 Morning command teams. This is general Andrea tell us here at Air University my command chief chief stepham blazer So first thing I'd like to do is say, thank you. We have about 70 Collins connections on the line I can't tell whether you're just one person or whether you're you're with your wingman out there So that's it's a great turnout and I'm grateful because honestly, this is voluntary So chief blazer, and I have been given this block of instruction to the command teams for just one year now And we realized as we were going through it that the commanders who are already in the seat And their command chiefs miss the opportunity because we quite frankly didn't have the curriculum. It's taken us a while Our Air Force has now put out doctrine on mission command. It's a journey our this block of instruction changes every time We give it we get a little bit more We learn we learn a lot from the audience and so the way this works is we're gonna have about I'd like to say about 30 minutes of discussion That that we'll talk through What I'll call the lessons and then it's open mic So when I say open mic you can send a question on on chat You can come up voice if you'd like And we'll try and steer the the audience where we can I'm gonna give chief blazer a minute here to Introduce himself and talk about his part in this journey, and then I'll get back to what we're gonna step through Thank you, ma'am. Yeah. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Wherever you might be tuning in from I know we have a global audience and so Yeah, I just want to kind of take the chance to expand on this You know what we've gotten in some of the past feedback from the courses is some people look at this like Hey, this just sounds like leadership It's just sounds like the thing that like we're kind of we're supposed to do and so I would I would offer is You know as we work through this You know we have kind of different Communities and tribes and a lot of people with different experiences And I think the big thing that's going on in Air Force is really kind of asking ourselves, you know, how do we operate? Who are we and how do we function and really taking a big look at that right now? And so I think it's just a really good opportunity for us to kind of level the bubble foundationally and really focus on how we execute the Mission in the best integrated way we can to deliver capability to the nation And I know that's what we all come to work every day to do But I think the framework that that has been put out I think you know that we'll get into it would be interesting how you execute that and you're different to different mission areas But just excited to have a conversation with this morning and and move a little bit closer together All right, so we're gonna jump right into it and I hope For everyone who's dialed in that you had an opportunity to look at the placemat That was sent out as as part of our prep for the course. That's it. We don't have PowerPoint slides I'm not going to step you through doctrine We're just going to talk through largely the principles and your role at the wing echelon and below For how we do this. So I want to start I'm a go big to small person and I want to start with What our secretary of the Air Force has said, you know, when he's visiting down here about How we are going to get the Air Force to what I'll call go back to its roots So mission command, it's not an army thing. I get that a lot. Hey, isn't that an army thing? Yes, I think the army has probably been practicing it And calling it that longer than the Air Force but the Air Force if you go back in our dna to our roots There is no service that has better posture to leverage the concepts and principles of mission command You know just our agility our ability to make strategic impacts at the tactical level Our flexibility and we have always relied principally Concepts of decentralized execution, which I think is where we we make our money And that's the echelon. We're going to talk about today the most So going back to our secretary, he was down here and he said I I feel like I'm the conductor of a symphony And I'm trying to get all the different sections of the symphony You know to be kind of playing the music in a manner which sounds right and if all of the different musicians And the little teams are playing their own their own tune Or they can't read this the music Or they're just doing their own thing, you know, it sounds pretty horrible And so if if you think about mission command What we're trying to do is principally Look get all of our airmen to be able to read music in a in a language where look if I it doesn't matter what instrument you play If I put a sheet of music in front of you, you're you're literate you can read it Um, and so that would be the start The next is we're an Air Force of small teams and we have a lot of different teams That do a lot of different things and so that team has to be absolutely In lockstep with each other. They have to know each other. They have to trust each other and there has to be A clear understanding of of what the mission is and then when you cobble all those teams together How do we synchronize that and so? At the wing commander echelon, uh, which even if you're a group commander or a vice wing commander, I'll I'll kind of get to that That's what we're really going to talk about today. We want to make this about What your roles are and how you can make a daily difference in the ability of your airmen Um to execute mission command. Um, so here's the here's the hashtag for the day Don't overthink it Like honestly, I've given this this presentation You know, I want to say six times And about 10 minutes into it is when I start getting the is that it like is that really all we're talking about I go back to the army doesn't even think about this because they don't over complicate it You know, we we have sass here and they could give you a phd dissertation that will make your head hurt on mission command It is not complicated and when I say when I step through, you know, some of the principles You're literally going to be thinking that's it. Yes, that's it. Um, you you can use This practice with if you have kids with with your young kids, right? Like you can apply in the household So it can absolutely apply if you're summoning out there going out Well, I may fill in the blank officer our wing is a fill in the blank wing Our group is a fill in the blank group Yes, you can do it. This is not about operators. This is not about an afsc It is applicable across our force Um, we did, you know, big big moment So I'm going to hold this up if you haven't seen we have published doctrine Um, give you that like a hard copy reference. You you can get it published There is a qr code on the back and if you go to the lamei center's website You can access it online Um, it's not just uh the the words. There's there's narratives in there. There's examples their stories And uh, if I could put a plug in on the lamei center website, there is a podcast out there Um, that general web when he was uh, you know, he was our aetc commander But it is principally about his experience His experiences post 9 11 when he was the afsoc commander or when he was in afsoc in jsoc, um And it is a very good explanation of commander's intent and mission type orders and I'll get to that but it's a You know, it's a short podcast that's easily consumable and it's something that I think Any unit can relate to um, so that's a shameless plug for that Okay, so let me go back to uh mission command being a philosophy. You can see that Um at the banner at the top of the placemat Um, and there's there's a few things I say about philosophy Um, lots of people like to study philosophies Um academia has a lot written about a wide variety of philosophies Um, we will only be successful with the philosophy of mission command if we actually practice it We can't just study it and talk about it. So this is step one Um, we are an air force of practitioners We do have a small subset of our force which is here in the classroom teaching and that's great But those teachers also go back and forth between our operational force to be practitioners. So Um, all of us as leaders have a responsibility to be Coaches leaders mentors educators and I would say you are you are the secret sauce in the ability of your wings Um to actually practice