Streamline Training & Documentation: Coast Guard Grad School

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Coast Guard Grad School

Having marked the long Memorial Day weekend with posts dealing with training in the US Marine Corps, US Army, and US Navy, I want to round out this series today and tomorrow with some thoughts prompted by recent training reports concerning the US Coast Guard (today's post) and the US Air Force (tomorrow's post).

As a Navy brat and a member of the US Naval Institute, I have long-time exposure to the culture of the military. As I suspect most everyone knows, the military culture includes a very serious approach to training, since effective training is so fundamental to successful military performance.

Earlier this year, the US Naval Institute Proceedings published an article by Francis J. Sturm, a Coast Guard captain, titled "The Coast Guard Needs its Own Grad School." Sturm's central point is that

The Coast Guard needs a staff college that allows junior officer specialists to transition to senior officer generalists, a staff college that will help break down inter-program stovepipes, and one that will serve to educate rising leaders as strategic thinkers and analysts. It must also stand as the service's center for strategic analysis and research.

Sound familiar? The need to help employees acquire high-level skills, such as strategic thinking and big-picture analysis, is certainly not restricted to the military. Nor is the need for research and analysis facilities that support innovation.

In fact, there is a clear parallel between what Sturm is saying and the growing number of companies that have set up their own corporate universities. These companies aim to provide progressive training that fits the company's values, mission and strategies, and is very much embedded in the industry-specific environment in which their professionals are working day-to-day.

The most productive corporate universities use a combination of distance learning and classroom sessions to build critical thinking, management, and collaboration skills. They support networking among participants. And they maximize the real-world, company-specific content of the problems participants tackle in their training.

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Labels: Employee development, Military training

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