National Guard student finds MLTD program combines her passion of psychology and leadership
I love thinking about why people are the way they are, what makes us human, and what goes into our development from infancy through adulthood. I took one psychology class in high school, and I found it fascinating. That led me into developmental psychology at the University of Minnesota, which I graduated from in 2015.
At the time, I was already in the National Guard, where I’ve always enjoyed understanding best practices when it comes to influencing and leading others. That led me to a minor in leadership. I joined the National Guard when I was 17, right out of high school. I always joke I had a convincing recruiter, but honestly, just being able to serve and be a leader and still attend school was a huge thing. I enjoy having positions of responsibility and stepping into challenges to accomplish things.
After I graduated from the U, I started working full-time for the National Guard, doing a few different jobs in operations and mobilization readiness. I’m now a supervisor of a case management team that works across Minnesota to help improve the quality of life for soldiers and families. One day a co-worker of mine told me about the master of learning and talent development [MLTD] program in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development. I was in a different master’s program at the time, and it was not clicking. It was not what I was expecting, and I was frustrated and wanted to quit. I was talking to her about those frustrations, and she spoke of this program. “It’s more of the soft skills” is the way she phrased it. In talking with her, it sounded like a nice blend of what I really like about psychology, but also what I really love about the military and being able to work in organizations and improve operations. It sounded like a perfect fit.
Grinsell receiving distinguished honor grad at Military Police Captains Career Course.
(Photos courtesy of Sadie Grinsell)
Grinsell, with family after her 2015 graduation from UMN.
I want to be able to help improve organizations. My classes have been extremely informative in how to think about them. I’m a big believer in that organizations are only as good as the employees that work for them. If the organization has an unhealthy environment, the employees will suffer, organizational commitment will suffer, and the organization will struggle to be competitive in its market. I want to be able to help organizations build better foundations and better environments for their employees because ultimately, we spend so much of our time at work. We shouldn’t hate showing up there.
This program has given me a new perspective on organizations and how everything links together. It’s been interesting how often these classes have aligned with what I know about the military and I’m realizing that the military and businesses are pseudo similar in their organization and structure. The two classes that I’m in right now have been my favorite so far: Consulting for Organizational Change and Strategic HRD. A big takeaway from the consulting class is walking an organization through exploring its problems, finding a solution, and implementing that solution. If you can do that, it will innately help an organization see itself. The strategy has been so fascinating to think through. That’s the one that is most similar to the military and it’s familiar to me: the internal and external analysis that has to be done to truly understand the problem. In the military, there’s a formal process called MDMP—military decision-making process. They’ll pull in experts from every field, like personnel, supply, mobility, and protection. They come in and essentially do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis to understand what problem they’re trying to solve and determine the strategy to solve it.
One thing that really appeals to me about the program is that it’s made for working professionals. It’s such a benefit to be working in a job while going through this program because almost every class has had a project or paper where we can use our organization as the case study or the model for the topic of the paper. They run the course through modules where you have several weeks to complete all the coursework for that mod. This was beneficial because I was actually deployed to Kuwait with Minnesota’s 34th Infantry Division when I started this program. I was able to be deployed, work in a nine hour time difference, and complete all the assignments. And all of that while still getting the most out of the course and not feeling like I was missing out on any of the course information. I appreciate that they structured this program knowing that having a job will benefit the learner and the organization, because we’re able to share insights we learn with our organization.
Right now, I work for the National Guard, but after graduation I’d like to transition more into the civilian side of things. I would love to work for a Minnesota company, whether that’s Cargill, General Mills, or 3M. And the MLTD program will get me there. I’m very, very happy that I found this program.
— Sadie Grinsell
Sadie Grinsell (BA ’15) is a student in the master of learning and talent development program in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development.
Photo by Jairus Davis