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US Navy & Marines Accelerate Change

In an 18-month project to equip leaders with new insights and tools for the people-side of change, this initiative created a 43% increase in participants’ readiness to cope with the complexities of organizational transformation.

Overview

Situation: The US military continues to undergo significant change to address the changing global context, but in an organization with strong tradition, it’s not easy to bring people on-board for change. One of the functions of the USN Chaplain Corps is to advise and support commanders — in some ways like an HR Department in companies; as part of this role, they needed to learn how to make the Navy, Marine Corps & Coast Guard more change-ready.

Solution: Six Seconds was invited to deliver a two-day workshop for senior commanders on emotional intelligence and change. Based on insights from this pilot, a 1-day program was developed for in-house delivery and then Six Seconds’ experts delivered a 3-day program at bases around the world to build capacity for the people-side of change.

Results: The Six Seconds program provided a strong toolset for equipping leaders to become more effective at mission-critical process of transformation. The program equipped USN Chaplains & staff to become measurably more effective as change agents who could understand and manage the human dynamics that drive the success of change.

“As I see it, training is expensive, good training is valuable and your training was priceless. I’ve attended a lot of training over the years — I’ve delivered a fair share of it myself — but your ‘Inside Path to Change’ workshop was the most productive combination of captivating content, quality materials and engaging instructors I have experienced in a long, long time. Six Seconds had the whole package wired. I wish everybody in my organization could have been there.”

– Dr. Albert Hill (a participant from the USN education team in the pilot training – who became a mentor from the larger program)

Situation

Just as many companies face the need to become more adaptable and transformational, the armed services are engaged in similar rethinking and restructuring.

The US Navy Chaplain Corps serves the US Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. One of the Corps critical responsibilities is to advise commanders and assist them in managing the readiness and wellbeing of the warriors and sailors in these services. In this role, the Chaplains and their enlisted aides (“RPs”) are heavily involved in the human side of the changes.

Under the direction of Rear Admiral Robert Burt, the Chief of Chaplains from 2006-2010, the Corps undertook a series of initiatives to better equip the Corps for understanding and managing the human and emotional dynamics of change.

Solution

The two-day “Inside Path to Change” workshop was delivered to a group of senior Navy and Marine Corps officers and RPs, including officers from the Navy Education Training Command. Following this initial pilot, Six Seconds was commissioned to:

Develop a customized 1-day introductory version of The Inside Path to Change focusing on the theory of EQ and change
Deliver a Train-the-Trainer program to 20 officers with experience in training
Support the officers to deliver the 1-day program to approximately 1000 Chaplains, RPs, and staff in the subsequent year
Customize a 3-day followup program called “Ministry Tools for Times of Change” focusing on tools for increasing awareness and managing human dynamics of change
Deliver the Ministry Tools for Times of Change in fleet concentration areas the US and world to build internal capacity for Chaplains to share these skills in their areas of service

Results

Program participants identified the program’s key benefits included expanded toolbox for understanding and driving the people-side of change

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INCREASED AWARENESS

Awareness of the emotional dynamics of change: 39% increase.

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METHODS FOR CHANGE

Processes and tools for working through change dynamics: 43% increase.

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TOOLS FOR EQ

Tools for teaching about emotional intelligence: 58% increase.

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Products & Services Delivered

EQ Skills

SEI – Six Seconds’ Emotional Intelligence Assessment is a validated psychometric tool for measuring emotional intelligence, used with over 250k people worldwide.

Develop EQ Experts

To build capacity to develop and implement their programs, members of the team completed certification training from Six Seconds to build expertise on EQ tools and methods. Read more about Six Seconds Certifications.