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Above: Most students at the Naval Postgradu- ate Academy are Navy lieutenants who have completed five or six years of service and have just finished tours of duty at sea. This is a crucial window of time when officers can pursue their educations before returning to duty. This year, NPS' Graduate School of Business and Public Policy accommodates approximately 200 majors. Each year's cohort is slightly larger than the last, putting the program near its maximum enrollment capacity, says its dean Douglas Brooks. Left: A representative of the NPS' Graduate School of Business and Public Policy discusses its management and public policy program with a potential major. going to get anywhere. In business, for example, the Chief Financial Officer's Act requires that companies submit auditable financial statements. But the DoD wouldn't be able to put together such a report because its systems are so ineffective. I think in the broadest sense the government is trying to become more accountable and more like a busi- ness," says Berg. In exchange for their business expertise, sense of all the conduits of information and bring these departments together. "Until we get our systems to talk to each other, we're not business schools that work closely with military organizations are receiving a good deal in return. Specifically, they can take advantage of the military's long history of effective leader- ship. Leadership is one of the military's strongest skills. Students in military educational institutions are often together 24 hours a day, eating their meals together and living in the same halls together. They work as teams on classroom projects and in their training maneu- vers. That atmosphere creates a living "leader- ship laboratory," says Col. Kevin Davis, head of the department of management at the U.S. Air Force Academy. In modern warfare, it's important not only to be able to outfight the enemy, but also to outthink the enemy. We need intellectual warriors. —Dean Douglas Brooks, Naval Postgraduate School that themilitary has to take amuch different perspective when it comes to how it allocates its resources. "Many businesses might choose efficiency at the expense of effectiveness, but effectiveness is the military's bottom line," says Kolditz. "The U.S.military can't ever fail.Wemust be effective first and effi- cient second. However, once we determine what we must do to be effective, we can increase our efficiency through offer- ing formal business training and using business principles." An Even Trade Integration is one area where the military has much to learn from business. Departments and offices within national and local governments simply don't talk to each other. It often takes someone with a management perspective to make 56 BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2004 ever before," says Davis. "We have added a class on leader- ship, but in essence, the entire institution is centered on the idea of leadership. Every day, the cadets are leading them- selves and their own squadrons. They always have duties that involve operating and running themselves as units. So all day they focus on leadership and integrity." Military strategic planning, too, has much to offer busi- "Leadership is at the forefront of our studies more than ness, adds Berg of Syracuse. "Long-termstrategy has become very important. Business can look atDesert Stormor the cur- rent operation in Iraq, for example, for lessons in personnel management and training, how to motivate people and keep them informed," he says. "We're seeing an increase of focus on strategy. One of the problems business has always had is