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Navy Launches Fleet Business Course
Story Number: NNS041001-09
Release Date: 10/3/2004 2:00:00 PM
From Commander, Fleet Forces Command Public Affairs
NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- Navy leaders around the fleet are now required to complete the new Fleet Business Course by Nov. 30.
The course is an advanced leadership continuum that introduces a new vocabulary and culture that will help train leaders to be more effective and efficient.
“We’re providing our leaders with some inspiration and understanding, and a few tools they can use to maintain our warfighting culture, with the added dimension of business discipline,” said Rear Adm. James Winnefeld, director, Warfare Programs and Transformational Concepts, U.S. Fleet Forces Command (FFC).
Sea Enterprise, one of the three supporting processes in “Sea Power 21,” introduced the notion that the Navy can no longer afford readiness at any cost.
“Although the demands of our wartime footing and the need to recapitalize have spurred efforts to be more efficient, the American taxpayer rightfully expects we do so as a matter of routine,” said Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command Adm. William J. Fallon. “We can and will continue to exercise fiscal discipline in achieving combat readiness by undertaking a fundamental change in culture, one that incorporates a continual, rigorous evaluation of the costs in preparing for combat, and the assumptions that drive those costs, Fallon added.
Realizing the critical importance of educating Navy leaders as a part of this cultural change, FFC, working with the Naval Education and Training Command and Center for Naval Leadership (CNL), produced a computer-based training course that provides practical instruction to command-level leadership in basic business principles and practices.
“In our research, the Navy’s culture change takes a very big effort,” said CNL commanding officer Capt. Douglas McDonald. “It takes time, it takes money, it takes investment.
“Fleet Business is an introduction to the concept, a clear articulation of the importance of ‘Cost-Wise Readiness’ and a primer on some of the tools that are currently available to be more ‘business-like’ in our approach in what we do on a daily basis in the Navy,” McDonald said.
The eight-hour course is available online through Navy E-Learning at www.nko.navy.mil. It is divided into three parts: an introductory video, a module on cost and capability analysis and case studies in process improvements, which illustrate concepts such as Lean, Six Sigma, and Theory of Constraints that have proven track records of success in both private and public sector organizations, including examples from Navy commands.
Commanding officers (CO), executive officers (XO), department heads, command master chiefs, chiefs of the boat and senior enlisted advisors will be required to complete the course by Nov. 30.
“We’re not only targeting COs, XOs and senior enlisted leaders,” Winnefeld said. “There are also many other leaders who serve in a variety of assignments that need to understand these principles, as well, and we’re going to push hard to see that as many people as possible take this course.”
FFC has also established a business practices Web site at www.fleetbusiness.navy.mil, which serves as a central repository of information on fleet business strategies and policies, recommended reading, links to other valuable sites, and a Web-based system to collect and disseminate best practices from the fleet and reward personnel for innovative suggestions.
“This is not about checking the block in yet another new leadership technique or applying the latest business trend,” said Winnefeld. “This is about Sailors getting fired up to learn about being smart business people, and applying best business practices and ideas to improve the way we use the resources entrusted to us for our nation’s defense.”
For more news from around the fleet, visit the Navy NewsStand at www.news.navy.mil.
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