A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

A MODEL ORGANIZATION ■ 185
However, no one, no matter how senior, and not even the Chief of Staff
of the service involved, can get a particular favorite officer promoted. In
fact, if he tries, this is considered “undue influence” and can get everyone
involved, including himself, in serious trouble. I remember the Commander
of Strategic Air Command, a four-star general, bemoaning the fact
that he knew some particular captain personally, and though he felt that
this individual should be promoted to major, there was absolutely nothing
he could do to get this officer promoted.
The promotion board reviews the records of every one eligible and considers
them for promotion. They may do this in a committee of threes,
<strong>with</strong> there being three committees or a total of nine on the board. Each
committee scores each candidate’s performance and record, say, on a 1–7
basis, <strong>with</strong> 7 being the highest score. The board compares scores on each
candidate. If the score of a candidate by one committee differs by more
than two points from another committee, that candidate is discussed by
the entire board until consensus is reached and a score is developed on
which all three committees agree. From my experience this difference of
more than two points occurs rarely and on only a very small percentage of
those candidates reviewed.
The board then ranks all candidates according to their numerical scores
and further ranks them <strong>with</strong>in the point scores achieved. Once this is
done, the final decision mostly depends on the number of promotions that
can be made.
Officer selections might be screened further, especially at the general
officer level, which in accordance <strong>with</strong> the law, must be confirmed by the
U.S. Senate. And by the way, the Senate is not a rubber stamp and has
blocked promotions for various reasons, as has the Secretary of Defense.
For example, the Senate refused to confirm the promotion of a naval officer
from commander to captain because he was seen at a “strip show” performed
during the Tailgate scandal in Las Vegas some years ago. The
Secretary of Defense refused to promote an Air Force brigadier general to
major general who he deemed to have failed to have taken sufficient
actions to protect U.S. personnel when terrorists blew up the Khobar
Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996.
Of course, the system is not perfect, and mistakes are sometimes made,
both in promotion and non-promotion, but you can see that everything
possible is done to try and ensure fairness, and it is easy to see why
<strong>Drucker</strong> liked it.