mission command So, um, I'm going to stop there and and hand off to to blaze and let him talk a little bit about the The whole command team experience and whatever else he wants to fill in. Yes, ma'am I think this is the you know, we've even had a I remember when we visited the chief leadership academy and kind of the roles between You know the scl and the commander and as far as Um, you know, how we execute as a team and and one thing I appreciated ma'am is uh, you know in some ways Um, especially when it comes to education, you know, a Strategory, you know all that kind of stuff, you know, you do get into a position to where you know, and I remember We were definitely trying to get our our senior listed leaders to be more strategically aware and oriented But you know, you gave the team pretty pretty blunt feedback that at the end of the day The role is to get out and execute to actually go and to do things And I think that's the really the big point um on the the difference between philosophy And making sure it's a practice because a lot of times we can just send out an email We can build some document You know, but but it's just power point deep. Um, it's just it's just bumper sticker deep And it's got to be to the point where we look at our rehearsals our exercises You know those kind of things we're actually getting airmen to get as you talk about reps and sets Uh to start to discover how they can team together how they can how they can at different levels across organizations across units To operate more as a team, you know, uh, general slice talk talks pretty Openly about how we've just over functionalized everything and how we you know organized forces And and we really struggle and all that stuff kind of just goes up the org chart To the decision makers and that's not how we want to be if we're going to execute mission command And so those are the kind of things I think about man is about team teaming at echelon Um, I don't know if you want to discuss with them your views on you know Sometimes people think that we just need to flatten everything But how having actual echelon is important to execute mission command Especially when you look at missions of functions Yeah, so um, that's a that's a good lead in for for where we're going here because um, so you'll you'll see from the handouts, so the the principles of mission command, uh, are Are spread out across, um, really three broad, uh constructs the hierarchy goes from centralized, uh command Which again you need to see prefix for that so you don't have centralized command before Lower than in our air force generally a squadron commander Um, which is our principal fighting force. That's where we will win or lose our next conflict But when we talk about mission command and centralized command, we're predominantly talking about majcom commanders and higher the highest echelons When we get to distributed control Um, I could make the argument that even wing commanders in some cases do not cannot exercise Distributed control. We're talking about, um, apportionment of forces Um dispersal of forces. It just depends what kind of wing you are This is where I say our air force has kind of sliced and diced itself down to a very wide range of Organizational structures and mission sets. So if you're a flying wing, you might be able to apportion forces If you're a functional wing, you might have all your forces, uh, sitting in front of you in one location and and and struggle If you had to disperse your mission, you'd find yourself in a unique place So what I say is the the majcom headquarters in some cases the naff commanders are Trying to get their heads around what distributed control looks like and and how they issue that type of guidance But predominantly the wings and and the groups and the squadrons You are in the business of decentralized execution Um, all the way down to the airmen So your airmen are capable of executing mission command. Um, I'll get to that again The scope of that is going to vary and we'll talk about a concept which I'll reference as speed of maneuver It's why we are doing this We have got to be agile We believe we are going to be functioning in a degraded communication Environment that in a in a high-end conflict You are going to be disconnected from your possibly your next higher your next lower and it could be laterally Which is why it's so important that We simplify your communication requirements Flat communication is great If the flat level that you're communicating with has the same level of experience and competency Um, as everyone else at that level and right now we don't have that we have wide disparities between ranks um levels of experience types of experience um skill level And communicating you have to communicate those things Multiple times in very different ways in order to get all of those individuals or activities Moving at the same speed. So you'll hear me say trust plus training equals speed of maneuver Your role as commanders is to evaluate the ability of your subordinate echelons What is their level of training? And trust is a factor of unit cohesion, right? We'll we'll get to that. How fast can they capably move? um If you move them too quickly you start to see signs of failure to execute the mission If they move too quickly in a manner in which they're not trained worst case you're talking Uh risk to mission risk to force fatalities mishaps, etc If you move too slowly because you're moving at the pace of the least common denominator You may not be able to accomplish your mission set in the timelines that your command has asked you Um, which is probably a factor of training and trust So to get there sets and reps and go back to sets and reps. So we'll start with um The two most important factors that I think if you look at the principles on the left hand side For the audience here today Clear commanders intent as as I can't foot stomp that enough if you have If you as a commander if you're one of the commanders on the line And so I should say at this point if you're a vice wing commander. I treat you like the commander um You you have to get inside your commander's head and understand What their intent is and be able to on a moment's notice Pair at it. Uh, you're the one who's out there an extra set of eyes and ears But you're doing the best that you can to facilitate that commander's um intent So Being clear being concise How do you evaluate whether whether your wing or whether your group is actually Understanding your intent you got to get out and look at it. You got to see it You got to walk around you have to watch your mission happen And you have to ask Like go out and ask a captain what your intent is and you'll be surprised at what you hear back Um, it doesn't matter what your mission set is and you can you can evaluate this daily um, and I'll say at this point you're your wing or groups operating speed and ability is a little bit of a sine wave um based on time of year and cycle so Uh, if you don't believe your wing Uh hits a a little dip in the summer when we're in the peak turnover of commanders and pcs cycle You need to factor that in what percentage of your personnel turnover and how long does it take for them to get up to speed? um clear commanders intent through that period of time Is absolutely essential We're going into an aphorgen cycle We're going to have sine waves in in levels of training Um, you're gonna have to be able to understand. What's the water line? How fast can we move? What are our gaps in training and what can we do to fill those gaps? At various times and whatever your wing or groups battle rhythm Looks like so very important that you understand commanders intent Commander clear commanders intent could be three words, right? It could be five words The shorter the better it shouldn't be a dissertation or a long paragraph I go back to general webs You know podcast his his orders on the morning of 9 11 after the towers were hit were go help new york Um, he had a you know, he's taken off mh 53s from maguire dick slayhurst and and that's all he got And so Um, is that perfect? No, but at the time it was necessary and sufficient And so he got his uh his team ready and they flew north and so they they You know that step one, um Get people moving and in circumstances like that Um Maneuver is more important than direction, right? He got to get the team moving