• Provide supervisors with a responsive and
flexible on-line management tool for main-
tenance, supply, and manpower functions
• Improve the accuracy and timeliness of
existing off-ship data reports without
increasing user workload
COUNSELING PERSONNEL
One of the most important aspects of the chief
petty officer’s job is providing advice and
counseling to subordinates. CPOs who make
themselves accessible to subordinates will find
they are in great demand to provide information
and to help in finding solutions to problems.
The purpose of this section of the chapter is
to present an overview of the basic principles and
techniques of counseling. This section is not
intended to be a course in problem solving, nor
is it intended to provide a catalog of answers to
all questions. This section will, however, give you
an overview of general counseling procedures,
some guidelines to use in the counseling process,
and a listing of resources available as references.
A point to remember is that counseling should
not be meddlesome, and the extreme, of playing
psychiatrist, should be avoided. But neither
should counseling be reserved only for a
subordinate that is having problems; you should
also counsel subordinates for their achievements
and outstanding performance. Counseling of a
subordinate who is doing a good job reinforces
this type of job performance and ensures
continued good work. Counseling of this type also
provides an opening for you to point out ways
that a subordinate might improve an already good
job performance.
Counseling the subordinate who is doing a
good job is relatively easy, but a different
type of counseling is required for a subordinate
whose performance does not meet set standards.
This section teaches you how to counsel the
subordinate whose performance does not meet
established job standards.
In general, this section can be used as a guide
to counseling personnel on professional, personal,
and performance matters. Also, the basics
presented here apply to counseling subordinates
on their enlisted evaluations.
PRINCIPLES OF COUNSELING
Counselors should set aside their own value
system in order to empathize with the person
during counseling. The things the counselor may
view as unimportant may be of paramount
importance to the counselee. We tend to view the
world through our own values, and this can
present problems when we are confronted with
values that are at odds with our own. If persons
in your unit think something is causing them a
problem, then it is a problem to them, regardless
of how insignificant you might believe the pro-
blem to be.
The objective of counseling is to give your
personnel support in dealing with problems so that
they will regain the ability to work effectively in
the organization. Counseling effectiveness is
achieved through performance of one or more of
the following counseling objectives: advice,
reassurance, release of emotional tension, clarified
thinking, and reorientation.
Advice
Many persons think of counseling as primarily
an advice-giving activity, but in reality it is but
one of several functions that counselors perform.
The giving of advice requires that a counselor
make judgments about a counselee’s problems
and lay out a course of action. Herein lies the
difficulty, because understanding another person’s
complicated emotions is almost impossible.
Advice-giving may breed a relationship in
which the counselee feels inferior and emotionally
dependent on the counselor. In spite of its ills,
advice-giving occurs in routine counseling sessions
because members expect it and counselors tend
to provide it.
Reassurance
Counseling can provide members with re-
assurance, which is a way of giving them courage
to face a problem or confidence that they are
pursuing a suitable course of action. Reassurance
can be a valuable, though sometimes temporary,
cure for a member’s emotional upsets. Sometimes
just the act of talking with someone about a
problem can bring about a sense of relief that will
allow the member to function normally again.
Release of Emotional Tension
People tend to get emotional release from their
frustrations and other problems whenever they
have an opportunity to tell someone about them.
Counseling history consistently shows that as
persons begin to explain their problems to a
4-26
