In an age of constant innovation and historical transformation, it is more important than ever to remember the central role warfighters always have and always will play in the Army's success. No matter how impressive technological advances get, senior leaders across the force consistently emphasize and prioritize the human dimension, talent management, and leader development that ultimately drive all transformation.
When Command Sgt. Maj. TJ Holland assumed responsibility as U.S. Army Forces Command’s senior enlisted leader in 2023, he knew that developing senior leaders across FORSCOM would be one of the greatest challenges and opportunities to positively impact warfighters and lethality. As the largest Army Component Command with nearly 800,000 Soldiers, achieving effective leader development and talent management FORSCOM-wide is a beast of a mission, but Holland’s approach maximizes existing tools to clarify and increase the human-to-human role in the process.
Top-down Approach
Holland started at the top, focusing on FORSCOM’s command sergeants major and sergeants major (CSM/SGMs – E9) nominative and nominative eligible population. Sergeants major selected to serve in nominative positions typically work alongside general officers and play crucial roles across the Army. The process to even become eligible for consideration for these positions begins when eligible commands sergeants major and sergeants major are identified as nominative potentials during the annual centralized talent management board. The Army’s Senior Enlisted Counsel (SEC), chaired by the Sergeant Major of the Army and made up of the Army’s most senior CSMs, comes together at least three times a year to collectively determine which CSM/SGMs from that nominative pool to recommend as potential fits for forecasted nominative positions.
As FORSCOM’s command sergeant major, Holland is the sole advocate during these panels for nearly a quarter of the Army’s nominative CSM/SGM population while also serving as the one panelist primarily focused on recommending the right fits for nominative positions across FORSCOM. Given the importance of those positions and the critical talent management of these senior leaders, he does not take the role lightly. But after spending many years in the nominative pool himself and engaged as a leader at different roles and levels in the process, Holland described his previous experience as often unclear and frustrating.
“It's really hard trying to learn what all those unique roles and responsibilities are in FORSCOM and out there in the major subordinate commands,” Holland said. “In order to advocate for those sergeants major and those positions, I have to have that knowledge of them beyond admin and data points.”
He explained that advocates historically enter each nominative panel with a massive binder full of their respective nominees’ information detailing their careers on what are commonly referred to as “baseball cards”. These binders are typically filled to the brim with information that Holland considered excessive, potentially outdated, and difficult to quickly navigate. He also said this method rarely allows the advocate to learn where and how nominees see themselves and their leadership’s feedback on where they would best support the Army as their career progressed.
With this massive responsibility, Holland knew improvements were necessary.
Today’s FORSCOM Nominative Talent Profile Tool
Constructed by the FORSCOM team utilizing existing Microsoft Power Platform-based tools at the Army’s disposal, the new tool made what Holland described as a labored process into something dynamic and intuitive. The notorious binders became a thing of the past for Holland. With the new FORSCOM tool, he sits down at each panel with just his laptop and with a few clicks, he reaches a streamlined gateway to clear current information generated from every leader involved in each nominee’s development.
The web-based profile, accessible via computer or smart device, presents the respective nominee with only four sections to be filled out: candidate information, current unit assignment, experience as a sergeant major, and lastly a self-assessment, which includes boxes to detail strengths, weaknesses, and preferred nominative positions from those open for slating.
The tool’s user-friendly layout also makes it easier for an advocate like Holland to filter the large pool of nominees. Since new nominative positions open throughout the year, he can filter specifically for nominees with the qualifications for those positions, or for nominees who have the position listed under their preferred positions.
It was also important to Holland for Soldiers to have dedicated space on their profile to bring up considerations that might affect future positions. He used examples of sergeants major who needed to stay in the continental United States to take care of ailing parents, or spouses who would be hard-pressed to find work in a location overseas that their partner is in consideration for.
“That's not an Exceptional Family Member Program concern, but that's a family concern,” Holland said. “If that's a talented sergeant major, I want to keep them on my team. If I know those things, and I'm informing the panel membership, we're voting to make sure that we're giving you the right opportunities at the right time for you and your family and for the Army.”
Holland said, “My goal was to create something that made people feel like they had a vote. Like they had a voice, like somebody was actually mentoring them and actually had their careers in mind and was making decisions based on those factors.”
