The panel featured Admiral James Loy, former Deputy Secretary of DHS and head of the TSA, now at the Cohen Group; Dave Mader, former Assistant Deputy Commissioner of IRS who is currently a principal at Booz Allen Hamilton; Thomas Modly, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Financial Management at the DOD; Jacqueline Myers, Associate Deputy Chief of Business Operations at the Forest Service; and Ronald Sanders, chief human capital officer for the Director of National Intelligence.

Here’s Dave Mader on his experience at the IRS:

The IRS’s transformation began with the formation of a Congressional committee to study the restructuring of the IRS. The concern was that the IRS had lost touch with its customers – the citizen taxpayers. In other words, the IRS had become overly concerned with a sole performance metric: revenue dollars.

The recent restructuring at the end of the last decade achieved two things:
- Fulfilled a need to rethink tax administration and remodel along the types of tax filers—small businesses, individuals, multinational corporations, etc. In the process, the IRS drove through a series of personnel reforms—administrative, personnel, technological—that played out over a two-year period.
- Established a five-year term for the IRS commissioner, as opposed to the prior average of about 2 years.

Lessons Learned:
- Continuity of leadership and the vision of a leader are extremely important. The IRS transformation would have been impossible without the leadership of then-Commissioner Charles Rossotti.
- Forging agreement on the objectives of transformation among all stakeholders was critical. With broad consensus among the key stakeholders (including Congress, OMB, and the organization itself), the IRS was able to focus on the two key elements of its mission: customer satisfaction and productivity.

Ron Sanders on Transforming the U.S. Intelligence Community:

Sanders argued that leading transformation requires rewriting the organization’s genetic code, and that this must be done through personnel and human capital.

In the national intelligence directorate, the challenge was to “connect the dots” among the hundreds of thousands of intelligence personnel, civilian and military, that fulfill the intelligence’s mission. Earlier failures to do so were clearly stated in the Report of the 9/11 Commission. So DNI’s challenge is to integrate the various intelligence “tribes” (Sanders noted that this is how they call themselves), despite the fact that the DNI does not have chain of command authority over each individual tribe.

In this situation, the DNI has relied on the intelligence community’s overarching sense of mission. Sander noted that commitment to the job on the part of intelligence professionals is palpable, and extremely powerful. Here are six tools for effecting change at DNI:
- Vital signs: Find out where you are before you decide where you need to be. Compare yourself to the rest of the federal government and see where you stand.
- Vocabulary: Change the vocabulary of the whole organization to speak the same language. Net-centricity is one example of this flattening in place of the old chain of command hierarchy.
- Vectors: Documents such as the National Security Strategy and performance agreements ensure execution of the mission.
- Viruses: Change the migration patterns of the “tribes” and make sure they marry. Towards this end, the department recently instituted new joint-duty requirements for flag officers (to be phased in over 3-4 years). The requirements are “a hard line in the sand,” but it will make change a reality.
- Values: Embed core values into human capital systems. DNI is achieving this by making accountability of personal performance, integrity, and other core values part of the organization competency models.
- Virtual Villages: DNI now publishes the analytic Yellow Pages for the analytic community, which enables information-sharing.

Tom Modly on business transformation at the DOD:

Tom Modly opened with an example of how DOD has successfully transformed its war-fighting mission: electronic health records and health care, which have produced major improvements caring for battlefield casualties.

But the DOD’s business mission has not kept up with its war-fighting mission. DOD realized this a long time ago, but the focus became on getting clean financial audit. Unfortunately, no one was passionate about financial audits. One of Modly’s central arguments is that change leaders have to use the things that organizations are passionate about to enable and sustain change.

At DOD, there are 4,000 plus business systems, and almost none of them are interoperable. Long-term, sustainable transformation requires distribution throughout the organization—it cannot all be concentrated with one person. DOD’s transformation is a 10-15 year exercise, at the least.

