I have been in Korea for over a year and I am convinced that United States Army Garrison Daegu is the best place to work. Of course, you may consider me biased because it is my current assignment, but I feel strongly about this because of the organization's dedication to professional development for its employees.
I had the honor of being chosen to attend the Honolulu-Pacific Federal Executive Board, in partnership with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Western Management Development Center Pacific Leadership Academy's Emerging Leaders program. There are two tracks the Senior (GS13-15) and Emerging Leaders (GS9-12) program.
The class is open to military, state and federal employees throughout the Pacific Region. I had classmates from Alaska, Japan, Washington state and Hawaii. The fellows came from the local and federal fire departments, the Departments of Defense, Army, Navy (and Marine Corps), Air Force, Commerce and Agriculture.
This is what made the program so unique and valuable; it was not just military employees. It was refreshing to receive training that was not "military-centric". Each session gave everyone a chance to learn about themselves and others, helping us to reflect on the members of our teams both in the class and at our duty stations.
The class was great because it provided unexpected learning opportunities. For example, we were divided into the executive board (CEO, Deputy, CIO, CFO, HR, etc.), supervisors and technicians. The board and the supervisors were allowed in a room where there was a task. The board decided the monetary goal and communicated that to the supervisors and a general idea of expectations for the task. The supervisors then explained the details to the technicians.
I was a member of the board and we felt that we gave our intent and communicated sufficiently with the supervisors and technicians, and then the task began. We did reach our goal, because we set a manageable and achievable goal, but the discussion we had after the task was illuminating. The one thing that stuck with me was this task perfectly encapsulated the problem with communication in organizations. At the top, we assumed we were communicating effectively and efficiently, but most of our message was being lost and we never realized it. There was more information from the middle and the bottom that we never received that might have made our mission more successful.
That is just one example of the learning we received. It was not a "death by PowerPoint" class, the activities, group and individual discussions allowed you to focus on your leadership journey, dealing with others and effecting change in organizations.
All in all this was a great class and I was proud to be able to attend. I highly recommend this class to everyone. For more information about these programs, please contact Honolulu- Pacific Federal Executive Board Deputy Director, Ms. Toni Allen at toni.allen@navy.mil.
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