ADVOCATE FOR INNOVATION
I articulated my preference to defer to the satellite course to my chain of command and HRC’s Acquisition Management Branch. Attending the resident course robs us of a year in which to work toward Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act certifications and compresses our career development time- line. As such, the cost of resident CGSC is often the opportunity for the Advanced Civil Schooling or Training with Industry programs. But the most powerful argument against attending resident CGSC is that very little of the course content relates directly to the acquisition career field. Arguments aside, in June 2014 my commander denied my request to defer.
NEW WAYS OF THINKING I entered CGSC with an open mind but low expectations. I assumed that the course was focused on operational issues, and I intended to complete it and get on with my career. I envisioned endless PowerPoints, rote memorization of doctrinal principles and toilsome planning exercises. Looking back on the course now after finishing in June, I see how wrong I was. In this one short year, I learned more about myself, my peers (and people in general) and my profession than I would have in five years assigned to a project office. Resident CGSC was invaluable to
FIGURE 1
The conflict in organizations between the desire to maintain a predictable and stable environment and ...
Stability Unit cohesion
Reduce anxiety
my career and personal growth and is unequivocally a worth- while investment for the Acquisition Corps.
Trough life experience and deliberate self-reflection, my self- awareness and critical thinking skills have grown steadily. CGSC accelerated this personal growth by providing a critical thinking laboratory that mixes students from all branches of the Army with officers from other services, government agencies and allied nations. Led by an equally diverse cadre of instructors, these groups addressed extremely complex, real-world issues that forced many students to re-evaluate their ways of thinking.
I tend to be a divergent thinker—one who attacks problems in a nonlinear fashion and from many different viewpoints. Tis allows me to appreciate the complexity of most situations but rarely facilitates an easy or timely decision. As such, I have come to envy decisive people, whose way of thinking spares them the agony of grappling with masses of seemingly small details. However, by digging to the root causes of complex issues, I have come to grasp the importance of the shades of gray that exist in almost any situation.
Additionally, through a year of discussions, I developed a deeper respect for how people’s personalities and thinking styles influ- ence their approaches to problem-solving and the conclusions they eventually reach. In short, I am a more critical, deeper thinker than I was when I started CGSC.
Change
Adapt and innovate Solve problems
The Paradox of learning
... the need to adapt, innovate and improve to solve problems and achieve results.
THE BIRTH OF AN ADVOCATE Te realization that CGSC would influence my thinking pro- foundly did not come quickly or deliberately. Instead, the seemingly unrelated pieces of knowledge that would enable me to make this connection accumulated gradually as I navigated the coursework. It all came together during the course’s final tac- tics planning exercise. As my small group discussed the scenario, someone suggested that we communicate with the population to help it accept the inevitably of its new reality. I agreed and added two points from previous blocks of instruction, noting that populations that identify and embrace the inevitable are more likely to innovate, and that to create lasting change in a population, you have to address its culture.
CREATIVE TENSION
One of the topics that CGSC students tackle in depth is organizational culture and change—for example, the inherent conflict in organizations between preserving a predictable, stable environment and the need to solve problems and achieve results. (SOURCE: CGSC Department of Command and Leadership)
Te discussion moved on—but I did not. Te simple act of applying principles from other classes to the scenario at hand set off a chain reaction in my head. For the first time, I grasped the potential that these ideas held. By combining the principles of organizational change management, the mission command philosophy and historical context as it relates to innovation and
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Army AL&T Magazine
July-September 2016
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