Especially if you're in a situation of uh of survival mode. So move And then figure out course corrections from there. So let me let me let me let please fill in ma'am. I uh when it comes to this topic, I think You know in many times, you know, and we've talked a little bit about how kind of we're raised in the air force You know You we all kind of have a common accession source somewhat and then we go to off to our different initial skills training And and functional training and so I think it then starts to get into a little bit about our identity and what we do In different areas And there's there's some there's a lot of goodness in that in terms of having pride in our professions Um, but I really do see once it starts going up to leadership level You know when it comes down to commander's intent and some of the language that we talk about risk and Uh risk to to force risk to mission that that was a language where I did not hear a lot very much growing up And I just had to learn it was until I got next to a commander And so I would say it's really important to your point about what I've learned Um in in my time at serving next to a commander is is you know, once you have commander's intent It really is my role particularly be that communicator that integrator and that synchronizer because The the sel will have greater access traditionally than than the commander Um, and I think particularly the the higher that commander goes up on the org chart You know the organization will just react differently Uh, but so the so the command she for the sel has has a much different kind of Ability to to move around the organization and to see how that commander's intent is really being executed in reality And what's that feedback loop and and how the teams are flowing on that? one thing that I think is is uh Is really important too in this in this business is you know Everybody comes to work and there's usually a stack of AFIs or a stack of Things that are just out there that have been historical guidance that the commander has no idea even in existing in some cases And and I've seen it how that and that this is where the bureaucracy sets in is you know People will be taking orders from things that were written down in In pieces of paper years and years ago that just bankrupt The ability of the organization to move and I think it's really important And I've seen several times remember you've had to kind of inject in and say hey, let's stop We're actually we're actually moving away from what we're trying to do in the first place I think I think that has to be done. I think that's critical For everybody that's the xcl or anything is you know, where the order is even coming from In terms of the execution side and then and then The other the other thing that came to mind when you were talking about general webman is You know, we had a shared experience in bmt at covet And so you were the second air force commander. I was in the 37 training wing as the command chief and uh, I will say that the 37 training wing it is a Amazing amazing mission set, but I never would have expected when across the street when we started filling up lodging with some of the Evacuese from from from the cruise ships and everything from china that fast forward 30 days That we were going to be having mti's and trainees in those in those facilities And I remember when you in general wed came and you gave us very clear guidance and it was it was fight through We had to keep the pipeline open and fight through and the priority for us did really shift It was it was more about safety and security of america's sons and daughters Versus training and we had to keep the pipeline moving we were and in some cases I never would have expected that we actually had we had units telling us to slow down the pipeline because they couldn't receive them Uh, you know that well and uh, well, we didn't slow down I'll just tell you that because they they were in the pipeline and they were coming and we were training in there And they were coming your way, but um, those are some things that I reflect back, ma'am But I think it's really important to have to shift to what is the main thing and make sure everybody understands the main thing Yeah, so um again if you if you don't have a one-line um distilled down uh phrase I'd say That it that describes your mission whatever that is to your wing or group Um, I'd spend some time trying to get there And it should be understandable To someone in in that has no military affiliation He should it should be your tagline that that your pa Um section can put out and at least an image of what that is comes into someone's mind um I'm going to transition to how do you issue that to a unit? What are mission type orders because I think that's you know, the second ingredient here if you're going to give clear commanders intent You should be doing so in a manner Which if possible leverages mission type orders mission type orders don't have to be a plan or x-word five paragraph format um mission type orders just enable Your subordinates to speak the same language and understand the direction of travel again It it it should clearly convey commanders intent And some right left limits it provides steerage. It's the minimal amount of guidance and and direction that you can give So that your support in it commanders have the ability to like if you look at it as driving down the highway Look, just stay within the lines. You can change lanes, but you're just setting the lines and the direction of travel and let them um do their best um to to keep the car moving down the road At at an acceptable pace and you know, honestly and not crash so Uh, I'll I'll say though We are struggling with this because for a long time now. I guess it's probably a couple decades The air force has come up with its own lexicon and its own way of communicating That is somewhat unintelligible to the joint force that we're talking about this right now Some of that was for a good reason. We stood we stood up this thing called an air expeditionary force We went to aef cycles. There's not another service that operates on that construct And year on year we developed our own language and lo and behold you wake up a couple decades later And we're wholly unfamiliar with the gfm process and some of the the language and the The mechanics that the joint force uses and we're having to relearn that Um, so I go back to it doesn't matter what wing or group you're in We have to be speaking the same language and the language we're talking about needing our airmen to be able to to speak Um, depending on their rank and level of responsibility is is things like the joint planning process They have to understand orders. How do you read an order? Um, how do you speak in an order? What is a warning order planning order? X order a task order These types of things enable us to move at speed once you have a well written x-word Someone only has to add a task board to it. I mean they just say very fast process Um, what hurts us is when Uh, when we have units of activity that say, oh, well, that's not the fill in the blank way That's not the little rock way. That's not how we do it here. That's not the off it way Um, your wings are going to have to tailor your activities to your Mission set and location. That's undeniable You are going to have different outputs requirements activities than another wing But the language that you convey that in should be standardized so that when you're airman pcs from one wing to another They may be asked to operate differently But the way in which we're communicating those requirements is the same and they don't have to learn a new language every time they pcs And they we certainly can't have them having to learn a new language When they have to serve within a joint or combined force because they will not have time And what we're hearing is our airmen are behind they can't run at pace because they're spending three to six months learning the language Of the joint organization and then they accelerate. Please don't get me wrong I'm not saying they're not capable of operating at the same level as our joint or combined partners. They absolutely are We're infusing this now into every echelon of pme and foundational training So our second lieutenants are now getting this at ot s. We're working on rotc Our enlisted force is getting this in the enlisted