Simplified, Accountable, Dynamic
Sergeant Major Eva Commons, FORSCOM’s G1 senior enlisted advisor, helped oversee the tool’s development and implementation. She stressed that standardizing and simplifying how the information was laid out and submitted was all about making the process more expedient, so that the person-to-person portion of the process could be prioritized.
Using the “binder full of baseball cards” method, nominees might update this information only once a year with no driver to ensure regular engagement with leaders in their nominative chain. The tool was designed purposefully by Holland and his team to make communication and updating information as straightforward and accountable as possible for every level of the nominative process.
Commons shared a hypothetical example of the new tool in action:
If the current 10th Mountain Division command sergeant major is a nominee for a potential higher-level nominative position and needs to update his information for an upcoming panel, his profile will be clearly flagged with a red thumbs down. Once his portion in the tool is updated, his status turns to a green thumbs up.
His assessor, in this example the XVIII Airborne Corps command sergeant major, then receives the flag to play his role at the assessor level on the candidate’s profile, which includes looking over the nominee’s profile, having a conversation with the leader, offering comments and suggestions both verbally and in the tool, and then approving the profile for the next step. Green thumbs up achieved.
Holland, as the FORSCOM-level advocate for the nominee, receives and reviews the profile, confident that all leaders have played their roles and now truly prepared to accurately advocate for the 10th Mountain Division command sergeant major’s next career move during the panel.
In addition to providing this important clarity and accountability, the tool allows this process to happen anytime, anywhere.
At FORSCOM, which has nominees serving in commands across the U.S. and deployed around the world, this change has been hugely beneficial. Holland explained that being able to work across multiple echelons of NCO channels was essential. Nominees, assessors, and advocates, no matter where they are serving, always know the status in their role in the process and that the advocate is referencing the most current information at the panel.
Commons said, “If I'm a candidate in the nominee pool, and I want to change something on my profile, I can do that at any time. If my assessor wants to change something on their assessment of me, they can any time. And then when Command Sgt. Maj. Holland sits on the nominative panel, all the data is always as accurate as when he's pulling it up on his laptop.”
Trust and the Future
The tool’s simplicity and efficiency has been immediately popular and successful, Commons said. She noted that by making everyone’s role more effective and efficient, it alleviates the potential for human error or miscommunication, which builds justified trust and credibility in the whole process.
The scope of the tool goes beyond affecting the senior enlisted Soldier’s experience.
Holland emphasized that the new tool also helps him and the panel legitimately confirm to general officers that they are getting the best talent to support their commands.
He also sees the positive aspects of the nominative profile tool influencing improvements at talent management and leader development at every level of the NCO Corps.
He acknowledged, “There's use for being analogue in some things, but what this tool does and demonstrates is there are ways we can counsel, mentor, coach, assess, and advocate from anywhere in the world on a smart device.”
Commons agreed, “Putting things into automated processes, using the technology that we have today, I think it's great. It's where we're going. It makes things a lot more efficient and visible across the fields. We need to keep doing this across the board where we can.”
As Holland prepares to leave FORSCOM and take over as the Senior Enlisted Leader for United States European Command, he said exposing Soldiers early at all echelons to tools like this ensures the progress does not restart with leadership changes.
His successor at FORSCOM, Command Sgt. Maj. Nema Mobarakzadeh (Mobar), currently serves as the I Corps command sergeant major and prior to that served as a Division command sergeant major within FORSCOM. His experience using the tool as a nominee and an assessor prepares him to take over on the panel advocating for FORSCOM’s massive population.
With this tool and Soldier-focused transformation efforts like it in their corner, Holland and soon Mobarakzadeh’s informed advocacy has an enduring and critical impact on talent management decisions and leader development at all levels across FORSCOM and ultimately across the Army.
Holland said an Army-wide version of the nominative tool is already being built on the backbone of the FORSCOM tool.
Author note: Spc. Andrew Clark earned the 2024 Department of the Army’s Staff Sgt. James P. Hunter Award for Outstanding New Military Writer. He currently serves in the 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment at Fort Bragg, N.C., and recently completed a rotation with the MPAD to Europe supporting U.S. Army Europe-Africa and V Corps communication efforts.
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