Continuously Deepening Political Rectification Training · New Winds in the Barracks | Streamlining Documents and Meetings at Headquarters So Officers and Soldiers Can Take the Field Unburdened
"The procedures have been streamlined, the materials reduced, and the meetings are now compact and efficient!" Not long ago, the 81st Group Army convened its routine administrative meeting, consolidating 14 standing agenda items into 7. Walking out of the meeting hall, several brigade commanders remarked with feeling: "In the past, attending meetings was like 'rushing from show to show'; now it's like a 'clinical consultation'—problems are laid on the table, countermeasures are hammered out on the spot, and the time and energy saved can be devoted entirely to the training ground."
"Running a good meeting requires thorough research and sound overall planning." A leader of the Group Army explained that the routine administrative meeting covers a wide scope with many threads to manage—it must both implement regulatory requirements and deploy work at the Group Army's own level. In the past, poor coordination caused the mountain of documents and sea of meetings (文山会海) to crowd out precious time for building combat readiness and planning for war. Their research found that some departments had developed a habit of "implementing meetings with more meetings"—agendas packed full, materials stacked thick, yet with very few problems actually resolved. Behind this lay both a work inertia that prioritizes form over substance and the exposure of an unrealistic work style (不实作风) among some headquarters cadres of skimming the surface and treading on air.
"Only when Party committee headquarters streamline documents and meetings with a warfighting mindset (打仗思维) can they truly level the mountain of documents, fill in the sea of meetings, and genuinely relieve the grassroots of constraints and burdens." The Group Army leader explained that, tempered through the deepening of political rectification training (政治整训), the Party committee headquarters has progressively established a closed-loop mechanism of "summarizing and distilling before the meeting, demanding real results during the meeting, and following up on outcomes after the meeting": before the meeting, each section of the headquarters distills the core agenda items, with the lead department serving as the unified gatekeeper; during the meeting, leaders take the lead in speaking briefly, hitting the key points, teaching methods, and clarifying the path forward, with no tolerance for empty preambles and conclusions (穿靴戴帽); after the meeting, a responsibility checklist is produced at the first opportunity, with clear deadlines and follow-up accountability.
On this point, a staff officer responsible for meeting affairs spoke from deep personal experience: "Nowadays, the number of meetings has decreased, meeting time has been shortened, and work standards have risen. What matters at every level is not whether the materials are written beautifully, but whether the problems have been thoroughly resolved."
A sound meeting culture (会风) is transmitted from top to bottom. A certain brigade of the Group Army has further optimized its meeting arrangements: what can be explained in one go is not relayed layer by layer; what can be decided on the spot does not require a repeat meeting. One battalion commander said plainly that he used to attend many meetings every week, seriously eating into training time; now, with fewer meetings, he has more energy to study training and combat problems.
"What has changed is the work style; what has been shed is the burden." This battalion commander explained that, in order to free officers and soldiers from heavy routine administrative work, the Group Army Party committee has also standardized the documents and notices issued downward by headquarters—what can be cut must be cut, what should be merged should be merged as much as possible, managing proper "gatekeeping and diversion" (关闸分流), and strictly prohibiting the practice of adding layers upon layers of requirements.
Headquarters streamlines documents and meetings; officers and soldiers take the field unburdened. The change is extending toward the training ground. Not long ago, the Group Army organized command exercises for all subordinate units, requiring a problem-oriented approach throughout, firmly guarding against red tape and formalism (繁文缛节), with no materials-based briefings—all work directed squarely at combat topics, establishing the clear orientation of focusing every ounce of energy on warfighting and directing every aspect of work toward warfighting.