echelons of pme our captain's course here at sos acsc Where our gaps are are in some of our courses that are distance learning. So our arc component gets the overwhelming majority of its pme through distance learning and so all of that courseware is being updated to infuse this but You know this I sound like a broken record when I say If our airmen are only getting this when they come to air university for in-residence pme or during those episodic courses That they take um Across the span of their career, then it's going to be insufficient They need sets and reps and so the our wings the operational force Is really where they get culture. Um, that's where the mission happens I joke that no one no one joins the air force so that they can either come to second air force or air university Just to spend their whole career in the institutional force. It's it's not what they want to do nor what they should do We're giving them a toolkit here. And so when we teach people the basics of mission type orders If they're not using it in their units, it's going to a trade out And it's it's just going to be that book that you throw on the shelf And don't open I go back to this as a practice and we have to give our airmen Practice every day Yes, ma'am the whole thing I think I'll add on um, you know, if we we transition to um, shared understanding is I do think that the the term of this is a language is is the most accurate term to describe it by in particularly um And with that it's going to have a learning curve Just if you were going to throw somebody into a foreign country or foreign area and they struggle with the language You know, we described the joint force a little bit It is that learning curve, but the point is we we have to make sure you know that that language is going to stay that language It's not going to adjust for us and and particularly as we look to be more integrated with the joint force, you know, I think it's just going to have to take a commitment and and um PME is definitely doing its part. I think for for every all the leadership teams tuning in Um, but just also understanding is you know, we're working hard to design a continuum to where we have greater touch points But a lot of this stuff is going to have to be practice and involved in at the institutional at the base level And so we're working hard at university to provide um tools and materials to push that out particularly for the enlisted force through foundations and uh, hopefully all the teams are online are tracking that the 300 500 700 But about that that nco and that scene so senior nco level is where we're definitely going to be pushing the joint planning process um, but it just asks everybody to um, you know to kind of even it made canvas your formations And and and see hey, how much do they know? Um, you know some some formations We're seeing when they come into the uh senior nco academy Some people are hearing it for the first time and then some people were introduced to it as staff sergeant So it really is going to depend on like you said, ma'am the experience and maybe the background of those individuals Um, but we got to get to a point where uh as people are going up in leadership positions It is just common at every layer and that's we're working, uh, it's particularly on the enlisted side All right, so i'm gonna call in audible because this is the first time we've done this remotely and i'm dying here getting no I'm getting no feedback like I have no idea what's going out in in virtual land So I think because of those those are the really the two bedrock foundational principles that I want to give the The classroom here an opportunity to ask questions or make comments and see if we can uh Get some discussion going before before we move on to um, shared understanding and mutual mutual trust Um, so i'm gonna ask My support staff back there if anyone typed anything on the screen that no questions. We got nothing You guys haven't had your either We'll give them time my first cup of coffee. I can have a coffee even earlier I'm sure about rushing to the keyboard, ma'am. Hopefully you're not driving home So you're not dialed in like as you're as you're driving. So I don't know that they're rushing to the keyboard You know, like uh, no one wants to be the person that asked that first question Okay, so um, I'm gonna move on until we actually get a first question and then I'm I'm gonna rely on the staff here if one comes in Um to kind of just say break break All right, I knew it. See I was betting. I was betting on it. We were betting Yeah, so the question if you couldn't hear that is is there a discussion At senior officer levels about lowering the tiers for waiver authorities in afis And so I will share a comment. I can't attribute it in what what happens at corona generally stays at corona But there was a comment made at the at corona that we just need to burn down all our afis and start over So yes, um, there is there is gross dismay at the proliferation of afis We have afis right now that actually contradict directly contradict each other So one functional writes one afi that completely contradicts another afi It's sort of afis gone mad The challenge is where to start And yes, uh, I think there is an understanding that the tiering of afis and and quite frankly the ownership of afis in some cases Who owns what um policy is all under discussion? Um, I can't speak to the timing or the process for how we will go about um Revisiting our afis, but uh, I can also tell you there is um angst I'll call it over how long it takes to change it, you know, so it's it's unacceptable that we have You know guidance memorandums on top of guidance memorandums because we can't get an afi actually updated um, it's really a descriptor of How badly the the a the bureaucracy has proliferated? um And it speaks to the flatness because if you're in the pentagon instead of really just having five or seven organizations You needed to coordinate with now you have like 25 and it takes forever, um And we have swung the pendulum too far to consensus and adjudicated too much. So at some point Someone has to be in charge and they make a decision and we move out And if you don't agree with it, you can express your views, but once you've expressed your views Um, you might just be told this is this is the way we have to do it Because we're we're kind of out of stalemate. So I don't know if you want to pile on of that, but you know the tiering um It brings up a good a sub comment though. So I will say um, how how mission command can go wrong is If you it is not simply delegating authority down to the lowest level that is quite frankly dangerous um, there are reasons why Authorities are retained at certain echelons of command and I go back to it's a it's a level of competence And confidence and confidence correlates to experience And so there's a reason why wing commanders and group commanders are the only ones who can make certain decisions Um, and and have that level of responsibility on them Um, I give the example, you know, the flying community is is sort of easy pickings because you don't you don't take a An aviator who just got out of upt and make them the saw It doesn't mean they don't understand how to take off and land and but they're they're really not well suited You don't want the second lieutenant. Um, who's deniff for a few days signing off on orders on the scheduling desk Um, that's not an appropriate second lieutenant aviator task Um, there's experience levels there and risk associated with that So you're not empowering them by doing that you're actually setting them up for failure And absorbing an extraordinary amount of risk that is likely unnecessary So I'd ask you to think about the things in your mission sets That are like that and to understand Tearing of afi waiver authorities might be there for a reason There are quite a bit of them that I would argue are at the wrong echelon. We just are holding everything too centralized But if you're at the wing And you are a waiver authority I would certainly have a conversation with your commanders before you delegate that authority if if you are able to To a lower echelon you have to be comfortable with the level of risk that that brings Thanks for that question Two additional questions. All right, bring it on two questions in in the context of your previous remarks Which is would you say