Jacqueline Myers on lessons learned at the Forest Service:

Business process transformation at the Forest Service included three major elements: financial management; human resource management; IT transformation. Each area had dozens of offices wit everyone doing things their own way. In practice achieved results in natural resource management, but failed in business process management.

Here are some of Myers’ lessons learned from the Forest Service business process transformation:
- Engage with stakeholders. Make yourself available to them. This engagement is continuous and requires a lot of energy, so you will need to be ready.
- Performance accountability is essential. You must be able to prove to people that even though things are different (and maybe a little more difficult at first), improvements are being made and things are getting better.
- Don’t be afraid of independent review. Getting a view from an outside audience, whether another agency or a NAPA-like organization, can be very helpful.
- Daylight information: Bad information is not bad, because now you have information that you didn’t have before.

Here’s Admiral Loy on leading change at Homeland Security:

Admiral Loy began by noting that change and management of change is really hard – this is a key first acceptance factor. Second, you need the capacity to develop and articulate a message to your stakeholders that is consumable.

Loy restated President Eisenhower’s three elements of leadership:
- Native ability: this is your genetic make-up, and you can’t do much to change it.
- Opportunity: Opportunity is serendipitous, so make the most of it.
- Knowledge of your craft: Put your energies into this, because this is the element of leadership you have the most control over.

In two years, the Transportation Security Agency hired 60,000 employees at 341 worksites and revolutionized the supply chain for a wide range of training requirements, products, and business processes. On top of that, it was a “fishbowl” environment in which they were under extreme national attention and the expectation was failure.
Yet over a period of two budget cycles, the newly-constituted Department of Homeland Security went from 19 business processing centers down to just two. Loy stated that his time at TSA and then as Deputy Secretary at DHS were “the longest four years of my life.”

And highlights from the Q&A:

How do you handle resistance to change?

One way is to do an informal market segmentation.
- One-third of the organization has the capacity to be change agents.
- One-third isn’t sure which way to go.
- One-third is active resistors.

The key is to focus on the first two-thirds—especially the middle third that isn’t sure whether to participate in change or resist it.

At an organization like DOD, folks look up to the leader. Establish alliances with these change agents and make them highly visible.

Another important step is to involve the widest range of organizational stakeholders in designing the changes and new business processes. Doing so will help validate the design process, and in the process you will have enlisted new change agents.

On the question of the DHS reorganization, Admiral Loy argued that legislative oversight has not made kept up with executive branch changes. For example, there are 87 committees and subcommittees that have some partial jurisdiction over DHS. This has created inefficiency on the legislative side.

On dealing with change exhaustion:

Fatigue, whether from change or from routine work, is going to happen in the government. It is a major challenge. So there must be an inspiration piece that speaks to the nobility of the work.

- Tobin Bradley, Foreign Service Officer at the State Department, who served as a political advisor in Southern Iraq and organized 15 local elections there. Bradley is on his way to Princeton to receive a Masters Degree in Public Policy (as part of his professional development).

- Subhashree Madhavan of the Rembrandt Project Team at the NIH, who helped create a database for aiding cancer research and new treatment product development.

- Nicole Nelsen-Jean of the Department of Energy, who helped lead US negotiations with Russia over better securing nuclear materials and weapons which led to the creation of a service and training center for nuclear security in Murmansk, Russia.

The session opened with a glossily-produced video feature on the three professionals. Then Bradley, Madhavan, and Nelsen-Jean talked about their careers and how they got to where they are today.

- Commitment to the mission – public servants are extremely dedicated, energetic, etc.
- Being an agent for change – when people complain about the system, these public servants are in position to take note and create change.
- Making a difference – the biggest reward is how much you help people (citizens) – whether it is cancer patients or the general public (in the case of national security).
- Mentoring – mentors played a major role in these professionals career development; inn Nelsen-Jean’s case it was a key factor in her decision to become a public servant.
- Raising the bar – public service often puts young people into a sink or swim situation. All of them had superiors who pushes them, presented significant opportunities, and shared major responsibilities.

Performance-based public management is about moving from a procedural focus to an emphasis on results. That means trading in the control and command system of government for government by contract.

