“Show me your Troop to Task” —Organizational Dysfunction in One Phrase
“Show me your Troop to Task” is a ubiquitous phrase can be heard in almost any Army unit’s headquarters. For context, it is usually during a conversation wherein a subordinate unit states that they lack the resources, particularly personnel, to complete all the tasks assigned to them. There are two related ideas to explore when considering that this phrase is a red flag and often indicates something is amiss. First — Task Saturation as a leadership failure. Second — an inability to manage and process information effectively. One or both of those is implicit in the phrase and neither is the hallmark of an effective organization.
What is Task Saturation? Even if the phrase is new to you, you can likely intuit that it means all available resources have been consumed by tasks/missions/requirements — the organization has no ability to execute additional tasks. Critically, there is also no flexibility remaining in the organization — i.e. all the decision space has been consumed as well. What does this look like in real life? “Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession” chronicles an extreme example: a 2002 study discovered that the Army was dictating mandatory training that required 297 training days to complete with only 256 training days in a given year.
Task saturation usually stems from two things: an inability to decline tasks assigned and an unwillingness to discuss forthrightly those tasks the organization cannot or will not complete. When leaders don’t engage in honest conversations about risk and capabilities they undermine effective decision making, degrade the initiative of their subordinates and simultaneously push risk decisions to them. That may be common behavior, but it’s not good leadership. As a rule, risk decisions about which tasks will not be completed should be made at the same level the tasks originated. An organization that requires subordinates to choose their failures sua sponte is in a tough spot.**
Accepting that the culture of an organization and its internal dynamics might well lead inescapably to task saturation in the near term, the question becomes how to operate as effectively as possible in that environment. Simply put, staffs need to empower their Commanders/leaders to make the best possible decisions concerning risk and task selection at their level. To do that, the staff must create continual understanding of what exists within the realm of the possible. The troop to task inquiry is often indicative of a failure to manage information effectively to create that understanding, a sign that the staff is not up to snuff. That might be due to a lack of effective systems, personnel, poor individual performance, or a too low signal to noise ratio (information saturation) on the information it receives.
The mission of any staff is simply to collect information, synthesize that information into knowledge and then provide that knowledge meaningfully to decision makers. Understanding the assets you have available to your organization and how you are using them is critical to both planning and decision making. Asking for a troop to task run down betrays that the staff asking the question has lost the ability to do this independently of assistance from their subordinate elements. When it becomes necessary to ask a subordinate element to assist in the execution staff work, it’s time to assess what is causing the break down/inability.
A high functioning staff doesn’t ask for a Troop to Task tracker, it provides the working copy it has already completed for correction and updates based on the information it has already received. That is because when a staff is effectively processing both the information it receives as well as the orders (tasks) it issues, the staff knows the composition of its own assets AND what they have already been directed them to do. The effective staff identifies task saturation before it happens because it has visibility, through its knowledge management, of what forces are available at any given time and what those forces are doing.
In summary, “show me your troop to task” is often a signal that an organization is struggling to effectively foster honest dialog about capabilities, manage risk at echelon, and process information effectively to inform decisions. It also undermines trust and can lead to burn out as subordinates scramble to complete as many tasks as possible in an environment where its impossible to do everything that is asked of them. If you’re a leader, the question is: what are you going to do about it?
**A personal vignette. In 2016, then Chief of Staff of the Army (the Army’s highest ranking officer) GEN Milley was speaking to an audience of roughly 1200 US Army, sister service and foreign field grade officers (the sort that serve in headquarters and staffs throughout the military) at the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. To these leaders he stated “I need you to disobey orders.” A bold statement, to be sure. However, GEN Milley recognized the implications of Task Saturation — he knew these officers would have to make risk decisions that would properly be his because it was impossible for them to complete all of the things their units would be ordered to do. He was honest about the consequences — these mid-level officers would be putting their careers on the line in an organization that would not tolerate well intentioned failure. GEN Milley didn’t see that as an especially good way to do business, but a necessity.