Thursday, October 17, 2013

Diversity Thursday

OK, as sequester and other budgetary nightmares swirl around our Navy. As N00 and N00A have to approve all travel outside area codes. As we have huge issues that we need our Engineering Duty Officers to concentrate on to maximize what we have coming in and stretching out what we have already ... what are they using as a priority?

Just add up the manhours, personhours, workhours - whatever Newspeak says it is this week. Just bask in the entire thread. I'll get rid of a few non-value added layers ... but you may want to read bottom up for the full glory of a Navy at war and short of money.

Rust never sleeps.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [redacted], Miguel G CAPT PEO[redacted], 
Date: Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 10:35 PM
Subject: FW: EDO DWG: establishing a GC - The Steps
To: [redacted],


Fellow [redacted], EDOs,
The community's Diversity Working Group (DWG) is evolving from the current structure of Pillar Groups to a Guiding Coalition (GC) focused on EDO community health, diversity, and professional development. The process of effecting this change is described below.

This is a great opportunity for anyone energized to shape the community's future. As CAPT [redacted], states, "RDML Whitney is looking for a larger audience than just the DWG." If you are interested and would like to hear more during the September DWG phonecon (currently scheduled for 17 Sep, 1300-1400), the dial-in is 1-866-758-[redacted], Pass Code: [redacted],#. Alternatively, RDML Whitney will send an ALL HANDS e-mail asking for volunteers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Topic: Re-organization of EDO DWG into a Guiding Coalition to address EDO community health, diversity, and professional development.

Guiding Coalition Start-up Actions:

1. Gain primary champion support and validate community interest. COMPLETE.

2. Set the size of the Guiding Coalition. I recommend 16-20 people. This allows for three to five GC members per GC initiative team. I'm assuming you'll start with four initiatives. If you'd like to start with more, you'll want a larger GC. You could make the GC as small as 12, but then you'd want to limit yourselves to three initiatives.

3. Recruit Guiding Coalition members.

Action 3.1: Decide who you want to invite to become GC members. I recommend you send the invitation to apply for GC membership to the entire EDO community. You'd think, based on what you mentioned from Dr. Kotter's work below, that you should predetermine how many of what groups you'd like represented prior to the sending the invitation. I recommend against that. Since you'll be doing a selection on the group of volunteers, you'll be able to sift and sort based on varying the demographics and positions without having to pre-judge the field. Plus, if you send out the invitation without any bias toward three of one type or four of another you'll learn who in the community rises freely to an opportunity like this. Now, that doesn't mean that the people who don't volunteer are disinterested in the topic. Rather, it just tells you the positive data of who is interested enough to volunteer for more work (that's good information to have).

Action 3.2: Assign who will manage the selection process. I'm assuming this will be CAPT [redacted],  but it could be someone on staff.

Action 3.3: Set the selection panel. For the first round, you can keep the selection process very simple. CAPT [redacted], can select with RDML Whitney concurrence, or you could put together a team of three or four people from various levels to rate the volunteers and choose a GC. We've done it both ways. When we first started one of the department heads and the Shipyard Commander chose the GC. Later, we added a six person panel selection.

Action 3.4: Invite people to volunteer. I can provide you with a rough application and other information to help set the stage for the application. We try to keep it simple. While applications flow in, you are watching for what groups aren't represented in the applications. From that information (generically) you can target some asks or reminders. This is a two edged sword. You want to be sure that people you expected to see in the applicant pool are aware of the GC, but you don't want them to feel forced to apply. We've had a few folks over the years that only applied because their boss or mentor told them they should and they were the worst GC members.

Action 3.5: Select and notify. Those who volunteer but aren't selected for the Guiding Coalition are invited to join the initiative teams once the GC has chosen the initiatives.

4. Set the direction of the GC. Our typical method was to hold an in-person one-day off-site. You don't have to do that to be successful. We can start to plan this step once you get the applications started. Tentatively we can assume that you will be forming the GC without the benefit of an in-person meeting. It'll be easier to start assuming that than to assume an in-person and downgrade to via telecon.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Separately, let me address the issues of trust and credibility.

