MCPON Gathers Senior Leaders For Annual Forum (NAVY TIMES 03 NOV 14) ... Mark D. Faram Suffolk, Va. – Nearly all of the Navy’s top enlisted leadership converged here for a three-day annual summit, the Leadership Mess Symposium, to discuss ways to help sailors focus on their jobs at a time of larger uncertainties about defense budgets and fleet plans. This “mess,” some of whom came from the farthest flung Navy bases, includes all fleet, force and command master chiefs who work for flag and general officers or senior defense officials. Every year, they meet to get briefed on what the Navy’s leadership is thinking and pass on what their sailors are telling them. “It’s my conference, but I’m as much a participant as they are,” Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (AW/NAC) Mike Stevens told Navy Times at the Suffolk, Virginia, conference center hosting the meeting. “The reason we meet is, it’s the primary way the Navy’s most senior leaders can be face to face with their senior enlisted leaders in one place.” This year, the chief of naval operations and the vice chief spoke to the group, along with the chief of naval personnel. “Senior enlisted leaders owe their people information. A lot of the discussion is at the operational level, some of it from senior leadership is very strategic in nature,” Stevens said. “What I’ve asked them to do, is to absorb that information and translate it for sailors so we can communicate it at the tactical level.” Stevens says this annual in-person meeting is an important forum to host an exchange between top admirals and their senior enlisted advisers; it’s also a good venue for Stevens to build trust and camaraderie among his mess. “They can read my emails, they can listen to my all-hands calls,” Stevens said, “but until I look them in the eye and have a conversation with them, there may be trust, but not at the same level. You can only build trust from a distance so far.” Stevens’ theme for this year’s meetings is “Control what you own,” one of the tenets he set for all his chiefs when he started as MCPON in late 2012 to encourage enlisted leaders to focus on their sailors and the things they can improve. Topics discussed have varied from such world crises as the Ebola outbreak and the Islamic State group’s advance to Navy specifics like the recent changes to the deployment plan and the effects future sequestration could have on families and sailor-related programs. It’s a discussion, not a lecture, Stevens said. “They all have the opportunity to ask questions and weigh in,” he said. “And believe me, these master chiefs are not afraid to weigh in with comments and sometimes advice.” MCPON wants these discussions to filter down to the deckplates, and trusts his fellow senior enlisted to share that information and guidance with their commands. “What matters is what you do with what you’ve learned here, and I ask these leaders all the time what they feel they should tell their sailors and how they expect to deliver that message,” Stevens said. ”If you come to this symposium and all you do is listen and walk away and keep that knowledge in your head, then you’ve probably not made the best use of your time.”
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 23:00:00 +0000