That the same applies for having a tagline for civilian director So I don't actually make a distinction between civilian directors and commanders They certainly have so if you didn't hear the question is is there a difference between a tagline? That commanders would have versus civilian directors with as it relates to the mission set civilian directors might not have the UCMJ authorities that a commander has as it relates to authorities over Uniformed military personnel, but they have the same level of responsibility as it relates to getting the mission done And they have the same level of responsibility to have their unit of activity trained and ready So a civilian director Should have the same ability to communicate What is our mission? How are we connected to the mission above us and to our left and right? And how do we execute that missions? And so I would say no I don't I don't make a difference between a a civilian director And I I have a number of civilian directors here and they are highly competent and confident and capable and so Um And they're very passionate and some of them have some military experience and some of them have none But they've they've embraced the language of mission type borders And what our objective is here, which is to effectively deliver air power So we are we are practitioners in the art and science of air power wherever you are Otherwise, I'm sorry. You join you're you're working for the wrong organization Right like so at some point whether you're in the air force or the space force. We may have some guardians on the line with us We're all aiming To be that that partner in the joint force that is air-minded and and brings expertise Um on on air power. So yeah, I think our civilians are in this fight right alongside us Second question. Yes, ma'am. Uh, so once again in the context of your remarks What are some key tasks that squadron commanders can begin to move out on now? Okay, love it. I get this question I speak to every sos class and the captains Every class I get what can I do? And so brilliant this gets to shared understanding and mutual trust so Our squadron commanders and I say more importantly The our nco core and our company great officer core They have to get up every day and say what can I do today to make my airmen better? And it doesn't take a phase two ori a nato tachyval You don't have to aggregate your force And do a wing level exercise to do that It can be very simple. So it's about we just got through Thanksgiving. It's about to be the holidays I would venture to guess every squadron out there is planning some form of a holiday party I would bet my next paycheck that if you have an officer or an nco Who uses the joint planning process to plan their holiday party? It will be fantastic You will not run out of filling the blank food People will not show up at the wrong time You will have a committee formed that actually achieves the objective which is have fun You know come together All of those skill sets that go into planning a holiday party and executing a holiday party Are 100 percent transferable to whatever process your organization uses under your wartime construct It doesn't even have to be the wartime construct. It could be generate sorties. It could be Your logistician and you're you're in supply chain. It could be you're a depo line It could be, you know, I'm a laboratory and I'm trying to find a solution to you know hypersonics Um, honestly, it can be anything I have said for for those of us in the room who have been a snacko and who remember the best and the worst snackos Being a good or bad snacko is a predictor of how well you will you will do executing the joint planning process So, um, I say get simple I don't care if it's we're talking about a personnel list in the mpf doing customer service Like there is a process there Get your airmen to exercise process discipline Understand what it is that their mission set is and make them better It could be a 10 minute huddle in the morning. What the lesson learned it can be A 10 minute huddle at the end of the day to say Debrief, how did we do today? What went well? What didn't go well? um Whoever the second in charge is in an office when I say in an office it could be a staff sergeant or a tech sergeant If the supervisor says hey, you know what tomorrow, I'm not going to be in I've got this and that to do you're in charge Tell me what you're going to do. What's your mission? How are you going to run the office? Let them do it Disappear for three hours come back and see how things are going. You do not want to do that under the worst of of High-end conflict conditions you want that stress to be placed on them In a controlled contained environment where if the rails start to come off You're actually in the background writing to kind of catch them and coach them through it And so that's what I'd say a squadron commander Um should be doing every day now I go back to their first 90 days whenever that is or was The first thing they need to do with their senior enlisted leader at their side is evaluate where their unit is right now Right now, where are they on that spectrum of writing is competence capability confidence? Um, so so let me dovetail this into shared understanding and mutual trust I'm a firm believer every unit needs a playbook. Like just like a you know, you can use the football analogy Whoever you are out there right now and whatever your mission set is You need to know and you need to have five to seven plays that your organization can execute blindfolded and get it right very simple On task on mission simplicity Once you have that now you can start reaching into the playbook and doing things that are more complicated But if you mis-evaluate the the confidence and competence of your organization and you're breaking out those You know your 200 plays into the playbook before they've got five to seven plays down It is not going to work. You're going to be exceedingly frustrated You're not going to understand why you're you're there sand in the engine and things aren't running smoothly. Keep it simple Once you get there Yeah, you can throw a few Um, a few plays in but if championship teams highly functional teams are brilliant at the basics And they don't get to be championship teams if they can't do the basics. They just can't you can't go from not having foundational skills which are both With occupational skills on top of them to being, you know, the highest performing team Uh in whatever your specialty is and and that I would say is specialty agnostic Um, you know what your squadron commanders? Uh mission sets are And what the key ingredients are For for making them brilliant at the basics And I would I would say at the group level the group commander and the group SEL and certainly the wing commander in the wing SEL You can walk into an organization that is whatever your flavor of organization is and know very quickly Is this in his organization where that where that organization is you can kind of smell it It has a look and feel details matter Do they have process discipline? Is there good order in discipline? Right? Are your airmen motivated? Are they inquisitive? Are they seeking knowledge and learning? Are they getting better every day? What is the command climate? All of those things Are what is as what fosters mutual trust mutual trust occurs when an airman Is just so focused on their task on being brilliant at whatever they are responsible for doing That they firmly believe whoever that airman is to their left and right They got it right you're trusting that everyone in the organization is doing their job That's when you start to get complimentary mission effects That's trust and it takes daily repetitions And you you have to get to know the people it requires intrusive leadership and a firm understanding of the skill levels of the people around you I know you want to pile on to that. That's like this is one of your favorites It is man. Yeah I think for both of these, you know shared understanding mutual trust You can't really can't you can't get to the other stuff because these are the two that I think they're all about culture, ma'am Um, you know, this is this is where like you said, I mean I I've had a chance to be a wing command chief twice And I could go into a squadron whether it was local afar And within minutes you can assess where that team's at