Leadership for Intelligence Professionals   

An Ongoing Change Effort: Developing "A Vision"

in the Coast Guard

Background

“The Coast Guard is quietly undergoing the most dramatic restructuring since before World War II.  Over the past two years, the nation’s oldest sea service has begun thoroughly revamping its basic headquarters structure and major field-level commands, redesigning its logistics and maintenance systems, streamlining its bureaucracy, and replacing its antiquated budgetary and financial processes. It has been strengthening its traditional ‘surge’ tactics for handling emergencies by establishing a new Deployable Operations Group that resembles the adaptive-force-package approach long used by other services.

“It is also expanding and solidifying its role---and influence---in the Department of Homeland Security, increasing its day to day involvement with other services, becoming more active in international security efforts and repairing its relations with Congress….

“Behind this gargantuan new effort is Admiral Thad W. Allen, the service’s 23^rd Commandant, who assumed the post in May 2006….

“Can he succeed in steering the Coast Guard into the 21st century?

The Leader’s Vision

‘“He’s a tremendous leader’, says Robert Work, ‘A lot of service chiefs come in and have all sorts of projects in mind, without any broad idea of what they want to do during their terms in office.  Allen came in with a very clear idea of where he wanted to go….

“The Admiral’s current conviction that the Coast Guard needs to change didn’t come as a bolt of lightning the day he became Commandant.  Like many senior officers [he] had been collecting examples of good and bad policies throughout his career.  He had been figuratively ‘putting them in a little bag’ to be taken out if he eventually rose high enough in rank to do something about them. ‘To some extent,’ he says, ‘I’ve been unpacking that bag.’”

“Admiral Allen began developing the plan well before he actually took office. 

A Vision for an Organization

‘“The big challenge that the Coast Guard had after 9/11 was that it was heading over a cliff.’ Says Stephen Flynn, a retired Coast Guard officer….

“Moreover, the array of new missions successive administrations and Congress have piled on the service, particularly since 9/11, have exacerbated the problems.

“Although the Coast Guard emerged as the hero of the Katrina debacle…Allen say its performance as having ‘raised some red flags’ that displayed some of the service’s weak points and vulnerabilities as well as its strengths.

‘“I’m trying to change the culture and structure of the Coast Guard to make it a change-centric organization that’s more capable of sensing the external environment and very subtle changes in demand signals from of our constituencies,’  he said in an interview.

“…Allen has presented his restructuring plans---clearly, openly, and with a personal style that has won converts, or at least wait-and-seers, from the most skeptical chiefs.

Developing A Vision for an Organization

“As soon as he learned he’d be named Commandant, he set up a modest transition team that outlined the issues and analyzed the options.  Once in office, he set up a special Strategic Transition Team to oversee the restructuring…

“Expectedly, this massive revamping, which is hitting the service like a Coast Guard-blue tsunami, is causing some angst among more senior ranks---flag officers, captains, commanders, and some civilian workers---particularly at the Coast Guard’s dowdy headquarters building at Buzzard’s Point on the Anacostia River in Washington, where insiders say that change-fatigue is palpable.  Even so, Allen remains a popular figure among rank-and-file Coasties of all stripes, and both Coast Guard personnel and outside critics appear to be largely behind the new Commandant, applauding his drive for change….

“While the reshuffling has had many senior officers wringing their hands, it hasn’t sparked much discontent and complaining from younger Coasties---either officers or enlisted personnel.  Part of it is that while the changes Allen is planning eventually will have an impact on almost every Coastie, those he has implemented so far have primarily affected his flag officers and senior field commanders.  Rank-and-file Coast Guard personnel are only beginning to see the changes in their own daily jobs.

“From the day he took office, Allen has deluged the rank-and-file with all- hands e-mail messages and regular updates in which he provides plain language explanations of what he thinks need fixing, what he is doing about it, and how it will affect them.  He has made contact with some 30,000 of the services 42,000 members , partly through hundreds of speeches and personal appearances a Coast Guard units.

“…Pointed questions are answered with straight-from-the-shoulder replies…. 

“A new ‘Commandant’s Corner’ Web site (www.uscg.mil/comdt/) features talking-points Allen wants to get across to the troops.  

Sustaining A Vision for an Organization

“Allen’s reorganization effort isn’t the first the service has launched….It was reorganized in 1946, at the end of World War II, and again in the 1980.  Three years ago, the service created 35 sector commands….and none was actually completed. 

“Almost as soon as Allen took the oath, he began issuing the first of what are now the Ten Commandant’s Intent Action Orders, or CIAOS…And he has issued regular situation reports that amount to a scorecard on what’s been accomplished so far.

‘“I would be disingenuous if I said there was no resistance to change in the Coast Guard’, Allen conceded…. But I think it is in layers.  As you start to move up from a senior O-4, O-5, O-6, they have a career invested in a certain pattern of learning and experiences on which they’re creating their expectations or aspirations for future success in the Coast Guard.  They feel that’s changed.  That’s a threat.  That’s a concern for them, and we have to manage that.

Leading Changes Requires Inspiring Communications

“What has really won over many Coasties is the admiral’s own dynamic style and personality.  A no-nonsense man who reflects broad experience…and exudes confidence about what he’ doing.  Allen is able to speak knowledgeably and in detail….without resorting to cautious phraseology….”

Source

Extracts from “Admiral Allen’s Blue Tsunami” by Art Pine In the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings, August 2008