These concepts present a number of challenges for governments around the world. Methodological challenges include:

- Internal pricing problems – what is the value of various outputs and outcomes?
- Data collection – the more you refine your outputs, the more problematic it becomes to obtain data (in particular, regular data flows).
- Indicator selection – be very careful with these. Changing indicators is a source of tremendous frustration among staff and program managers.
- Attribution and allocation of back-office costs – how does payroll relate to waste management in terms of outcomes and measurements?
- Capital – accounting for capital.
- Trusting data – In developing countries especially, there is often minimal trust in data, which makes performance indicators ineffective.

Around the world, results-based initiatives are still in the early adoption stage. Developing countries are more in the infancy stages. Ray Rist did a rundown on world leaders in results-based evaluation. Here are some success stories:

Middle East: Jordan and Egypt.
Africa: Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, and South Africa.
South America: Chile (world-class).
East Asia: Korea (world-class). But India and China are also making competitive efforts.
Eastern Europe: Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Romania.
Central Asia – Kyrgyzstan, especially its health system.

In Rist’s view, the interesting action in result-based management is in the developing world, since the scale of everything is so much greater than in the developed world.

The essence of the PART is the performance measures – determining a program’s desired outcomes and how to measure them. But the PART is not standardized – not nearly much as it may appear – because it is employed in very different contexts, from evaluating outcomes of radiation prevention to R&D. This creates a number of challenges:

- Existence and availability of external, independent reviews of programs.
- Measuring results for prevention or research programs. How do you measure readiness or preparedness?
- Finding a comparable program for reference and comparison. When you are PARTed, it is worthwhile to see what other programs have submitted and how you relate. But the EPA’s indoor environments program found it difficult to find a comparable program.

Here are some observations on the relationship between the OMB program examiner and program manager:

Kenneth Gold kicked off the session with some sobering statistics:

Hill Staffers
1980: 8,000
Now: 20-22K

Registered Lobbyists
1982: >1000
2006: 15-35K (120K+ individuals working in lobbying)

Congressional approval rating: 23% approval rating of

Congressional incumbent return rate in 2004 election: 99%

Email + postal mail received in Congressional offices in 2005: 200 million+

Earmarks in Transportation bill
1982: 10
2005: 6000+

Here are some highlights from the conversation:

- DoD and State currently have a problem dealing with Congress because many Members feel like they were mislead by the information they were presented prior to voting the authorization for the Iraq War.

- A major obstacle to dealing effectively with Congress is communication – agencies like DoD use too many acronyms and too much jargon, leaving member or staffer totally in the dark.

- Martin Frost: I can’t count the number of times after agency presentations I had to say to the agency representative or my staff, “Now, explain this to me in English.” Young staffers in particular are very unfamiliar with agency jargon.

- It’s very important to understand the target audience of Hill staffers – many are very young and they are all overworked. Thick reports and acronyms rattled off do not impress them. They want the whole thing in one page, with access to additional information. Agencies should strive to become the best resource for a quick 15 minute briefing on issues or topic areas.

- Agency think they need to focus on experienced committee staff and that they can ignore young personal staff – but young staff will be committee staff in the future.

- Most committee decisions are viewed through the election prism, so it’s necessary to have a dialogue with the chief of staff and district directors.

- Each member’s office is different – some may have a chief of staff who is only political, while others have a chief who is partially on the committee payroll and who does legislative work.

- More experienced staff know the issues and the facts – they are in it for the love of politics.

- Only the director of an agency will typically get time with Members – and you need to provide the read ahead so Members can learn about the issue in advance.

- If you’re going to ask for a Member’s time, better make sure it’s important.

- Army Corp of Engineers is one of the best agencies that Congress deals with. They have the district director/engineer come to Washington at least once a year to give a simple presentation of every Corp project going on in Member’s district. Members can spend 30 minutes and get all of their questions answered.

- The Social Security Administration also has a great reputation for working with Congress. They are skilled at dealing with members and staff, and responding to inquiries in a prompt way. They put on regular seminars and open houses, and invite congressional staff to local offices for updates on changes in the law and how to better respond to constituent inquiries.