particularly on these two Um, you know, they just kind of off in the corners people doing their own things Is there actually some mutual trust and and to your point about you got to be brilliant in the basics Uh, I will I will say two basics in my mind, ma'am ma'am that I think that that we honestly we we look past far too often Our sponsorship and feedback You know on boarding off boarding how we how we bring a family on Those things if you do that well as an organization It's your first sign of trust and welcome in and understand why they're so important to whatever the purpose of of your mission is And I've just seen incredible results when people do that effectively the same thing on feedback You know when we actually own up to and and our airmen know the fis They know when they're supposed to be getting feedback And they know when when that isn't valued in an organization And that should just be a part a natural part of both informal and formal feedback loops You know where we're sitting down and getting that interaction to actually maximize the potential That's out there towards the goals the common goals of the organization And absolutely man, but if we if we can't come true on that Then I think the next two two items on the chart You're never going to have that where there's that shared trust and understanding it And I think just a mutual respect to challenge people to reach their maximum potential Because you can't look at stripes You can't look at a surf and really see the true potential of anybody It's all going to be discovered in this in this area Um, and and again, I I think ma'am Yes, we could spend a lot of time on this I think a lot of people who are online have a lot of personal examples of the of the units they've been into But at the same time, you know, it is about how we all become in alignment And that's got to be done at an appropriate level But but I would just say to your point on back to the basics I would just offer to anybody online if you take a look at sponsorship and feedback I think those you'll be able to assess Trust and understanding pretty quickly Yeah, so um, one of the other things I hear from talking to You know, whether it's the captains the majors. It doesn't matter what echelon I hear one. I don't have time. Right. I don't have time. So time Is a choice, right? What I say is Um, it is a commander's job Um to establish priorities Uh, so the training of you can't not have time To properly train your airmen Right there It is it is a fundamental responsibility that we have So the question is, uh, what is a lower priority task that I guarantee you right now someone is doing right the the There is something going on in your squadron. Um, they will do what you set as a priority If you make it a priority and you don't do it. Guess what? They're not going to do it because they're not going to believe like that's the say do gap So if you make it a priority you have got to walk that walk And you have to actually show them that they eat that you are giving them the time and the resources And i'll get the resources to do it. Um, there is not a big Uh room full of money and manpower somewhere sitting around for us to send to your wings So you are going to have to find a way to do this within the resources that you have today um Does the air force want to grow? Absolutely um That takes years to affect so I go back to what can I do for my airmen today? And keep it simple It doesn't cost a lot of money and it doesn't take a lot of resources To simply use your work centers use the mission sets that you have and to come up with creative ways to Give them a task teach them a task Supervise the task and then give them feedback on how they're doing the task and the task doesn't have to be complicated And it actually doesn't have to directly correlate to the mission find a parallel um There's there's plenty of ways to do that that are actually fun Um, I default to unit pt because you you learn a ton about your organization When you just try and actually get them to be able to show up for pt You will find out who has child care problems who has other issues that causes them to not be able to show up Who's actually not as fit as what their pt test score? Says they were nine months ago um It conversations happen there that have nothing to do with pt that give you insight into an individual's life If pt is not the way to do it. Yeah, I get this from like honestly the space force is like, yeah We're not really into pt. Can you give us something else we can do? Hey, go to an escape room like our airmen love that now You can actually use your gpc card in your unit Call it a leadership development activity and go and do that Find ways to do team building exercises in environments that your organization um Embraces It can be anywhere. Um, but you actually have to walk about talk about and learn what are those places? What are those settings? What do what does your organization of today? What incentivizes them to come together? Because you have to build connectedness and you have to orient them towards the mission But the concept of plan train rehearse Execute and debrief like that's it that it doesn't get there's nothing more complicated than that And you can break that down into the smallest of tasks that are a building block for whatever it is you do And so I think we have another question. Yes, ma'am There's actually a little dialogue in chat going on with regard to the follow-up How do we incentivize mission command? These to be an airman's perception of risks from the air force Okay, so I had risk acceptance as my last Topic to talk about so but I'm going to go to it now. So we're an hour in Um, and I love this kind of q&a thing. So we're we're not following the syllabi Which this hey, this is what you get when you get an au commander that has never been an instructor progress on hindered by custom I have history creds. So this is what we do. Um, all right. So let's go to risk acceptance. So I go back to um You you have to be careful not to Place responsibility um and mission in the hands of A team or an airman who are not trained and experienced to execute whatever it is That is the level of you're asking now This is kind of the opposite scenario where you're telling an airman, which again like if they're signed off They should be task ready, right? Some supervisor has said This is a mission ready airman here and you're saying go and what you're seeing is they're not moving Like they're let's just call them risk averse. They perceive a risk that you don't see So this is my quintessential Example of the electrified fence. So I don't know how many of you are dog owners out there I've got canine in my background. And so we see this in the security forces world And so here's the example I'm going to give you for about 20 years now. We have raised Canines that have been trained with an electric fence and the electric fence is up in the yard and by god They are not going to go across the street in front of them because they know they're going to get zapped Um, and so we've zapped them if they've tried to go across the street And so they're dutifully staying in the yard now We're trying to get our airman to practice the principles of mission command And so what's the first thing we did? We took down the electric fence And so the fence is down and we're like, hey run, right? You're free as if if you believe you can get across the road Go and then we're shocked when the dog just sits there and his leg. I'm not going across that road I watched you know Fido over there go across the road and he got zapped not happening and so Uh, we came to this realization and so bring all the commanders in what do you do? Hey One you need to walk across the street Show the team that they can actually navigate themselves across the street. Look both ways, you know Show the right way of doing it go across the street come back Step two snap the leash on Fido and lead them across the street, right? So you have to do this We have to break the habit pattern. The habit pattern is I'm not going across the street because I'm going to get zapped Now here's the other thing that happens Fido is going to have rover next door who's you know been locked in the yard for a year And rover's not going to look both ways and rover's going to bolt across the street and it's going to end badly, right? Rover gets hit