A major overhaul across the services is taking shape that involves several goals including sharing joint force all-domain warfare principles, executing tighter timeframes for technology development and acquisition, and focusing on agile innovation and implementation for readiness optimization. However, while these initiatives are necessary to drive a cultural shift that increases speed and coordination across services, they are insufficient for developing sustained modernization. Rather, the final hurdle to achieving these goals is the need for ongoing human support to ensure initial recommendations continue to be supported, followed, and augmented as needed.

Often referred to as the “valley of death,” technology, training, and innovation initiatives are challenged during the research-to-operations translation phase. It is rarely recognized, however, that the phase from implementation to sustainment is equally important.  Long-term use of technology requires gaining organizations to be open to, capable of, and most importantly, supportive of change.  Additionally, organizations must ensure that change agents put in place to lead initially are also mentored and coached to promote sustained growth.  The US military, however, has struggled to create the supporting structures, policy, and resources required to ensure initiatives transition to long-term augmentations across the force. 

In response, the US Navy has established a working group focused on a) promoting the need for personnel coaching to ensure sustained action, b) clarifying the return-on-investment coaching can have as part of the greater suite of services within MyNavyHR, and c) operationalizing the Navy’s set of 21^st-century signature behavioral expectations. The MyNavy Coaching effort exemplifies a full-scale method for sustaining enhancement promises that could be implemented force-wide. Accordingly, this paper addresses the issues facing the implementation of change, how HSI and organizational change methods can simplify the approach, and finally how to utilize the work of MyNavy Coaching to guide future efforts.

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Additional Keywords
Sustainment, organizational change, manpower, talent, HSI, implementation, coaching, acquisitions management