Culture team meets during leadership summit

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. -

Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services Culture Action Team met during the Annual Leadership Summit which took place Jan. 27 - 30, at the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center in Battle Creek, Mich.

With CAT members stationed in locations nationally and internationally, the event provided a moment to discuss plans, priorities and coordinate future initiatives while in a single group setting. Real-time discussion was also important with both new and diverse members of the team.

"We have a mix of newer and more experienced DLA employees that include General Schedule and Wage Grade folks, veterans and non-veterans, and we have folks that have private sector backgrounds as well," said Shon Thomas, strategic planning specialist and CAT culture champion. "That range of experiences is a real boost the team and [DLA] Disposition Services as a whole."

Thomas was also focused on two additional goals from the CAT getting together, which were finishing the first draft of the program Standard Operating Procedure to formally codify the Culture Program, and to develop a leader's guidebook to organizational culture, which he felt they made great progress with.

The event provided team members with a chance to update leaders about the most recent Defense Organizational Climate Survey where results reflected positive trends for the organization. There was increased attendance with the survey by an additional twenty percent from 2024 to 2025. There was also improvement indicated across nearly all measured factors.

"The results indicate that we're making positive headway to improve the employee experience at [DLA] Disposition Services, and we couldn't have asked for better results," said Thomas. "My intended takeaway for our leadership from this presentation was simple: thank you for what you're doing - it's working. Leaders own the culture and climate of the organizations that they lead. Based on the 2025 DEOCS survey, they're doing a great job."

DEOCS is a Congressionally mandated unit-level climate survey that is available to all military commanders and Department of War civilian organization leaders. The survey collects information on unit or organizational climate.

Some of the top specific factors from 2024 to 2025 include:

• Growth in 'Transformational Leadership - Organization Leader' from 67% to 72%
• Increase in 'Supportive Leadership - All Immediate Supervisors' from 71% to 81%
• Both 'Engaged & Committed' and 'Cohesive Organization' categories rose three percent to 91% and 74%, respectively.

These factors and more were briefed to DLA Disposition Services Director, Mike Cannon, who took time to express his gratitude to the CAT members who were in attendance.

"Thank you for helping me to get people to take the DEOC Survey, because if I spent just five minutes conducting a one-on-one conversation with every employee, it would take me over six months of full time eight hours a day, five days a week," Cannon said. "It's initiatives like this that allow me to get important information from the whole organization, so I appreciate this because provides me with good actionable comments that can lead us to make some good positive changes or solidify things that we are doing really well in."

The team plans to meet again during the October Leadership Summit at HDIFC.