NWDC Guest Speaker Series: Culture Expert Discusses Strategy at NWDC
19 May 2022
NORFOLK, Virignia -- At Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC) today, a Navy Senior Leadership Development Program (SLDP) instructor discussed culture change and the importance of connecting with people.
Chris Armstrong was formerly a culture executive for two Department of Defense/Intelligence Community agencies and is now co-owner of Veritas Culture. He is one of the instructors for SLDP, which provides leaders with the skills necessary to lead Navy command employees through organizational challenges. SLDP seeks to further the development of attendees’ organizational leadership capabilities.
Armstrong’s presentation reframed organizational culture, in order to help people understand why culture challenges surface year-after-year despite constant changes to policy, structure, and people. He urged the audience to begin to explore and distinguish the human-centered root causes of culture challenges.
“I want people to truly and openly reflect on what has been attempted in the past in attempts to improve culture,” he said. “They should also examine why those things have not improved the culture to the degree necessary. By truly and openly reflecting on these things, people should then ask themselves, ‘What needs to be done that has not been done?’ More importantly, ‘Why has it not been done?’
“Culture change needs a sea change,” Armstrong said. “A movement from processes and overly programmatic approaches to more human-centered approaches that get to the heart of root issues like High Personal Association and Institutional Distrust.”
For more information, please contact Armstrong at
chris@veritasculture.com.
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NWDC develops and integrates innovative solutions to complex naval warfare challenges to enhance current and future warfighting capabilities. Command professionals are focused on operational-level concept generation, warfighting development, and cross-domain integration to strengthen U.S. Navy warfighting.