Why Does the Pentagon Have So Many Meetings?

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New Pentagon staff are often amazed by the number of meetings they have to attend. It feels like they can't get anything done, but understanding the real purpose of those meetings can help you make the most of the time spent there.

#meetings #bureaucracy #militarylife

Note: The views expressed in this video are the presenter's and do not represent the policy or guidance of the Department of Defense or its subordinate elements.

[edmeyer]

I never served in the military but this is exactly the same at corporate headquarters in civilian businesses. There were several people who were professional meeting attendees. They rarely contributed anything meaningful, were in every meeting you attended, always had their head in their laptop and always had "a hard stop" for another meeting. If you needed something that was part of their actual job, they were always too busy and had long lead times. They were there just to make sure they or their department didn't get any additional tasks assigned or resources taken from them. Subsequently little was ever accomplished in the meeting and the outcome was usually another meeting at a later date. When I first started at this company it was maddening. After a while you just became institutionalized and attended them so the same thing didn't happen to you or your group.

[thecrustyoldcolonel]

This video is spot on. At The Pentagon, if you aren't present at meetings, then your equities in the issue are ignored. That leads to many unfortunate situations.
Also, this is the one place where General Officers will truly listen and include the input of Action Officers regardless of rank.

[wannabedal-adx]

This applies to the Acquisition side of things! Sometimes I have to go to meetings just to stay on top of the latest decisions that may or may not affect my work.

[EricDaMAJ]

I was never more popular to my subordinates than when I managed and ran meetings. I killed as many unnecessary meetings as I could. I cut off meandering monologues, repeated messaging, and other distractions that would extend a meeting beyond requirement and overall stopped them from going for more than an hour. It’s like I realized my subordinates had busy schedules of their own and work that needed to be done. As if I valued them somehow. Or at least understood most of my OER bullets were really theirs.

Trivia time: General Patton typically only attended one meeting a day. It was a morning briefing covering things that happened the night before and whatever MI thought was worth mentioning had. One hour only. Then he was off to the front.

[dleon]

Bet none is about the missing trillions of dollars.

[hieronimusrexx]

It does really depend on what you do and where you're working. If you're in the communications or press areans or part of the congressional coordination offices, there truly is alot of day to day impacts that affect your time in the building and meetings have a bit more purpose to goals. Operations and the National Military Command Center aligned functions are always more or less kinetic in purposed activity. If you are though on the majority of top proponent offices or policy or programs then you're actually kind of being tested for your potential to endure and every meeting is a new challenge you must be a part to get your team's interests and make it another day in Survivor: Pentagon. Your prize for participating in meetings is that you keep getting funded and get to play in Pentagon Purgatory forever!

[kroberts]

The mission task forces in the pentagon were always less chaotic than the morass of culture wars in the standing offices. By the second tour you realize that half the population of pentagon jobs is just some form of legal oversight.

[RoyatAvalonFarms]

Great points! I wish I had this channel about 8 or 9 years ago when I was struggling with this myself. As a long time Ops and Training officer, some meetings were useful, but too many just got in the way and stifled action. I killed as many meetings as I could manage to do so.

Unfortunately we had several civilians in my command who were junior to me but whom had their own long term fiefdom going on. While I was the depty chief of the main operation and had significant say in how we would operate, some of these "juniors" were undermining me and our primary mission all for their own personal gain.

If I had my say, these type of civilians would all lose their jobs and we would only have a handful about GS 7 and below to answer phones and other menial tasks. No decision makers among them.

[justinfreeman]

Non-Pentagon HQ (say, a 4 star level) ate much the same with loads of meetings.

Most of mine were over video call, so it was much easier to multi-task. Though, some of the folks who outranked me in my office didn't like me giving less than my undivided attention.

[jonathanenglish]

Meetings stopping the flow of decision making is probably the worst effect of meetings. Nobody will make any decision whether it be to release troops, issue equipment, or begin operations until the the flow of Brigade, Battalion, and even Company Commander meetings are completed. Unfortunately, every level of meeting requires a certain amount of follow up research before the next lower level meeting can even dream of happening.

[Moto-foody]

Another good one sir, but I cringed a bit. I never worked at the Pentagon level, but I was on a staff at a Unified Combatant Command spent irreplaceable hours in meetings where my boss got more accomplished in the hallway on the way out. The one thing I hated more than the actual meeting was the meeting about the upcoming meeting where the boss would say “gentlemen, we’re having a working lunch today. Yes, even you Bob.” 😅

[ljrigpo]

Haha!

Oh man...

After ending my 1st enlistment as an E-4 (p) on Squads/Fire Teams and an a year or so in between - joined the AF.

Since I started back to E-1 and slowly made my way back up, started to have "staff meetings" with some (too many) "meetings to schedule meetings".

Got chewed out by an 0-4 once because during one of those self important meetings that just wasn't going anywhere fast (at least to me it wasn't...), I started laughing when I remembered a favorite SFC telling me how the guys in garrison "love to have meetings about meetings..."

Even though I deserved the A-chewing for being "unprofessional "... still couldn't help thinking "Damnit... I miss my SFC. He was a walking "learning tree".

[LitlD]

Happens at more places than the Pentagon: After 25+ years of a decent and fulfilling career, I spent my last 6 months as an 0-6, assigned as an ACofS to a minor element of the FORSCOM HQ. No one gave a rip for my knowledge or opinions, but I'd best have my ass in the seat for all the VTCs, (and there were about six hours of them scheduled daily) or there were Hated that assignment, but I was a lame I retired well over 20 years ago, so the statute of limitations has kicked in, and I don't miss a bit of it.

[Theytfguhyre]

Waste and abuse are endemic in the DOD, it IS their business model for crying out loud.

[paulrodgers]

be cause it run by civil leaders NOT Military Officers;

[Theytfguhyre]

Trump and Musk are going to rid the Pentagon of all those GS 12-13s. And all their useless, daily meetings discussing things that never translate to anything pragmatic. I do not miss meetings like that in the least.