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# Land and Maritime's Culture Academy sessions re-energize workforce

By Michael L. JonesDLA Land and Maritime Public Affairs Office

                COLUMBUS, Ohio  –              
DLA Land and Maritime is more than half way through its series of six Culture Academy sessions crafted to re-energize its workforce, and the introduction of a revised DLA Land and Maritime Way is one of the cornerstone offerings during the series.

The DLA Land and Maritime Way reads: We provide Warfighter Logistics Excellence through Accountability, Teamwork, Urgency, Agility, and Innovation built upon a Commitment to Integrity, Diversity, and Mutual Trust and Respect.

The DLA Land and Maritime Way is the organization’s internal statement designed to reflect the Land and Maritime’s core values, beliefs and behaviors. Originally, The DSCC Way was conceived in the late ‘90s when leadership forecasted significant changes approaching and their impact on the organization. Desiring to provide a cultural basis to help its workforce navigate through those changes, Land and Maritime leadership empowered a team to develop an aspirational core values statement.  

Additionally, the organization had recently completed the merger of cultures of the Defense Electronics Supply Center and the Defense Construction Supply Center.  The DSCC Way allowed the organization to more cohesively transition into Business Systems Modernization (now Enterprise Business System) and its resultant organizational changes.  In 2009, following the We Are DLA campaign and other organizational changes, The DSCC Way was renamed  The DLA Land and Maritime Way.  

Following the 2012 Denison Culture Survey, Land and Maritime formed a number of Horizontal Culture Action Teams to address issues that crossed Directorate boundaries.  During this time a separate team was formed to review the then 12-year old Way and update it, if necessary, to reflect current cultural aspirations.  Indeed, it is critical to recognize that the Way describes not who Land and Maritime is, but rather the journey to who the organization strives to become! This team included representatives from numerous directorates, detachments, councils and unions.  During their review, the team examined the existing Way and its tenets in great detail while also evaluating other vision/aspirational statements from numerous sources.  The previous Way tenets were updated as a result of this detailed review.

Original Way tenets “Customer Satisfaction” and “Quality” became “Warfighter Logistics Excellence” to reflect the expansion of Land and Maritime’s role in providing its customers a greater breadth and depth of logistics support. 

“Individual Accountability” evolved into a comprehensive concept of “Accountability” to reinforce that ALL DLA Land and Maritime team members (associates, supervisors, managers, senior leaders, and union partners) hold themselves accountable for their words and actions.

“Urgency” and “Agility” were chosen to more accurately reflect actions previously associated with the word “Speed”.  From the team’s perspective, “Urgency” is reflective of how Land and Maritime approaches its customers’ issues/concerns, and “Agility” provides recognition of how the organization adapts to an ever-changing environment.   

“Quality” also ties to “Integrity” to emphasize that Land and Maritime is not only striving to provide quality products to the warfighter, but that the organization’s personal values have a role in guiding how associates do their jobs.

The team felt very strongly that the tenets “Teamwork”, “Innovation”, and “Mutual Trust and Respect” were still very representative of the organization’s cultural aspirations, and decided to keep them in the updated Way.

The team acknowledged that the new tenet “Diversity” has become such an integral part of Land and Maritime’s daily operations and aspirations – from the multitude of backgrounds, perspectives, and thought processes to the increased roles and responsibilities attained by the addition of detached operating sites - that it was imperative to include “Diversity” in the updated Way.  Commitment is another key new tenet, reinforcing Land and Maritime’s dedication to the Way and all its efforts to support the Warfighter.

Don Schulze and Jim Wagner led the team , which included Vickie Diggs (representing the DLA Land and Maritime Culture Council), Monica Oliver (representing the Supervisor Council), Megan Rodino and Jay Hilderbran (representing the Intern Council), Robin Menafee (representing the AFGE), Jeff Schmidt (representing the IFPTE), Leah Bourdeau (representing the DLR detachments), and Carol Everett and Josie Way (representing the Shipyard detachments).  The Columbus-based culture councils were represented by Luna Velez, Norma Rivera Cortes, Michelle Tirey, Chuck Bateman, Julie Van Schaik, Ken Rumbaugh, Kelly Vingle, and Phil Patterson.  

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