- The US Marine Corp is another top agency when it comes to working with Congress. The congressional liaison staff takes guidance direcly from the Commandant of the Marine Corp. They focus on about 5 issues, and they work those issues very methodically. They have identified every former Marine in Congress. They are always accommodating. Also good at getting favorable press treatment.

- Members of Congress are not the enemy – they are highly motivated to serve the public good. They want the country to be successful and want to do what’s necessary to us a better country.

Foresman argued that homeland security is not the sole responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security. It is also the responsibility of the state, local, and federal governments – DHS’s job is to coordinate and orchestrate all those pieces.

There remain major challenges for the nation’s emergency preparedness, including:

Despite these difficult challenges, Foresman is optimistic about a “cultural shift” occurring in government, made up of professionals who are more collaborative and less likely to stove-pipe.

- Nomination battles: Conventional wisdom is that this is the year for Democrats.
- However, both republicans and democrats have seen very divisive primaries and nominations, often letting the “less than best” candidate get the nomination for both parties. The result is that many races have both sides being less competitive than expected.
- International factors to consider: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, gas prices.
- Indictment factor: Tom Delay, Conrad Burns, Enron – the Democrats are pushing a “culture of corruption” campaign on the Hill. But many people believe the corruption is on both sides of the aisle.
- Immigration debate: Can a compromise be reached?

- In general, there has never been a time when there is a greater gap between rhetoric and reality. What Congress and the President say is different from what they do – this is bad news for federal managers.
- The result is unusual pressure on the federal budget in the future.
- This is not new: 1980s budget deficit exploded in size and was not solved until the late 1990s.
- What can we learn from the 1980s?
* No one gets credit for trying to balance budget; in fact, you are often the “bad guy” for trying to budget balance. Examples: Senators Dole and Domenici tried to balance budget in 1985 by cutting Social Security, and in 1986 the Republicans lost control of the House.
* President Clinton tried to raise taxes in 1993 to balance budget, and Democrats lose the House in 1994.
* Success balancing the budget in 1997 because moderates ruled: Democrats agreed to domestic spending cuts and Republicans agreed to minimal tax increases.

Key looming issues for the federal government budget include:
- Medicare/Medicaid entitlement spending growing quickly. Congress finally addressed this issue somewhat this year by trimming some entitlement spending by $40 billion.
- Estate tax.
- Appropriation spending -- this will be the target for the near future. Since no one is willing to reduce entitlement spending and no one is also willing to raise taxes, the only way to deal with the budget deficit and “impress” constituents is to cut government spending and waste by taking aim at the federal budget.
- For this reason, President Bush is asking again for line item veto, even though it won’t have a major impact on spending.

Company Commander.com is the most dynamic blog the Army is using today, according to Tribus:
- CompanyCommander.com is an ongoing electronic discussion forum in which company commanders share information, enhance the way they learn, transmit experiences, identify the learning curve. It is an Integrated Learning Model.
- The site enhances the speed at which knowledge is transmitted. Commanders now have a medium for disseminating knowledge without having to go through a 12-month chain of command process.
- The forum is self-policing. If someone posts unsound advice or inaccurate information, other people correct it.

CompanyCommander.com has taken off in a new security and institutional environment:

CompanyCommander.com has developed a number of other functionalities, and offerings include:
- A virtual library for commanders.
- Live video steaming with experts (for example, General Barry McCaffrey).
- Recommended reading list. For example, field officers in Afghanistan tell troops in training what to read about the Taliban; and troops in training can then interact with and seek expertise from officers in Afghanistan over the site.
- Quick production of informal “training guides” that are based on individual stories/experiences.
- Lessons Learned are more readily disseminated through the site.

An audience member asked how an officer in the Marines might access this data on CompanyCommander.com, which is restricted to Army personnel? Tribus argued that this is a key issue that the Department of Defense must address in its effort to promote knowledge sharing and make US forces more effective. This problem of information sharing drives to the heart of the transformation that must take place in the Armed Forces, and which is just beginning to take place at the DoD.

