FORT RUCKER, Ala. (October 3, 2013) -- Fort Rucker's Leading Change Team is known for pushing initiatives and ideas to improve the installation from the lowest level to the top, but in order to facilitate change, the team needs new members with new ideas.
Members of the LCT, senior leaders and prospective members met at Mother Rucker's Sept. 24 during a recruitment kickoff meet and greet to educate people on what the team does and where real change comes from.
Among those who attended the meet and greet was Maj. Gen. Kevin W. Mangum, U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Rucker commanding general, who was on hand to support the LCT and meet some of its prospective members.
Mangum said the LCT is necessary because of the ideas generated by its members that might not be seen or heard otherwise.
"The good ideas don't come out of my office," said Mangum. "The good ideas come from the experts who are doing their business, their task, their mission each and every day.
"They're the ones who can tell us how we can change things to make them better and be more effective, more efficient and how to execute our mission at best value," he continued. "Once people understand that they can make a difference and see change, we'll have the opportunity to get more people in."
The current LCT for FY14 is LCT4, which is the fourth team to take on the task of change on the installation. One major challenge that the team has is to get active volunteers to aid in the program, according to CW5 Paul Sivacek, outgoing primary facilitator for the LCT.
"Gathering volunteers can be like herding cats," he said, "but it's an amazing experience because with volunteers, they all have their own (things to deal with), but that's the power of LCT -- each individual does a small part and it all adds up to the big picture."
The recruitment process will last about 30 days, said Sivacek, and during that time it gives people the opportunity to learn what LCT is about and see that senior leadership is involved.
Sivacek started out as a volunteer during the first iteration of the LCT and became a member during LCT2. From there, he became an active leader for the team as the senior facilitator, and said his hope for the LCT is that it becomes so integrated into Fort Rucker that it's no longer needed.
"I want to see it slowly transition from a team into everybody on the installation, because that's what leading change is really about," he said. "The whole goal of the team is to infect people with the idea that they have power to change their environment, to make their working processes more effective and know that they'll have chain of command support."
That support goes all the way to the top, including the commanding general, and senior leaders, like Col. T.J. Jamison, USAACE chief of staff, who believes that the LCT can provide ideas to help guide the installation through fiscal uncertainty.
"As we approach fiscal year 14, we know we're going to have some reduction in resources, so we're going to rely very heavily on (the Leading Change Team) to look at more efficient ways to do business," said Jamison. "We need them to ensure that we're tapping into the potential of everybody that we possibly can for innovative ideas on how to do more with less, maintain the same standard of the product that we produce here on Fort Rucker … and ensure that we keep that high-quality product going out the door despite any reduction in resources."
Mangum agreed.
"As long as we can keep an active, energetic and vibrant LCT to generate interest, generate ideas to be considered for change, and show that they're making real change, that'll attract more people to come in," he said.
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