The U.S. Army has always touted itself as a capstone developmental experience and still does so today- You made them strong-we'll make them Army Strong. The Army is almost universally acknowledged as an organization that powerfully develops talent in areas such as leadership, teamwork behavior, work ethics, adaptability, fitness, and many others. Yet despite this well-earned reputation, the Army must remain vigilant. Authorized strength and inventory mismatches, an inverse relationship between responsibility and formal developmental time, and sparse non-operational development opportunities are serious challenges that the Army must address. Developing talent is important in all high performing organizations, but it is particularly critical to the Army for several reasons. First, the mission of fighting and winning wars requires truly championship-level talent-America's national security depends on it. Second, Americans entrust the very lives of their sons and daughters to the Army-they deserve to be led by superstars. And third, limited lateral entry into midcareer and senior level officer positions means the Army cannot rely upon poaching talent from outside organizations as corporate America does. Instead, the Army must retain and continuously develop its entrylevel talent to meet present and future demands. Army officers are hungry for the development needed to reach their full potential and perform optimally. When they do not get it, they seek it in the private sector. This is why officer developmental programs must be tailored to the needs of every talented individual. In this way, the Army can both deepen and broaden its overall talent distribution, mitigating risk in an increasingly uncertain and rapidly changing operating environment. Current practice, however, generally shunts officers down conventional career paths and through standardized "gates," regardless of their unique talents, experience, or needs. Meeting future challenges may well require a new way of doing business, a comprehensive developmental strategy rooted in sound theory. Several pioneers in the human capital field have provided a ready foundation for such a strategy. Their work demonstrates the criticality of continuing education, genuinely useful evaluations, and properly valued signals to the creation of an outstanding developmental climate. Considering officer development within this context moves the Army beyond a focus upon formal training and education. While these are certainly important, managing the nexus of individual talents and rapidly changing organizational requirements calls for careful attention to many other developmental factors. These include professional networks, mentorship and peer relationships, tenure, individual learning styles, as well as diversity of thought, experience, and culture. Lastly, to reap the full benefit of any developmental strategy, the Army must capture information on the multitude of talents that its officers possess. The uniqueness of each individual cannot be captured via skill identifiers and career field designations alone. Instead, the Army needs a mechanism to track talent development over time, gauging both its breadth and depth. Only then will it be able to effectively employ talent, the subject of the next and final monograph in this series.

Throughout America's history, U.S. Army officers have played an integral role in the formulation and execution of its national security policy. Future national security challenges will be markedly different from those which were met so successfully in the past. Such challenges demand a comprehensive Officer Corps strategy recognizing the interdependency of accessing, developing, retaining, and employing talented people, officers with high learning and problem solving aptitudes, whose mental acuity and intellectual agility allows them to master diverse competencies demanded now and in the future. Such a strategy would position the Army to compete with the civilian market for talent, translate directly into better officer development and retention through increased job satisfaction, and move the Army beyond personnel management to talent management. Such a strategy will create institutional agility, allowing the Army to achieve the right breadth and depth of officer competencies to meet evolving requirements--"the right talent in the right job at the right time."

Efficient talent employment is at the core of the Army Officer Human Capital Model. However, the Army's current employment paradigm is unequal to the needs of a professional, volunteer Army facing the twin challenges of a competitive labor market and an increasingly complex global operating environment. It unduly prioritizes "fairness" when making assignments, has a narrowly defined pathway to senior leadership ranks, cannot see the talent it possesses, and suffers from severe principal-agent problems. Optimal employment theories, information age tools, and well-regulated market mechanisms can help the Army match individual officer talents against specific work requirements, reducing risk and achieving the depth and breadth of talent it needs, both now and in the future.

Traditionally, the U.S. Army has stressed "competency" in its officer development doctrine. Recent operational experience clearly demonstrates the need for something more than adequate or appropriate individual performance by leaders. In an era of persistent conflict, Army officers must embrace new cultures, serve as ambassadors and diplomats, sow the seeds of economic development and democracy, and in general rapidly conceptualize solutions to complex and unanticipated problems. It requires the Army to access, retain, develop, and employ talented officers, not competent ones. The authors define talent as the intersection of three dimensions-- skills, knowledge, and behaviors-- that create an optimal level of individual performance, provided the individual is employed within his or her talent set. To get optimal performance from its officers, the Army must first acknowledge that each has a unique distribution of skills, knowledge, and behaviors. It must also acknowledge the unique distribution of talent requirements across the force. Doing so will allow the Army to thoughtfully manage the nexus of individual talent supply and organizational talent demand, to create a true talent management system that puts the right officer in the right place at the right time. An officer strategy focused upon talent has but one purpose: to help the Army achieve its overall objectives. It does this by mitigating the greatest risks: the cost of a mismatch between numbers of officers and requirements; and the cost of losing talented officers to the civilian labor market.

Over the last 3 decades, dramatic labor market changes and well-intentioned but uninformed policies have created significant officer talent flight. Poor retention engenders substantial risk for the Army as it directly affects accessions, development, and employment of talent. The Army cannot make thoughtful policy decisions if its officer talent pipeline continues to leak at current rates. Since the Army cannot insulate itself from labor market forces as it tries to retain talent, the retention component of its officer strategy must rest upon sound market principles. It must be continuously resourced, executed, measured, and adjusted across time and budget cycles. Absent these steps, systemic policy, and decisionmaking failures will continue to confound Army efforts to create a talent-focused officer corps strategy.