Admiral Allen's keynote was videotaped; I'm told the plan is to get it online for everyone to view. In the meantime, here's more, as filtered through my eyes.
We live in a transparent society. There is a ubiquity of information which has become a part of our organizational profile, like it or not.
One of Admiral Allen's primary goals: Not to reorganize, but for the Coast Guard to become a change centric organization... which, in part, involves learning how to learn again. And, we must become not only individuals who learn, but an organization that learns.
And, those who are coming behind us have different cognitive styles. It's not just traditional generational differences. It has to do with differing cognitive styles, and it's not as simple as when you were born...
A related issue: being able to handle change, to embrace change, to surf through change rather than to be battled by wind and waves. For many of the Coast Guard's mid-level managers, this change is difficult.
One of the change issues facing not only the Coast Guard, but all organizations today, is that the young people today don't join organizations. They Facebook and MySpace and whatever. We are in a new era where human endeavor is organized differently than what we imagined growing up. We organize and affinitize ourselves with those who share the same interests and passions and missions, but those coming behind us are organizing and affinitizing themselves in networks, not organizations.
14 years ago
2 comments:
Did Allen actually bring up transparency?
Yup.
Where possible, I've used the words used by the speaker... in this case Admiral Allen.
If I get my act together, I'll have a bit more about this in the next day or two.
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