How do you evolve a support culture into an operational one?

Lt Col Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 06:47:54 -0500

The culture of the Air Force Cyber/Comm Community has been in flux every since we were called "ops." The goal of our leadership is to truly evolve the cyber into ops but the biggest obstacle to that goal is the help desk culture we have in place. You cannot just tell your subordinates, "you are now ops, act like it" then get frustrated when they are not being "ops". Fellow Cyber Airmen/Rally Point, what are your thoughts on this?

Response by Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS made Feb 26 at 2016 7:42 AM

Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 07:42:26 -0500

You've always been "Ops" however your focus has been "Support" (end user) instead of "Direct Mission."

It's a change in philosophical outlook or culture as you said.

If we were the business world, it would be converting "overhead" into "sales." As an example, most big box stores have cashiers (overhead aka support) and sales staff (direct mission or operations). A simple thing like getting your cashiers to ask "did you find everything you were looking for today" converts your cashiers into secondary sales staff. It makes them "think like operators." The "Would you like fries with that" concept.

It's an incremental shift in mindset, that they are PART of the operational team rather than "supporting" the operational team.

It's not really the mission itself, it's how you look at the mission.

Response by MSgt James Mullis made Feb 26 at 2016 9:31 AM

MSgt James Mullis — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 09:31:21 -0500

At first glance one might think that a jet sitting on the tarmac, fueled, loaded with bombs and bullets, and a fully trained aircrew sitting in an Ops building is worthless without a specific mission. However, the Aircraft and Crew sitting on standby serves a vital mission. The simple fact that your troops wait for a call from a field organization does not mean that they are not meeting "Operational" needs.

In your place I would ensure that your troops understood their "Operational" mission and your expectations for how they should meet it. I would also ask them if they feel we have the resources necessary to function at a optimal level? Are we training properly for today's mission? and are we preparing for tomorrow's "unknown" mission?

It sounds like you may also be facing a similar problem to that faced by the AF Intel world when they were challenged to convert from a "Strategic" outlook to a "Tactical" one. The reality is you need both and anyone who says different is likely to win the battle but lose the war.

Response by LTC Yinon Weiss made Feb 26 at 2016 10:50 AM

LTC Yinon Weiss — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 10:50:21 -0500

Culture is one of the most important aspects of an organization, as well as one of the most under emphasized. Culture is the reason the Iraqi Army can outman their enemies 10 to 1 and still drop their weapons and flee, while an American unit can be outnumbered 10 to 1 and fight and win, even with similar equipment. Culture is the sum total of all the habits that we have as people and as an organization, it is simply what we do. It is very hard to change, and it cannot be copied. It can only be built up over time by changing one habit at a time.

The easiest thing to do is the superficial things... they are not going to change the culture, but they may accelerate the change. These are things such as posting your mission statement everywhere, posting the values you believe in where people can see them on a regular basis (in the barracks hallways, in stairwells, entering the office, etc.). The problem is that a lot of people think that simply posting these things will change the culture, which it obviously will not... not any more than posting the word "fitness" in your apartment will make you fit. However, if combined with real actions, I believe it helps. So first step, take a clear mission statement and values and make them visual everywhere. Once that is done, you also have to do the hard work:

1) You have to celebrate what your culture should be doing through positive reinforcement, and it should be transparent to everyone. For example, at the small unit level (~20 people), have the group meet once a week and have each person share one thing they did the previous week to promote the operational mission. The leader should give them positive public feedback, so that everyone knows that the values they see are not just posters, but are actually valued by the leadership. Ideally, peers celebrate these small successes too. Celebrating what you want to promote in people is one of the quicker ways to instill the importance of habits, and habits build up culture.

2) Do case studies (a fancy word for telling stories) of how the unit's operations are helping, and have this come from top leadership. Get people in a large classroom once a month and have the senior leaders speak for 15-20 minutes (shouldn't be long) about an example of how the unit is operationally helping. Give everyone the common baseline of what success looks like, and make it clear that people know what the leadership values. Repeat this regularly, and the sense of culture of common operational goals will begin to slowly build.

3) Make sure you do frequent senior leader seminars. Actually devote time to this culture question during the seminars. Openly discuss it... is there a culture problem? Who is having success in changing it? What are they doing? Share best practices. Share challenges. Don't leave it as the elephant in the room. Get leader buy in, for obviously without the culture at the top, it will not spread. Don't be afraid to ask these questions and dedicate time for it at leadership meetings. Consider off-sites. If organization doesn't dedicate time to something, it will not be seen as important, and transformational cultural change is far too important to not focus on.

The above are just a few ideas. I hope at least one of them helps!