Jon Bartlett has been with the New Zealand Military for 16 years and is currently posted in the Napier Army facility, where he mentors all members in the NZ Army within the Hawkes Bay region. With the New Zealand Military’s commitment to career development and further education Jon was encouraged to undertake extra study tuition. He decided to complete a New Zealand Diploma in Business Management through eCampus NZ to assist in his everyday job as a mentor/trainer.
eCampus NZ was attractive to Jon as it offered him flexibility and he thought the papers pertained well to his current role so he would be able to use the learnings throughout his career.
The thought of studying online was initially intimidating to Jon due to the perception he had of needing prior experience with the online program. Looking at it from a military mentality Jon said, “it’s always going to be hard initially, you just have to try and find a routine and once you find that routine you can then massage a few things within your control.”
Jon’s routine for study was dedicating two to three hours from 3.00pm each day for study, which is when he would usually do physical training. Jon would complete the study in his office where there were no distractions and would try to schedule any appointments and work commitments prior to this time.
On review of his study there were a few papers that really stood out to Jon and which he thought complemented the New Zealand Military’s ethos and values. They were the papers on leadership and culture.
“The paper on leadership related to our way of leading teams. It gave me other opportunities to assist in building teams and enhancing my leadership with overall a better result. Another big learning curve for me was the paper on culture. It helped me realise that culture is a formality that you create, which needs buy in from all members and implemented by key influential members in order to create normality to then become one’s culture.”
The diploma also provided Jon with more tools in his toolbox to utilise when mentoring, advising, leading and training all members.
Jon wouldn’t hesitate to study with eCampus NZ again in future and his advice to others interested in studying is “don’t be afraid to study online, in the beginning it has its difficulties but once you get a rhythm it becomes part of your natural routine.”