The panel kicked off with some general rules of Washington networks:

-All administrations change, and nothing is permanent. That extends to political control, and Republican and Democratic preeminence is always time-limited, even if it doesn’t seem that way at the time.
-Everyone comes back to Washington—and the next time they’ll be a bit more experienced than last time. For example, in 1992 the new Clinton team was the Carter team with more grey hair.
-Networking has always been extremely important. Everyone is so focused on their respective jobs that there is a real need to be able to branch out to other “specialists” in the government to get a very important job done. This reality becomes more pronounced the farther up in the ranks you go.

A key element of networking in the federal government is the interactions between political appointees (PA) and Career Civil Servants (CCS):

Professor Ferrara advised on the best ways to establish relationships between PAs and CSSs:

- PAs must make it clear that they represent the administration, but also that they need and want the ideas of the CSSs.
- CSSs must make it clear that they have the knowledge – but that does not give them the authority to run the show.
- The debate right now in establishing the PA-CSS relationship is over whether is it better to come in with a huge agenda ready to tackle everything, or to come in with a few key ideas and a targeted agenda.
* On the one hand, the “crusader” seems to not care about the agency culture or long term experiences of the CSSs.
* On the other hand, the “smart agenda” seems to have no strategic vision.

One important function of the Inspector General (IG) is to bring together the PAs and the CSSs. The IG should:

- Inform the PAs of the ground rules and regulations, and remind the CSSs of the political sensitivity of various issues at hand. The IG often has the difficult task of making it clear who will give orders and who will take them.
- This process is inherently not efficient, but this is the nature of the checks and balances at play in this relationship.

Here are some tips on how to make the IG experience work:

- Get your PA on the same page as you are before testifying before Congress (make sure everyone has the same info and knows how it will be interpreted ahead of time).
- If both the IG and the PA are in agreement, there is usually no reason to drag out hearings on the Hill.
- This usually makes any issue at hand a “1-2 day issue instead of a 3-6 week crisis.”

One of the IGs best resources is his/her network, both formal and informal:

- Formally, there is the IG Council.
- Within the Council, there exists a system of informal networks that develops whenever an issue arises that that only concerns a select group (e.g. intelligence, foreign aid reform, etc.)
- The value of these informal networks here cannot be overstated since they often create a way to move forward on stalled issues.

While most government employees go through the bureaucracy and regular chain of command to complete a task or mission, informal networks often emerge and take over when there is a looming crisis and the normal chain of command is just not fast enough.

Another frequent cause of this is when you need to find resources that you can’t get through the normal channels. Core.gov is one indicator of the growing use of informal networking.

Pink used the human brain as a metaphor for his central argument that today’s economy puts a premium on different skills and abilities than yesterday’s economy:

Yesterday = Left side of the brain
Today and Tomorrow = Right side of the brain

Abilities that are characteristic of left side of the brain—logic and analysis, spreadsheet and SAT talents, remain absolutely necessary for today’s workers. But those skills are no longer sufficient. All of us in the workplace now need skills associated with the right side of the brain—artistry, empathy, and big-picture thinking.

Pink cited three trends as support for his thesis (which all happen to start with the letter “A”):

- Asia – Pink argued that offshoring is massively over-hyped in the short term but actually under-hyped in the long run. The key, Pink said, is that routine work is beginning to go away, and will continue to disappear. What side of the brain is routine? The analytical left side.
- Automation: Software can replicate routine white collar work. Before, law school could rightly be considered a degree (skill) to fall back on, but there are online divorce sites which will be your divorce lawyer for a much cheaper price. Or online diagnosis (Your Diagnosis). Or your taxes (Turbotax).

Based on these trends, Pink concludes that “right brain abilities are first among equals.”

