Page 197 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE LESSONS

somebody to the force. If he or she referred a new recruit that actually
signed up and made it through basic training, that referring soldier would
get the reward. We figured nothing’s better than a soldier coming home
for a leave and seeing his buddies and saying, ‘Hey, the Army’s a great
organization and I’m doing something for the country, and I feel good
about myself; you should join too.’ It really, really paid dividends. We
ended up with a much bigger virtual recruiting force than we really had,
although we significantly increased our numbers of actual recruiters too.”
The result was that in 2006, the Army’s active component had its most
successful recruiting year ever, bringing in 80,000 new soldiers. Thanks to
Harvey and Schoomaker’s leadership, the Army was granted the authority
to increase its forces permanently to 547,000 by fiscal year 2012.
Harvey is particularly proud of his and Schoomaker’s effort to make
the Army stronger and more efficient by implementing the Army Business
Transformation initiative, a servicewide plan to improve the quality and
productivity of the all of the Army’s business practices. The initiative
was based on corporate methodology called Lean Six Sigma, which is
designed to increase responsiveness and cut the waste of both money
and time. Harvey and Schoomaker launched the Army Business Transfor-
mation initiative in 2005. It is still ongoing and has resulted in significant
cost reductions.
There were other notable advancements under Secretary Harvey too.
To improve the quality of life for the troops, Harvey redirected $250 million
to renovate 20,000 substandard barracks that were home to thousands of
soldiers and ordered that the job be completed in its entirety within one
year. That mission was accomplished. When he saw troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan taking matters into their own hands and outfitting their
vehicles with additional armor to try to protect themselves from roadside
bombs, Harvey ordered Army engineers immediately to design, test, and
qualify the strongest armor additions they could muster. It was done, and
Harvey sent the troops in the Middle East more than 14,000 customized
armor additions to strengthen their Humvees. To support injured troops,
he established the Army Wounded Warrior Program, which helps soldiers
rejoin society after an injury and gives them assistance—especially with
their medical needs—for at least five years. Under Secretary Harvey’s
guidance, the Army’s casualty reporting, notification, and assistance
procedures were revamped totally when it became known that some

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