U.S. Navy: Steering Strategy With Executive Development

In order to modernize various strategies within the organization, the Navy established a new position, executive learning officer (ELO), to initiate customized learning programs for senior naval leadership. For most of the Navy's history, high-ranking officers were selected according to how well they operated their particular weapon system, whether it was a surface ship, submarine or airplane, said retired Adm. Phil Quast, the first person to serve as the Navy's ELO.

“That's all-important when you're operating submarines and airplanes, but when you get to the admiral level, only about 19 jobs out of the 230 actually involve the operational Navy,” Quast said. “The rest are in a support function, and running the business that supports the acquisition, the training and all the other things associated with building a huge organization like the Navy. So we have to develop those skills at a senior level.”

The ELO provides FLAG/SES-level leaders, made up of between 500 and 600 admirals and their civilian counterparts, with a blended learning program. “It's business-savvy-type instruction,” Quast said. “We try to take the business practices that are being utilized in the private sector.”

“The Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) has articulated a set of enduring corporate competencies required of all Navy senior leaders,” Deputy ELO Jeffrey Munks said. “They include resource allocation, human capital management, change or transformation management, information technology management and leadership. What Admiral Quast has done is created a very rigorous and intensive residential learning experience for Navy senior leaders, called the executive business course (EBC), that builds on those five core competencies.”

The EBC is six-and-a-half day “action learning” program. “The current leadership said, 'We need to pull these folks out of their primary jobs for a week at a time to give them some time to reflect and interact with other people at similar levels in the organization working on similar problems, so we can start formalizing the exchange of information and experience,” Quast said. “We'll have a lecture from an academic. We'll then follow that lecture with examples. Usually a FLAG officer will come in who's working an issue that reflects some of the concepts that were discussed.”