I like the idea of the bottom-up approach and the ...

2009-11-06T17:17:34.255+02:00

I like the idea of the bottom-up approach and the informal networking. It seems to me the blogosphere is helping in this regard and your blog is a perfect example. A couple of challenges come to mind.

1) Many officers will not engage in such learning as they are not as interested unfortunately. It seems to me many of our peers are interested in making the dough-nuts but are less inclined to think on the "intellectual" level that you and I know is needed to win today's wars.

2) Making the dough-nuts is a real full time job in and of itself. It's hard to fault somebody who has little time for family life.

3) Attempts to formalize education runs the risk of being counterproductive (I'm thinking CBTs). But I think if PME style online forum participation, reading assignments, and discussion was part of everyday work life (maybe a small reading assignment once a month) that would be very useful as long as academic freedom was enforced and the myriad of experiences and views were not only tolerated but encouraged.

Good thoughts.

I am a Coast Guard officer currently assigned to t...

2009-11-04T21:55:07.154+02:00

I am a Coast Guard officer currently assigned to the Leadership and Professional Development office at HQ (a tiny office in HR) and I'm living this everyday. I completed a CG-funded grad degree in leadership at the University of Pennsylvania about a year ago and eagerly looked forward to my assignment. I am also a pilot (helos) flying operationally for 6 years before getting grad school and getting my followup desk job in DC. My father (a former AF officer) told me about your blog and I've enjoyed reading it very much. You're ideas are good and are some of the things I've thought about a lot too. I was a little niave coming into my job thinking the problem was our lack of funding as a small service, but I soon discovered the problem was even more severe...it wasn't lack of funding, it was that they didn't think we had a problem. We've got junior officers screaming for PME, professional development, or anything beyond "sink or swim" on-the-job training, but the leadership response is "show me where its broken. show me where we're not succeeding." I can't quantify frustration, i can't quantify broken hearts, I can't quantify losing "best and brightest". I've come to conclude, as it seems you have, that it's up to us. We have to grow out the old by starting our own "insurgency" in the bottom ranks. It will take dedicated JOs who will do these things in spite of lack of support from the top. It will be on our own time mostly and the only reward will be learning and getting better. I've also come to conclude that the only way our voices are heard is through writing and getting published. After reading your blog and talking with my father and some mentors, I've decided that I need to make writing a discipline and start a blog to record all my ideas and thoughts that I have written on scraps of paper in books and in drawers all over my apartment. Also we need to start getting JOs to publish in professional journals. Maybe we should start writing clubs in addition to reading clubs. I'm also looking at a project to capture stories. As an aviator I learn more from others stories and mistakes than I do from any proficiency course or flight manual...I think that can be translated for leadership. Keep writing your thoughts and ideas...we're reading, and it's always good to know we're not alone in our thinking. One final thought...we need to find a way to start teaching JOs how to teach...leaders are teachers.

Comments on Building Peace: Complementing PME with Bottom-Up Learning

I like the idea of the bottom-up approach and the ...

I am a Coast Guard officer currently assigned to t...