I frequently read and hear comments from supposedly gifted communicators that depend more upon catch phrases than they do upon thought. Why is this? There are a few reasons. First, people hear the phrases used by those further up the food chain and begin to think those are the hallmark of effective communication. Second, when strung together effectively and directed to a senior who is an equally bad communicator they allow the sender to "baffle with BS" rather than put in the effort to "dazzle with brilliance." Third, it's accepted!

AJ said...

never seen this before. Initial reaction - lazy superior demanding subrdinates do all the work. But the more I think about it, the better sense it makes. Except for not asking advice of the boss. It should't be a habit, but when -really- stuck, they are supposed to be the person who knows... Thanks for the link Peter.