Trust: I've found that groups of volunteers who come together around a cause they believe in (e.g., taking action to improve EDO community health, diversity, and professional development) start with an assumption of trust. This entering position allows the groups to form much faster than groups assigned to work together. Now, knowing that people in a community know each other, you sometimes have two people with a history who would rather not work together. To those people I offer them the choice to either resolve/ignore their issue with each other so they can both work on the topic or select different topics within the GC to work on. That free choice/own-your-choice method has worked well. You're right to include the rule of "checking rank" so everyone is free to speak. That'll help too.

Credibility: One of the great benefits of a Guiding Coalition is that the entering assumption is that a person is credible or they wouldn't have been selected for the GC. From there, each person is free to earn greater credibility through their actions within the group and their accomplishments on behalf of the group. So too, people are free to lose credibility through their behaviors or lack of outcomes. A larger danger is the false assumption that volunteer groups are less credible than appointed groups. I haven't figured out where this assumption stems from, but it is dangerous if it takes hold of leaders and how they talk about the Guiding Coalition. With RDML Whitney involved, you'll have a strong champion opposed to that assumption, but I offer it as something to watch for as the CAPT in charge of the GC.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please pass to anyone I may have missed on this email. Thanks!

v/r Miguel

CAPT Miguel [redacted], USN
Program Manager, [redacted], (PEO [redacted],)
4301 Pacific Highway
Bldg OT-1, Room [redacted],
San Diego, CA 92110-3127
[redacted],


-----Original Message-----
From: [redacted], Thomas J CAPT EDO School, CO
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 9:11 AM
To: [redacted],
Subject: EDO DWG: establishing a GC - The Steps
Importance: High

To all,

What follows are the steps RDML Whitney asked me to get from April [redacted], about how to start the process of setting up the GC. As we talked about on the August DWG phone call, I am forwarding the steps to everyone so they can talk about it with in pillars and if you have specific questions, you can talk or e-mail April directly.

We will discuss every ones concerns at the September DWG call and decide on the steps. At that point, RDML Whitney will put out his ALL HANDS e-mail calling for volunteers.

For the Mentor Leads ... Please share this with your members as well since RDML Whitney is looking for a larger audience than just the DWG

v/r ... tjb
Captain Tom [redacted], USN
Commanding Officer
Engineering Duty Officer School
805-982-[redacted],

-----Original Message-----
From: [redacted],, April K CIV PSNS/IMF, Code 1101.AM
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 8:13 AM
To: [redacted],, Thomas J CAPT EDO School, CO
Cc: [redacted],
Subject: RE: EDO DWG: establishing a GC

CAPT - Sorry for the delay. I've copied my boss, Brenda [redacted],  on this e-mail for her information on our progress with this task.

Topic: Re-organization of EDO DWG into a Guiding Coalition to address EDO community health, diversity, and professional development.

Guiding Coalition Start-up Actions:

1. Gain primary champion support and validate community interest. COMPLETE.

2. Set the size of the Guiding Coalition. I recommend 16-20 people. This allows for three to five GC members per GC initiative team. I'm assuming you'll start with four initiatives. If you'd like to start with more, you'll want a larger GC. You could make the GC as small as 12, but then you'd want to limit yourselves to three initiatives.

3. Recruit Guiding Coalition members.

Action 3.1: Decide who you want to invite to become GC members. I recommend you send the invitation to apply for GC membership to the entire EDO community. You'd think, based on what you mentioned from Dr. Kotter's work below, that you should predetermine how many of what groups you'd like represented prior to the sending the invitation. I recommend against that. Since you'll be doing a selection on the group of volunteers, you'll be able to sift and sort based on varying the demographics and positions without having to pre-judge the field. Plus, if you send out the invitation without any bias toward three of one type or four of another you'll learn who in the community rises freely to an opportunity like this. Now, that doesn't mean that the people who don't volunteer are disinterested in the topic. Rather, it just tells you the positive data of who is interested enough to volunteer for more work (that's good information to have).

Action 3.2: Assign who will manage the selection process. I'm assuming this will be CAPT [redacted]  but it could be someone on staff.

Action 3.3: Set the selection panel. For the first round, you can keep the selection process very simple. CAPT [redacted] can select with RDML Whitney concurrence, or you could put together a team of three or four people from various levels to rate the volunteers and choose a GC. We've done it both ways. When we first started one of the department heads and the Shipyard Commander chose the GC. Later, we added a six person panel selection.

