Staff Work and You: Thoughts on being a Staff Officer
Commands at the battalion and above level require a robust staff. What this means to an average officer is that they will spend a large portion of their career on a staff to support various command functions. Actually, if you do the math, you’ll quickly find that you spend the majority of your time in the Army on staff. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it is simply a fact of what the career progression of an Army Officer looks like. While this may not fit into the mindset of some who were raised on ‘Once an Eagle,’ the Army, as it stands, simply requires more of its officers to do staff work than to command at any given time. I must first caveat the entirety of this piece by stating that I am by no means the perfect staff officer (or perfect officer in general by any means!). But I have spent time on every echelon of staff from battalion to division, and have enterprise staff experience at the Headquarters Department of the Army (HQDA) and Joint Staff levels. There are some principles that stood out to me as common to staff work at all of those levels, at least in my admittedly limited experience, and I hope to share these with the reader throughout this piece.
Aside from the usual competence, tactical proficiency, and other items commonly cited as important for officers, I have found that staff work usually requires three things for any officer looking to achieve success. Staff work foremost requires presence. Second, staff work requires availability. Finally, and perhaps unfortunately, staff work requires time. I’ll try to delve into these three items in this piece. There are some shared aspects for these items, but I think taken together they provide the best way, or at least a way, to approach staff work.
Presence
Presence, physical or otherwise, is something that is required of all staff officers. While I won’t dwell too long on physical fitness, this is the Army, and it is expected that staff officers maintain their physical fitness. Presence, however, extends further than simple fitness. Staff officers must be physically present at their scheduled meetings, extend their presence to the point of friction, and hold regular planning conferences to facilitate the success of their tasks. While every planning conference is not ultimately important, regularly holding these types of events is crucial for the success of those who want positive outcomes from their planning efforts. Staff officers keep the army running on time, but they also must be able to inject themselves physically to where they must be. For instance, if you’re responsible for planning rail movement operations, expect to be at the rail marshaling yard before, during, and after execution. Presence also extends to relationships. Relationships within and among staff officers are crucial to achieve success. Nothing happens individually on staff, and this is a challenge for most officers, including myself, to recognize. We are often told, at least while we are commanding, that we are responsible for all that the unit does or fails to do. While this is also true of staff officers, your peers also shoulder that burden for you too, and you must work with them to achieve your goals.
Lastly, with respect to presence, officers and staff non-commissioned officers are leaders regardless of the circumstance. Being on staff does not absolve you of being a leader. Believe it or not, you are not only being looked at in this regard at all times, you are being evaluated. Does the staff officer come to group physical readiness training every morning? Is the staff officer conducting preventative maintenance on his or her vehicle? Are you sharing the same burden of command post setup and tear down, or at least your fair share? An internal look at these questions should answer if you are fulfilling the role of leader as a staff officer.
Being on staff does not absolve you of being a leader.
The simplest example of this type of presence I have alluded to already. As both a battalion assistant supply officer and also brigade planner, I had a vehicle I was tangentially responsible for. I was not signed for it, nor was I necessarily going to be driving or riding in it at all times, yet I took the time to conduct maintenance on it weekly. While this certainly had an impact on the readiness of the vehicle itself, my presence and availability to conduct maintenance on the vehicle displayed where my priorities lay.
Further, on staff, I have made it a personal mission to be present at all physical fitness training, or at least physical fitness training formations, to make it clear that I am supporting my command’s efforts to keep soldiers fit. Whether one agrees with the concept of group physical fitness training or not, if we expect our subordinates to do something, the least we can do is show up and be present while they do what we require them to.
Availability
Something closely related to presence is availability. If a staff officer does not make him or herself available at reasonable times they will quickly be written off no matter how hard they may work otherwise. Availability gives credence to the outcome of your training events. While this can be related directly to presence in that while you are present you are also available, I’d like to distinguish availability from presence in that you must be available also when you are not physically present.
Does this mean that officers should be answering emails at midnight every night? No. Does this mean that you work banking hours simply because you are not in a key development assignment? Also no. There is certainly a balance between staff and command track timings, but if you do not make yourself readily available to both your leadership and any subordinate staff, you are likely failing. Further, and perhaps most importantly, you must make yourself available to your peers on staff. No staff member can accomplish an action on their own, it almost always takes a team to accomplish real work.
Does this mean that officers should be answering emails at midnight every night? No. Does this mean that you work banking hours simply because you are not in a key development assignment? Also no.
Another personal example of this type of availability is something I regularly experienced as an action officer on the Army Staff. While serving at the HQDA level, you are required to put down a phone number on every product you submit to your higher echelons. While not advisable in all circumstances, I always put down my personal cell phone number rather than an office number. Out of the year I served on the Army Staff, I may have been contacted once or twice based on this, yet each time the caller seemed shocked that they actually got to a person on the other end, and I was able to answer their question simply. After all, these were products that I produced, and rather than have someone try to answer on my behalf, this simple technique reduced the time required from my leadership and my peers to run me down for the answer.
Time
This can also be summed up in the final aspect I consider to be important with respect to staff work. Time, be it time spent planning, time spent being present, or time spent being available, is the ultimate tool of the staff officer. Unfortunately time is also very limited. Touch points are few with senior leaders and being able to receive guidance and turn this guidance into tangible work quickly is the hallmark of what I would consider to be a good staff officer. This is very challenging. I certainly I’m not able to do this at all times, if at all. Despite this negativity, the time you dedicate to your desired outcomes on staff should hopefully show through with the products and training you produce.
As Thought to Action relies on where we have failed, a somewhat poignant example of this is one memorable experience I had writing an index card for the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While I was typically responsible for generating this same card daily, in this particular instance, I did not leave myself time to double check my work. Later, after the Vice Chairman had used my index card, his aide returned it to me with his handwriting on it. I had not added correctly on a table I had made for the index card, and the Vice Chairman had corrected the error. I have kept this card, and I look at it to know that when it comes time for important products to be reviewed, I always must make the time to do so.
Parting Thoughts
One of my biggest challenges is balancing this triad of staff work with the time that I have available to execute my tasks. No doubt, I would like to be physically present at all events that I directly plan, but knowing where to put yourself, and knowing what your limits are temporally are critical judgment calls that staff officers must make. This is a delicate balance, but one that can be achieved if some forethought is put into planning. No doubt I enjoy my time leading in the Army, but I have also learned that staff work in and of itself is rewarding, and that if I attempt to adhere to what I have laid out in this piece, it becomes even moreso.
Alexander Boroff is an active duty Army Major serving as a G35 Plans Officer at the 3rd Infantry Division.
Opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not represent those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.