What are your honest opinions on the new Force Distribution (Air Force)? Have you seen a positive or negative effect?

But that also means that commander isn't doing his job correctly, and arguably neither are the senior enlisted in that unit. The forced distribution authority does not have to use all of their allocations. Unfortunately, it doesn't mean that you get any more if they don't use theirs. But if that commander's leadership team were doing their jobs and not using their allocations if they don't have anyone deserving, that would put their crap bags in the same promote category as many of your stellar performers, and as long as your team has painted a stronger word picture in the EPR, then your guys will get the nod. The other fortunate thing, or unfortunate depending on your perspective, is that each commander has their own criteria for what they believe to be deserving of their promotion recommendation. If there's a crappy commander with low standards/expectations, then their underperforming airmen will still get the promotion recommendation, but if the commander's team has high standards...you get the picture. It's subjective from all angles.

IMHO, this is still better than throwing 95% of all airmen into one firewall 5 category and letting the system pick the winner. At least this way gives commanders *more* of a voice. It's still far from perfect, but I doubt there is a promotion system out there that doesn't have some inherent unfairness or subjectivity.