For example, high-tech is increasingly becoming a commodity, as opposed to high concept and high touch, which are not. Here are Pink’s six abilities for the new economy:

- Design – not just function. Pink exhibited the 2000 Presidential ballot in Florida as an example of how design can change the world, suggesting that Gore’s loss was more due to the visually confusing ballot than to the Supreme Court’s decisions in the case.
-Symphony – not just focus. Symphony is the “killer app” for organizations. Seeing the big picture and putting it all together are more important than being able to focus on one thing.
- Empathy – not just logic.
- Play – not just seriousness. Pink cited GoArmy.com, a downloadable video game for recruits, and FoodForce.com, a public relations tool of the United Nations.
- Meaning – the search for meaning has been democratized, and we are transitioning from material want to meaning want. At its best, the federal government delivers meaning because of its transcendent purpose.

Pink closed his address by saying that managers/leaders in the federal government already do many of these things, have these abilities, etc. Now is the time to put them to use.

Wilkerson, who is now Visiting Professor of Government at William & Mary, had this to say about the contributions of government professionals:

- In the history books, you will find that the politicos accomplish really very little. And the accomplishments are made by you, the government bureaucrats, who build teams. In essence, you are keeping the country running while the politicos are doing other things.

The centerpiece of Wilkerson’s argument was that there are two main models for agency leadership styles and for assuming the leadership post (for a principal, i.e. Secretary):

- The Baker model, named for former Secretary of State Jim Baker, in which the principal comes in and pays scant attention to the professionals (in the State example, foreign service officers, civil service officers, etc.), while bringing in a coterie of political appointees. In the Baker model the “building” is ignored, and it runs on autopilot for as long as the political appointee is around.

- The Powell model (also pioneered by former Secretary of State George Shultz): In this model, the Principal has examined the department well in advance of the assumption of duties. He/she decides that they are going to be the CEO of the agency, not only the President’s principal foreign policy advisor.

- Powell’s tolerance level for dissent was incredible, Wilkerson said. He had an unusual ability to tolerate dissent and incorporate that dissent into his final decision, then make those within his aura know how much influence they had over that decision.

- Wilkerson shared several stories about Powell’s achievements in government, including one about how Powell helped transform the Joint Staff into the premier military staff in the world (Wilkerson claimed it had previously been one of the worst) by abolishing all special staff groups. The removal of the “Iron Colonels,” as Wilkerson called them, facilitated a flattening of the organization and provided a major morale boost.

Following are some of Wilkinson’s comments on other topics:

On the Bush Administration:

- Wilkerson argued that ideology took preeminence with this administration, citing the 2002 National Security Strategy and its famous pre-emption doctrine as proof. He also cited former Undersecretary of Policy at the Pentagon Douglas Feith as an example of an overly ideological political appointee, saying that Feith “in my estimation was a card-carrying member of the Likud Party.”

- Wilkerson recounted how the strong moral disconnect he felt with the Bush Administration (over detainee abuse scandals, among other things) nearly led him to resign. “To this day I probably regret that decision” to not resign, he said.

- A number of thinly veiled referenced were made to John Bolton, currently US Ambassador to the United Nations and then Undersecretary for nonproliferation at State, being a perpetual thorn in Wilkerson’s side.

On Congress:

- Wilkerson called the Goldwater-Nichols Act probably the last piece of sound legislation impacting our national security bureaucracy to come out of our separate but equal branch (Congress).

- Wilkerson called Congress’s committee structure “an anachronism,” saying that “it is ridiculous” and costs the country billions of dollars every day.

Barbara encouraged us to write or doodle ideas, questions, etc on the table before us, which was covered with paper.

At each table we were given a question to discuss. Here’s one of the questions from the session: “As a government leader of a project, organization, or team, what major challenges do you face or anticipate as a leader of a multi-sector workforce?

Here’s another: “Leaders, by the nature of their role and positions, are responsible for getting results through people. What important talents, skills, attitudes and knowledge do we keep to make us effective in leading a multi-sector workforce?”

There was a great deal of talk about the relationship between contractors and career government professionals, as well as between military and civilian personnel. Different work rules, security clearances, pay and benefits.