by a car You can't summarily execute all the dogs for running across the street if we just took the fence down Like there has to be a meaningful lesson there get your arms around them show them. Hey, you know that that's not the way you do that Um, otherwise we're just going to have people parked in the yard. They are not going to move um, we have to Gently move them along now Once I said before movement is a little bit more important than direction right now Because the herd has been settled and we're trying to get them to move Once you have them moving then you have to you have to shape it a little bit At some point that airman you got to understand why Why are they not moving? Do they not have the self confidence? Do they need sets and reps? Do they want to see another airman do it your airman all learned in different ways? Right, so you got to kind of crack the code on the airman Um, I wouldn't over generalize by saying all of the airmen aren't moving, right? There are informal leaders within that collection of airmen. This is where I say the command chiefs should be like Dying to pipe up here. You have to know who the informal leaders amongst those airmen are Who's that senior airman who's most likely to be staff sergeant first? Um, this is what I call peer policing peer policing is One of the most important factors that I think our air force has lost I could go on for hours, right? And one of the reasons why our squadron commanders Don't have time Is because they are having to do policing that should be happening horizontally At every echelon below them our majors should be policing our majors our captains should be policing our captains and our lieutenants should be policing our lieutenants And they are not to the degree that we need them to They're expecting the supervisor to do it. They're expecting the leadership to do it and that level of passivity is hurting us If we can identify the informal leaders amongst them and start that back up It will become contagious and the other Less confident leaders will start gaining some confidence and the herd stops moving So again, it's you have to know your people. They are all not going to want to move You have to find the ones that are willing and and leverage them and and then honestly If someone just is intransigent and refuses to move that's an accountability issue. So hold them accountable You shouldn't have to issue orders multiple times a staff sergeant shouldn't have to tell a collection of airmen multiple times What their responsibilities are and before they start holding them accountable for for now Accomplishing the mission in the manner that that you need them to accomplish it Any other any other questions right now the the thing that I'll add ma'am is There's there's a specific line in the memo that general brown put out On mission command and it talks to the compliance conundrum And I and I think this also speaks to you know We we've heard kind of what you you deserve what you tolerate the former seac said that And and I remember growing up in an air force where you know, we we would all We'd all come in on weekends. We would all make we'd had these stoplight charts We'd make everything that was not compliant with some afi go away And I just remember how soul-sucking that felt because I was like I I don't even think this is making me better at my job I'm just I'm adjusting margins and binders and and you know, I think is When I had the opportunity to work in the Pentagon on my last job and sitting down with general brown And he talked about the challenge of you know, his memo we put out to the force was accelerate change or lose And he just he was dissatisfied with the level of of of movement on that And I think it is because You know and the reason he put it in the memo is because we we grew up in a compliance era We scored ourselves more on the inspections And and and those kind of things then then truly looking at ourselves for readiness Another thing I think is really really important is you know, just because someone name comes out in a promotion roster Just because they've completed PME doesn't mean they're fully ready and and assuming those roles as NCOs and senior NCOs We've seen that we're putting out You can go to the area university webpage and the foundational resources But this this initiative called prepping the line Because we've realized is that you know, there were some people who are fast fast tracked to the ranks But we never really looked at the checks and balances in the same way We would for our operational career fields on levels of progression for NCOs and senior NCOs and what we expect of them At at those at those levels in those tiers and so it's going to take us some time You know, we actually are getting the level of of but I would say is they can't just do that on alone We can't just criticize them for them We have to take an active part in helping them do the kind of things exactly what you're talking about to where it builds those Repetitions to show what we value and what is the most important thing because you have to make choices But I but I think as leaders, too Is we have we have responsibility to really make sure that we reprioritize versus just telling everything's important completely telling because you can empower people where it gets dangerous and then and then To your point is they need to understand where the risk lines are And also understand I think the most important thing that we talk about is there's risk in staying where you're at There's risk and status quo and a lot of times we don't evaluate that risk Um and and at the same time the world is passing it up and we're actually putting the risk for when we actually have to get into a fight Or have to do something because we're not as ready for that moment as we could be So this let me talk more about about risk because honestly for the commanders out there. I think this is um One of the hardest things that we ask you to do So one you are wanting your airmen Big a civilians at any level to exercise disciplined initiative. You'll see that on the chart, right? What is that? So What you're really wanting them to do is exercise prudence Make prudent decisions not reckless decisions Right, so if you're empowering them, you're not asking them to turn their brain off and just run headlong into the wall Um and and that is uh, that needs to be taught and supervised and again debriefed So, um, they should be getting feedback on and and their pace should be metered. It shouldn't be reckless Um, so risk acceptance. What does that entail? So, um If someone is coming to you and asking for a waiver It doesn't matter what type of AFI it is If they're not articulating a mitigation action in that waiver request, they have it wrong All they're doing is passing you risk. The risk doesn't go away just because you signed the waiver Um, so they should have to be they should be forced to articulate that If they don't you have no idea what risk you're accepting Now the the exception is it's just a bad AFI and and I would say That's generally not the case. Generally, there's a reason why the language is in there We can debate whether it's at the right echelon But if someone's asking you to waive something and they're not demonstrating to you how they're mitigating it It doesn't mean you're not going to approve it But you need to start collecting those because now if you're doing that across a number of activities You're now accumulating risk And aggregating risk suddenly introduces. It's not linear, right? So the more the more you simply waive and don't mitigate The more likely you are To have one of those the odds don't change if there was a 30 chance of it happening yesterday Just because it's today doesn't and it didn't happen doesn't make it less likely There's still a 30 chance of it happening Nothing has changed, right? So The fact that something didn't happen in the past Doesn't change the odds in our world of it happening today You need to be really cognizant of what you are being asked to waive Um, is it risk to force? Is it risk to mission or is it both? Those are two different things if it's health and welfare of your personnel Those are the same personnel that are getting your mission done So it's rare that you have risk to force that doesn't somehow impact risk to mission Yeah, it's it's just again Who is bringing you the risk and can