Agreed! I've certainly seen it happen where top level performers go to someone else's team, another organization or a competitor/

Mario,
Great post.

I'd only add one caveat base on my experience with volunteers, you can identify organizational bottlenecks and practices that prevent low performers from reaching middle level performance. This really may not be a caveat because it isn't about individual focus at all, rather it is an organizational focus which looks at an entire population of performance. Also, these folks you unleash by dealing with process or bottlenecks seldom become top 5% performers... your highest performers don't let processes or bottlenecks stand in their way in the first place.

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe we need to get Ryan out of the Command Center from time to time.... just kidding Ryan :)

Guess the question is: If the MH-65D meets the requirements does it make sense to look at a replacement or do we eventually just buy more as we wear out the airframes. This avoids the development issues (Just look at Marine-1 or USAF CSAR projects), retraining of aircrew/ground crew/cutter crews and yet another logistics tail. The project risk on a new helo seems really high these days. Makes sense to me that we strongly consider how to buy more.

Steve, I can't comment on the personal impact of the transfer season but I have seen the impacts. It is particularly acute when a department has large turnover.... it never seems to be 33% of people PCSing, rather things are stable for awhile and then you get a big change.
The GAR analogy is outstanding, we should do a whole series of posts using the GAR meme. Welcome to the team Steve, it is great to have you aboard.

MrJT, agree 100% on Winter Dress.

Resident Auxie says.... Those images actually look fairly good in the original (hi-res and no silly mirror metaphor) but some of them have been saved/screen captured and and re-exported so many times that the colors have gone crazy such as the two tone pants on the female auxiliarist. I've seen this one before and it makes me cringe for more reasons than I care to count. As a side note Winter Dress Blue is still an authorized uniform in season for us on the silver side. We'll give it up when we have a data system that wasn't built in 1991 :) Cheers, Daren

Ryan,
Let's add the RB-S, the resultant reduction in boat forces complexity, and the improvement in mission execution to this list.

Agreed, thank you Mr. Wells

Very true Anonymouse: Hundreds in this case = a little over 200 years if we include accurate longitude which became effective with the invention/use of the marine chronometer. Interestingly the first marine chronometers were reported to cost 30% of the price of a ship (or so says wikipedia)... work that out relative to the cost of an NSC and you get something like a $120m watch :)