Action 3.4: Invite people to volunteer. I can provide you with a rough application and other information to help set the stage for the application. We try to keep it simple. While applications flow in, you are watching for what groups aren't represented in the applications. From that information (generically) you can target some asks or reminders. This is a two edged sword. You want to be sure that people you expected to see in the applicant pool are aware of the GC, but you don't want them to feel forced to apply. We've had a few folks over the years that only applied because their boss or mentor told them they should and they were the worst GC members.

Action 3.5: Select and notify. Those who volunteer but aren't selected for the Guiding Coalition are invited to join the initiative teams once the GC has chosen the initiatives.

4. Set the direction of the GC. Our typical method was to hold an in-person one-day off-site. You don't have to do that to be successful. We can start to plan this step once you get the applications started. Tentatively we can assume that you will be forming the GC without the benefit of an in-person meeting. It'll be easier to start assuming that than to assume an in-person and downgrade to via telecon.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Separately, let me address the issues of trust and credibility.

Trust: I've found that groups of volunteers who come together around a cause they believe in (e.g., taking action to improve EDO community health, diversity, and professional development) start with an assumption of trust. This entering position allows the groups to form much faster than groups assigned to work together. Now, knowing that people in a community know each other, you sometimes have two people with a history who would rather not work together. To those people I offer them the choice to either resolve/ignore their issue with each other so they can both work on the topic or select different topics within the GC to work on. That free choice/own-your-choice method has worked well. You're right to include the rule of "checking rank" so everyone is free to speak. That'll help too.

Credibility: One of the great benefits of a Guiding Coalition is that the entering assumption is that a person is credible or they wouldn't have been selected for the GC. From there, each person is free to earn greater credibility through their actions within the group and their accomplishments on behalf of the group. So too, people are free to lose credibility through their behaviors or lack of outcomes. A larger danger is the false assumption that volunteer groups are less credible than appointed groups. I haven't figured out where this assumption stems from, but it is dangerous if it takes hold of leaders and how they talk about the Guiding Coalition. With RDML Whitney involved, you'll have a strong champion opposed to that assumption, but I offer it as something to watch for as the CAPT in charge of the GC.
--------------------------------------
Is this enough to get us started? Feel free to send me more questions. I need the ping back from you to ensure that I'm giving you all of the necessary details. I've been doing this so long that I'm prone to miss a step or two in the instructions because I just do it by instinct now. I'm excited for this opportunity to work with you so I can make the details of the start-up process more evident and repeatable for others.

You're going to achieve more than you expected with the GC. This is going to be fun too. Let's get started.

All my best - April

-----Original Message-----
From: [redacted], Thomas J CAPT EDO School, CO
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2013 3:18 PM
To: [redacted], April K CIV PSNS/IMF, Code 1101.AM
Cc: [redacted]
Subject: EDO DWG: establishing a GC

April,

Hope things have settled out at home.

As stated in the minutes from the August DWG conference call, the group will evolve into a guiding coalition structure. RDML Whitney was very quick to say and not to use the term "re-organize".

The group still had some questions about how to get started. RDML Whitney tasked me to get with you and come up with a few POA&M-like steps to form the GC. He was also very careful not to call it a full POA&M, just a few high level steps for the DWG to hold a dialog on, so we can discuss and decide on them at the September DWG conference call.

According to J.P. Kotter... there are three steps to setting up a GC;

Right Composition
Obtaining a level of trust
Shared Objectives

Right Composition:
a. Enough Power Positions so those who are 'left out' can't block progress (could be the existing pillar leads, something to dialog on)
b. Expertise, which in our case also means diversity (all ranks, all mentor groups, all minority and gender groups)
c. credibility (not sure how to handle this one)
d. Leadership; I think we have that in RDML Whitney


Obtaining a level of trust:

The only thing that comes to mind here is an old rule from the CNO Strategy Studies Group; everyone is equal, no hierarchy (in the GC)
Off-site, which will be tough in this era of reduced TAD. This group will be scattered

Shared Objectives:

We got a very clear vision from RDML Whitney; To evolve from a DWG to a GC that takes on all aspects of community health and professional development not just improving our demographics.

If you can add onto this and transform it into a few actionable steps, I'll get it out to the group so we can have e-mail dialog before the September conference call (17 September)

I have copied CAPT Chris [redacted] on this note; Chris will be relieving me on 19 September and we assumes the same collateral duty in the DWG or whatever its new title will be.

v/r ... tjb
Captain Tom [redacted], USN
Commanding Officer
Engineering Duty Officer School
[redacted]

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