- Dissatisfaction with SES – The group seemed to agree that the SES is antiquated in a number of ways. One example: flexible schedules.
- Diversity of experience as a value for leadership – Exposing leaders to diverse situations, different field sites, contractor workforces, etc. Rotations, work details, and stretch assignments were cited as models.
- Overcoming resistance to managerial and leadership development. Still a lot of prejudice against it, inertia.
- The Multi-generational workforce -- the young working alongside the older and the retiring.
- Federal sector needs to better understand other constituencies in the multi-sector workforce.
- Teamwork – again, civilian and military was a major theme here.

NAPA plans to take these themes, along with the table writings, back to headquarters and post them on the NAPA website.

Admiral Harvey gave a striking example of the challenge at hand, comparing naval platforms of the past, present, and future:

Qunicy CA-71
Commissioned: Dec 1943
Crew: 1142
Sensor Range: 60 miles
Weapon Range: 18 miles
Battlespace Awareness: 60 miles

- Small cadre of highly skilled crewmembers
- Much of crew was effectively cannon fodder
- 1000 young white men – all others were limited to cooking and cleaning

Cape St Geogere (CG71)
Commissioned: June 1993
Crew: 380
Sensor Range: 256 miles
Weapon Range: 800 miles
Battlespace Awareness: Theater wide

- Much more highly trained crew, but still possible to operate fully without 10%
- Reflects diversity of nation, but still heavily white and male

CG (X) 71
Commissioned: In development
Crew: 150
Sensor Range: 500+ miles
Weapons Range: 1000+ miles
Battlespace Awareness: Global GIG

- Dramatic increase in capabilities requires dramatic increase in crew capabilities, and every crewmember is absolutely essential.

Here are some other key comments from the panel:

- Need to tell reservists up front that they should expect to be deployed.

- Focus of personnel transformation is getting the right person with the right skills sets in the right place at the right time.

- Millenials, the current under-25 generation, is more focused on giving of themselves to a cause greater than themselves (WWII generation doesn’t have anything up on these young folks), yet they also require greater flexibility in how they structure a career in the military – the military needs to provide more career choice as well as “off ramps” and “on ramps” that enable flexibility.

- Need to rethink how long it takes to acquire skills – goal is to shorten timeframes by using “intense experience” as a substitute for more leisurely skill acquisition.

- Pilot programs are key – not necessary to commit the nation to a result in advance. Military leaders can go up to Hill and say, here is something that we’d like to try, and the Congress has been very receptive. Pilots allow for experimentation and learning before deploying programs on a large scale. It’s a step-by-step process, not a sweeping end run around past approaches.

- As to the challenge of expanding diversity, there are specific efforts to recruit heritage speakers. With minority officers, it is an issue of college degree completion. The military needs to connect with key influencers in the community, and with future recruits at a younger age. Talking to high school juniors and seniors is five years too late – need to inform influencers, networks, and prospective recruits about what the incentive is to make it through college.

- As to reaching a diverse pool of prospective recruits, the military is moving beyond “mainstream media” (Univision, Telemundo, and Jet Magazine) into text messages on cellphones, podcasts, and highly targeted Internet sites.

- Regarding key cultural barriers to military transformation, the military is a largely successful enterprise – at what point do you let the old players go and start planning for future? Need to show the new approach is at least as good as the old.

- Military is a “zero defects environment” – need to be really sure about not making a mistake, because stakes are so high. Mistakes live on 5-10 years.

Kirk noted that there are now four recognized career stages: school/training; job; a high-activity life after retiring from a primary career; and full retirement. OPM surveys show that 60 percent of state, federal and local government employees work after initial retirement, he said.

Under orders from Congress to improve retirement financial literacy, OPM is pushing a three-part model involving wealth planning, networking and social engagement (that is, what you’re going to do with your life after retirement), and overall health. Kirk handed out print copies of OPM’s Retirement Readiness Questionnaire, which he said would be available in online form starting late this fall.

Tammy focused on three tips in her segment: