Navy Archives - John Knotts

Mike Abrashoff, former Navy and now Founder of GLS Worldwide, opened up yesterday’s conference festivities with some serious shock and awe. Mike is one of those people that when he speaks you capture a lot of profound quotes. His message on leadership was right on point and one of the best I have heard.

His book was sold out before his speech was over if that is any indication of how good he was at the podium.

Like any conference of this type, where you have volunteer presenters, you can always end up with a few duds. I ended up with one where a guy from the EPA was presenting on change management. He had a lot of information and focused his message on writing a change plan, because that solves everything in change management and completely breaks down resistance to change.

I’m not sure what his experience has been with change in the government, but he really needed to read some of the references that he was throwing up on slides, which he admittedly said he did not know–like John Kotter’s 8-step model and McKinsey’s 7-S model.

Well, everything came out in the wash when he was finished presenting and the session was opened up for Q&A. I was able to stay for three questions that he couldn’t answer, but had to leave when he told the audience he had never heard of the term “burning platform.”

I found day two to have a great deal more downtime than the day before. This allowed me to spend some time working on a couple of special projects. I was so engaged in what I was working on, I missed the lunch keynote speaker, but heard that I didn’t miss much.

Word to the wise for future ASQ Conference attendees; if they still do Flip Sessions, ensure you watch the video before hand.

Basically, they are trying out this new concept called a Flip Session where you have to watch a video presentation before going to the presentation–pre-work. Well, I don’t think anyone at the conference actually understood the concept because I went to one of these sessions yesterday afternoon and no one in the entire room had watched the video to include me.

Everything went downhill from there. There was a guy in the session playing stump the chump, and he was asking questions out of some manual that he had brought. There was also this other guy that would ask questions that few could understand, to include the presenter. It was just going from bad to worse.

Near the end of the hour-long session, the presenter asked how many in the audience had ever used a SIPOC, to which about 80% or more of the hands went up. Then she asked what they used it for and what values it brought–she received lots of good answers. Then she proceeded to do a SIPOC example on the white board. I walked out.

So, there were nuggets of goodness in the conference and opportunities for learning. The networking is always great and I even got some work done. All in all, not a bad day.

Day three is short, with two sessions and then a closing keynote speaker. The exhibitors are gone, since the hall closed at 4 last night and they won’t have a lunch for today. I suspect that the attendance will be much lighter today, but will report on my nonstatistical hypothesis tomorrow.

I am absolutely sick of the news today. Being a retired Air Force member, it kills me to see the constant erosion of benefits for retired and current service members. If you haven’t been watching, you better start waking up. The bigger news is the regular lack of a balanced budget from Congress, Sequestration, Government Shut Downs…it seems to go on and on.

I, being who I am, like to blame Congress and specifically the Administration.

However, the real blame, especially for the Military budget and financial woes rests squarely on the Department of Miss-Defense.

Yep, that’s right, you may not have ever heard about this super secret and extremely covert military organization, but many of the senior military leadership (military and civilian) work for this department and don’t even know it.

Day-in and day-out the same people complain about the same things I do– Congress and the Administration.

The problem is, they’re doing it to themselves.

Step back and take a look at our military machine–the Department of Defense. What if I told you that, because of its design, its fraught with waste and redundancy. I mean waste and redundancy that is so big you could pilot a Carrier Group through it.

If the Military–specifically the leadership–really cared about reducing their bottom line and not taking it out of the promised benefits to veterans or future benefits that will destroy the all volunteer force, they need only open their eyes.

Today every single military branch, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard have redundant support services that help keep the military engine running. Things like information technology, human resources, transportation, and logistics. For the most part, these support services do the exact same thing. The only real difference is HOW they do it. This redundancy of effort across the branches has created bloated organizational fiefdoms within each branch that drain on the military might we desire to prosecute war with.

Want to fix Miss-Defense?

Eliminate the support services from the branches and create one support service department. Throw out all the antiquated systems and approaches and create one that supports all the branches. A large portion of it can be immediately outsourced and another large part civilianized, leaving the military part for deployment requirements.

This would significantly reduce the Tail in the Tooth-to-Tail ratio that the military is always concerned about.

Won’t work you tell me…Bull!

Take a look at Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) and tell me it won’t work. They’ve already done it. As a matter of fact, I would build this support department off of DFAS and eliminate DFAS–it’s just another support service.

This is only the start. There are many other support type roles that I’m not even mentioning, like planning, military equipment (land, air, marine, and space) maintenance, public affairs, etc. The list is long.

What I propose is a complete reengineering of the Department of Miss-Defense. The branches focus on delivering the military might and all support services focus on supporting the delivery of that military might under one department.

Part of the reason Joint Forces Command even exists is to coordinate this support–let them focus on simply coordinating the offense and leave the support to the expert.

Think of the reductions in cost and the developments in effectiveness and innovation if you went this route?

Posts tagged Navy

ASQ Conference Recap–Day Two

Department of Miss-Defense — What Needs Fixing