James Patrick Q. Bonus l March 17, 2023 l The Manila Times
DURING a mentorship session when I was still with a local bank, my mentor advised me to study and adopt the Completed Staff Work Doctrine, or CSWD, to become a better manager.
What is the Completed Staff Work Doctrine?
Completed Staff Work is a management principle wherein a subordinate or staff member studies a problem and presents a solution or recommendation to superiors in a complete and executable form. The completed action is then reviewed and will only require the superior’s approval or disapproval. CSWD is based on a declassified military memorandum circulated by the US Army during World War 2. The military called it a doctrine because it is a belief system and a set of teachings, according to John Welsey Yoest Jr., a management professor at the Catholic University of America and author of the book The Memo: How the Classified Military Document that Helped the US Win WWII Can Help You Succeed in Business.
How does CSWD work and what are the benefits?
Central to CSWD is trust: managers must trust their staff that work will be done, and the staff must trust themselves that they can deliver, and that their manager will support them by giving them the freedom to work and to timely share feedback.
Completed staff work is a staff’s single proposed recommendation that has been thoroughly analyzed and coordinated; represents the best recommendation and output possible; requires just an approval or disapproval from the manager; and is prepared in final form for signature or approval.
Instead of relying on inputs and instructions from the manager under CSWD, the staff is expected to articulate the problems and challenges of work on their own and come up with possible solutions, thoughtfully researched and presented in its final form, waiting only for the manager’s go-ahead or comment.
Benefits of adopting CSWD include: 1) improved morale and self-confidence of the staff; 2) more time and freedom for the manager to attend to other matters; and 3) stronger cooperation and teamwork between managers and staff.
How can you adopt CSWD and make it work for you?
CSWD is a definitive discipline that gives clear guidelines on the working arrangements of both the manager and the staff. It requires greater effort from the staff but is expected to result in greater freedom and quality output for the manager. As a manager, you can apply CSWD by trusting your staff members more and providing them with the principles and criteria that you use to guide your decision-making. As a staff member, you can use CSWD by taking more initiative at work, thoroughly researching the details, analyzing your findings, prioritizing, categorizing and choosing the one alternative you will recommend along with the reasons for doing so.
The final test of CSWD is: if you were the decision-maker, would you be willing to stake your professional reputation on your output? If the answer is “no,” take it back and rework it because it is not yet completed.
I can confidently say that CSWD has helped me and the teams I’ve worked with accomplish a lot together throughout the years — professional achievements that I hope made my mentor proud.
*** James Patrick Bonus is the deputy country manager and chief finance officer of FinScore, a fintech firm providing alternative data-based consumer credit scoring and identity verification solutions for financial institutions. Bonus is also a regular subject matter resource speaker for the Bankers Institute of the Philippines and other organizations through Acepoint.ph Training Consultancy Services.