Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force (2008) / Chapter Skim
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5 Transforming the Naval Force: Obstacles and Strategies for Implementation
5 Transforming the Naval Force: Obstacles and Strategies for Implementation
Pages 110-134
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From page 110... ...
There are many potential obstacles to organizational change and reform. Surmounting those barriers can be particularly challenging within an organization such as the naval services, in which culture, traditions, hierarchy, and bureaucratic procedures play important roles.
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From page 111... ...
2006. "Managing Successful Organizational Change in the Public Sector," Public Administrative Review, March/April, p.
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From page 112... ...
These four factors and others described in this chapter will be important in building and sustaining support for fundamental changes in manpower and personnel policies in the naval services in the future. The committee's conversations with military leaders and review of written materials indicate that Department of the Navy leadership has a keen appreciation of the challenges involved in transformational change, the merits of various reforms and strategies for implementing them, and how both vary across contexts.
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From page 113... ...
The value of planning for each of these stages, in a coordinated fashion, would appear self-evident, yet both the scholarly literature on organizational change and the experience of practitioners highlight how seldom this is done effectively. Each of these stages in general is briefly discussed below.
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From page 114... ...
The committee believes that a substantial downsizing of U.S. forces in Iraq may provide a valuable opportunity to reframe future military needs and priorities and launch an agenda for change in manpower and personnel policies within the Navy and Marine Corps.
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From page 115... ...
The committee urges naval leaders to give serious consideration to launching strategically designed demonstration projects that can assess the interdependent effects of the changes in technology, work design, staffing levels, and human resource management practices subsumed under the rubric of "transformation." Surveys and analyses, pilot demonstrations, and experiments of the sort described in Chapter 4 can be useful tools for anticipating how the effects of specific proposed changes are likely to vary across organizational contexts. Case studies of large-scale change efforts suggest several practices that may enhance success.
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From page 116... ...
Evaluation research might also profitably focus on the development of metrics by which decision makers can gauge the effectiveness of manpower and personnel policies on an ongoing basis. Institutionalizing the Change In a context where capital assets are as costly and long-lived as in the military, there is an inherent danger that, as introduced in Chapter 1, human capital becomes the cushion by which those who allocate budgetary resources adjust to the constraints they face.
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From page 117... ...
Evidence of how and why things are not working must be provided, as well as evidence that some new approach is capable of providing superior outcomes. When neither the status quo nor the future is viewed as problematic, or when alternative approaches are not viewed as meritorious, the challenge of organizational change increases dramatically.
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From page 118... ...
Culture. Naval forces are steeped in tradition, and culture plays a vital part in the ethos of the Navy and Marine Corps.
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From page 119... ...
The naval forces are complex organizations, and specific changes frequently cause unanticipated results in nontargeted areas. Prior to implementation, changes must be examined for both near- and long-term, second- and third-order effects on the force as a whole.
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From page 120... ...
Mapping The Transformation Landscape: Matching the obstacles to reform proposals Based on discussions with Navy and Marine Corps leaders and reviewing Department of the Navy materials regarding existing manpower and personnel policies and objectives, the committee identified a roster of domains and topics that are likely to be involved in the evolution of a transformed naval force: 1. Completing and articulating a comprehensive human resources strategy 2.
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From page 121... ...
Item 2 enumerates areas of human resource practice that will be profoundly implicated in efforts to transform the naval force. Item 3 lists several manpower and personnel topic areas that the committee believes will be of crucial importance to the Department of the Navy and will require comprehensive study and solutions that draw on most or all of the human resource domains listed under Item 2.
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From page 122... ...
Obstacles likely to require more concerted effort and coordination (e.g., realignments, task forces, new roles) and internal championing.
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From page 123... ...
Working down the columns, the committee assessed what human resource domains were likely to be most strongly affected by a potential source of resistance. As a shorthand device in Table 5.1, the committee coded the challenges associated with organizational change into three broad categories: 1.
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From page 124... ...
research findings regarding organizational change processes in the literature. For instance, organizational scholars have identified particular organizational features and environmental contexts in which inertial forces are most intense, and the committee incorporated such findings into its appraisals of the implementation challenges likely to be associated with various domains of human resource transformation.
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From page 125... ...
FIGURE 5.1 The transformational landscape depicting human resource domains based on the likely obstacles to be encountered. rant of Figure 5.1 are topic areas that confront more intense potential obstacles 5-1 both internally and externally: retirement, health care, privatization and sourcing, career paths, and (to a lesser degree)
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From page 126... ...
Of the recommendations offered by this committee, those related to cash compensation and the retirement system probably involve the most serious external impediments. For example, changing the pay table to one based on time in grade rather than time in service would require congressional approval.
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From page 127... ...
Implementing this recommendation will probably require a major cultural change within the Navy and Marine Corps. Shifting individuals directly from the senior enlisted ranks into field-grade officer status can raise social and cultural issues about the differences between officers and enlisted personnel that are difficult for the services to look squarely in the eye.
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From page 128... ...
findings and Recommendations Comprehensive Human Resource Strategy In 2004 the Department of the Navy published its human capital strategy (HCS) outlining the department's broad goals for human resources.
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From page 129... ...
Moreover, since the signing of the Navy's HCS in June 2004, the services have undertaken important operational and organizational changes. They have also gained experience related to the Navy's downsizing, lengthy commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and increased reliance on the private sector -- all without the coherence and logic that a completed HCS would bring to the decision-making process.
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From page 130... ...
and the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) should take ownership of their services' human capital strategy (HCS)
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From page 131... ...
The committee recommends an assessment of current proposed human resource strategies against this list of criteria and creation of a template simple enough in form and content that it can be used to articulate the key success factors and human resource strategy to diverse audiences at all levels of the naval services. Propelling Transformation in Human Resource Practices Finding: The implementation of changes to manpower and personnel policies is a complex and difficult process.
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From page 132... ...
Examples of such ad hoc organizations that have worked well for the Navy are the Executive Review of Naval Training and Task Force Excel -- both constituted to design and execute the revolution in Navy training. External Oversight Group Particular domains -- retirement, health care, sourcing, career paths, and compensation -- face internal and external obstacles of sufficient magnitude and complexity that significant organizational change is unlikely to be achieved without external pressures to impel and sustain long-term progress and foster accountability.
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From page 133... ...
5. The group should be responsible for providing regular briefings to the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and representatives from the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, assessing progress to date and remaining challenges and opportunities relating to the transformed naval force.
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From page 134... ...
In addition, the major recommendations are presented in the Summary at the outset of the report. The committee shares the sense of urgency expressed by the CNO that the Navy develop leaders for the 21st century and by the CMC that the Marine Corps continue to develop the individual marine as the heart and soul of the organization.
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