Recent Blog Posts
Part 1: Are We Asking the Right Workforce Questions?
The Security Cooperation Workforce as a Case Study Workforce conversations across the Department of the Army often circle around the same HR language. We talk about recruiting, retention, competencies, training, succession planning, and hiring timelines. Sometimes the terminology changes depending on the audience, but the themes remain remarkably consistent. These…
More Than Training: Making Civilian Capability Visible
One of the most common misconceptions I hear as the civilian career program manager for International Cooperation and Strategic Planners career program (CP60) is that everyone in CP60 is a strategist. I understand why. For years, strategic planners have been one of the most visible communities within the Career Program.…
Developing Capability or Funding Activity?
How Do We Know It’s Working? An Army career program exists for a reason. That reason is not to fund training courses, fill seats, or distribute opportunities. Those activities matter, but they are not the purpose. The purpose is to develop civilian capability in support of the Army’s mission. That…
Fund Civilians Like Strategic Assets
The civilian workforce isn’t underdeveloped. It’s underinvested. The Department of War says it wants civilians who can operate at the strategic level — people who can think long-range, integrate across domains, and contribute meaningfully to national-level decision-making. Yet the funding model for civilian development tells a different story. Military Participation…
The Federal Workforce Says It Wants Strategy
But Often Rewards Compliance Instead Federal systems increasingly use the language of strategy while continuing to rely on workforce structures optimized for procedural execution, localized accountability, and risk containment. As a result, procedural safety is rewarded more consistently than adaptive strategic behavior — the ability to adjust to changing conditions…
Shana Jespersen 