Page 23 - Navy Journal 219

Hierarchy of Needs ...

A natural question that might arise from the preceding discussion is how
should an officer prepare for the development of her/his career? The following
might provide some answers:
a. An officer is to be prepared to qualify in examinations (qualifying,
suitability, entrance, etc) as soon as she/he becomes eligible, or as soon as
the opportunity arises. She/he must always prefer pure professional
courses (specialisation, staff course, war course, etc) to academic ones
(eg, a second graduation in Law, masters in Engineering, etc).

b. Officers are to set their target for professional achievements high, but
not too high as to be impractical or unrealistic. For example, it is natural
for a Lt to commence preparations for qualifying in Lt Cdr ‘Q’
Examinations as soon as she/he makes a Lt. It is always better judgement
to set the target slightly higher than own assessment of her/him. So, a Lt
might target to qualify the Lt Cdr ‘Q’ exams in the first attempt instead of
intending to qualify in three attempts allowed.

c. An officer may always start to prepare for the next exam or course as soon
as she/he clears the previous. Therefore, an officer might start preparing for
staff college entrance examinations soon after making a Lt Cdr.

d. An aspiration might be split into several segments so that the main goal
can be attended with good preparation. For example if one intends to
appear in the staff college entrance examinations, she/he might:

(1) Be steadfast so that nothing can prevent her/him from appearing;
though there might be a plethora of reasons for doing exactly that.
(2) Collect books and other reading material well in advance so that
later actions do not go ‘half or slow ahead’ due want of any.
(3) Sort out a personal study routine, and follow that dedicatedly.

(4) Check out with other examinees to find whether her/his
preparations need further retuning.
(5) Practice writing answers to probable questions, and time those.
This will free up handwriting, and allow her/him to attain a good
sense of time during the actual event. Such writing will also allow
forming a mental framework for intended answers.

(6) While appearing in the examination, one might:

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