Six Defense Logistics Agency employees recently had a chance to enjoy a cup of coffee and discuss the agency’s future plans with leadership during an informal gathering in the cafeteria of the McNamara Headquarters Complex Nov 26.

DLA Director Army Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly and DLA Senior Enlisted Leader Air Force Command Chief Master Sgt. Alvin Dyer candidly discussed the agency’s new strategic plan, to the need to be flexible in response to changing warfare conditions, agency retention and understanding the importance of data acumen.

While leadership regularly receives employee feedback in more formal ways, such as surveys, Simerly said these informal coffee events are a way for he and Dyer to find out what employees actually have to say.

“We came up with the ‘100 Cups of Coffee’ theme as a way for the chief and I to engage with you all to describe our new strategy, think about the conditions we’re operating in, and get a sense from you all not just what you think about the strategy, but what you think about DLA, your experiences, and anything you think we need to know that would influence outcomes for the agency as we make decisions about the way forward,” Simerly said.

Simerly told the group he and Dyer visited DLA’s major subordinate commands over the last two months, speaking with leaders and participating in town halls at each location.

Simerly’s favorite part of these events was when the microphone was turned over to the audience. The prepared questions and responses seemed “less interesting” than turning the mic over to the crowd, he added.

“Part of what I conveyed to them in each of those locations was the elements of the strategy and the urgency for transforming the way we accomplish our mission,” he said.

“It’s really based upon what’s changing in the world, what’s changing in that character of warfare that’s driving all the services and combatant commands to change.”

Noting that DLA has a 63-year-long history of supporting warfighters, the agency always rises to the challenge, he said.

“We say DLA was built to change, but it’s also built to last because we have this enduring mission that’s indispensable. Nobody else can do what we do on behalf of the Department of Defense,” he said. “So much hinges on us. We have to be very conscious of our plans and whether it’s calibrated effectively to support the future, given the changing conditions of warfare and the acute threat in Russia and the pacing threat in China.”

The threat to logistics in the battlefield and operational fields, in all levels and domains of war, is contested logistics, he said. Overcoming those challenges formed the four transformational imperatives of the new strategic plan: people, precision, posture and partnerships.

“We want to operate in ways that give us decision advantage and operate at the speed of war. We can’t wait for wartime to see what we’re going to do. We need to rehearse that through exercises and training now,” he said.

Dyer said it is important to be very deliberate, yet agile, when introducing a new strategy.

“There are so many aspects of transformation right now. We have to be very much in tune with that,” Dyer said. “This is our opportunity to hear from you, based off of what you see and what you hear out there, because you’re the first ones that are going to be impacted by this.”

Introducing a new strategy is tricky, and problems with accepting the plan are usually a sign that it isn’t clear or achievable, or there’s been a lack of communication to the workforce, Simerly said. Communicating and even over-communicating the plan early in the implementation phase is critical, and that’s why the cups of coffee event is important.

“I tell people we shouldn’t only be supply chain management experts. We have to be change management experts, and every leader has a role in re-emphasizing why we have to change, what it is we’re doing, and then hold ourselves accountable,” Simerly said.

When attendees asked about changes to the agency’s telework policy and if the current policy has had any effect on attrition, Simerly said the changes made to telework in January were important in bringing employees together, but the policy is being evaluated. He added that the agency’s attrition rate has less than 1% above average turnover rates since January.

On the topic of data acumen, Simerly noted there are several courses, called data journeys, available to employees to learn more about this skill, with more opportunities available in the near future.

Mackenzie Geary, an executive assistant with DLA Human Resources who started working for the agency Nov. 18, was one of the employees who attended the cups of coffee event.

“Being a new employee and hearing the actual strategy of what is going to happen in the next five years, I think it sets the tone as a brand-new employee,” she said.

Army Col. Thomas Brooks, DLA’s chaplain, also attended and said it was helpful to hear questions from the people who do the day-to-day work at the agency.

While he knows about the strategic plan from larger group settings, Brooks said he still got a lot of good information from this informal gathering and better absorbed it in the smaller session.

Participants for future 100 Cups of Coffee events will be nominated from within their organization for future events.