they articulate how to mitigate whether it can be mitigated And and what other risk that impacts? What are you aggregating that with and then the last is at what level? What is the level that you should be accepting the risk at? Um, I would absolutely say if you don't know what your commanders have retained Like what authorities they have retained your jay should have a printout of that So make sure you're not accepting risk that your next hire has said hey, you can't accept that You have to come to me um to have that conversation um If you're a group commander If you're not sharing your risk acceptance or mitigation experiences with your partners and crime in the other groups Um, I would strongly encourage you to do that I would venture to guess you're having some of the very same conversations in your separate group command offices On different subjects, but the type of risk and the process that you go through to discuss Whether you should be accepting it mitigate how you're mitigating it. It should be very similar It's a very difficult. This is I think this is the hardest thing you do as a commander is evaluate risk And make the decisions of whether to accept it or not And if you are going to accept it how to mitigate it If your team is coming to you and simply asking you to accept risk without offering mitigation And you're frustrated that that keeps happening. There is a process for that We have people who are trained to help them do that your safety offices probably have some of them in it Um, otherwise I'd call the safety center But we have people who are trained in risk management. And so if you if your organization needs help with that Ask for assistance. So you're at a wing. I would start with your mag com if it's not on your staff If you have a naff you can go to the naff staff and say, hey, we're having trouble with this This is an a three A three, right? It's not the safety functional It's not the one because it's risk to personnel It is risk to force risk to mission And the a threes on whatever that the first staff is that has one Should be the one articulating to the commander Commanders are the only ones who can accept or decline to accept risk If you're talking about a supervisor accepting risk, you're talking about a different level of risk than I am Um, supervisors shouldn't be waving to yous. Like there's a reason why you go through that process, right? So it should be very clear What that threshold is for for risk acceptance and and when it needs to come to a commander and when it is simply Disciplined initiative and exercising prudence To make a decision on how to execute a mission All right, do we have any other questions out there before we Before we get bingo time We're not Okay, you're not put it into context. Okay My a3 is is mitigating the risk of the of the question that he's staring at on his screen because he He probably knows where this one might get All right, place. What do you got? Um, I think it's time ma'am and in this You know in the conversation we the the thing that I have enjoyed we've talked about a past year is how You know you uh the real stat on uh competence and confidence Um, you know, I think I think that's that's that's a really great conversation ma'am I think that that kind of rounds out, you know, how do you operationalize all these concepts? so, yeah So I can describe while we're reading a question Let me give you some good news because this is the operational force. I believe My my belief is the operational force is making a huge difference So if you're sitting out there thinking yourself, man, we suck like yeah, get that out of your mind so Um, a year I've been here a year and a half and so when I first got here enrolled into that That room of 600 captains at palifka It was in the senior nco academy. It was a very different feel Um, I was Almost borderline angry, right? There was a little bit of a woe is me crisis of confidence Um, I can't uh, we can't um, and that is gone like so Um, their ears are pinned back. They are leaning forward They understand what we are asking them to do It doesn't mean they they know, you know that they're proficient at doing it, but they are They are inquisitive They are thirsting for more and they are truly On task, I'd say with regard to being mission focused We had senior nco's who would say hey, I don't know why I'm learning this I'm just going to go back to fill in the blank and do fill in the blank And you know that was disheartening to hear like but it step one, right acceptance This is where we are and we made them that way, right? So it's they they that's the experience that they've had They can change and they are embracing change. It takes time Some of them move faster than the others But the captains now are are locked in they are dialed in and that didn't happen here at air university That happened out in your organizations That is your squadron commanders your do's your leaders your first echelon civilians who've been down this path before like so I I get eye rolls here because I have civilians here have been here a long time, right? And they're like, yep, this is right where we were like everyone here thinks this is new and different This is exactly the way we did it in the late 80s early 90s Right. So for people who've been around that long and so yes, there's some truth to that We we haven't found ourselves in this circumstance in a long time. We can do this um, it and quite frankly Um, we're in a much better spot Um, because we're the air force like we're the we're the ones who are the ones that open the box up Throw the instructions aside and we just find a way to do it, right? We're the creative ones Uh, we don't have a problem fighting above our weight. We know we're going to be outnumbered by the army We're technically savvy. We're innovative. All of this is in our doa dna. We can do this We are a highly maneuverable agile force We just need to get some sets and reps and and we can move this cruise ship quickly Like the people are much easier to solve than deliver hypersonic weapons I'll take I'll take our arm in any day of the week Okay, we have two questions, ma'am the uh, one of them has to deal with Your comments about rips one of them has to do with EPME The first one is And I gotta go over baby. Okay. Do you feel that peacetime incentive structures? favor risk averse leaves If so, how do we change? So I think the challenge with if you want to call it a peacetime construct is It's exceedingly difficult for Um, the lower echelons to actually perceive risk Right. So there there's no sense of or that sense of urgency If you're in ukraine if you're in gaza It is painfully You are painfully aware Of the need to be competent capable like it is you are in a war fighting construct If most of you who you know, the majority of the dialins are perhaps in the north com aor We certainly have endopic on aor and yukam aor on the lines the closer you are to what I'll call A visible fight The easier it is for you to articulate the risk of doing nothing to people, right? So what is challenging is for almost five years now We've had national defense strategy and guidance which says there are no sanctuary areas There aren't any which means we should all Regardless of the combat geographic combatant command that we are sitting in We should all be orienting ourselves towards the full spectrum of conflict It is it is exceedingly difficult to do that If I were to walk outside the building today and the sun's out the birds are chirping Everything looks wonderful. We're talking about holiday parties, right? That is a leadership challenge. So yes, I do believe it's harder Um, that is why we wear the c we have the c prefix It is the leadership challenge of our day because we don't ever want to be Where ukraine and israel are right now, right? We want it to always be in a way game We're the only team in in any activity that I know that will take an away game over a home game Any day of the week, right? And so yes, it's it's harder And our nation right down to the the You can go back to the constitution and our founding principles Life liberty pursuit of happiness We are a nation that tends to take a first punch We are disinclined towards Uh the use of force Before it is forced upon us You can call that a flaw. You can call it the soft underbelly, but it is part of what gives you the challenge of Demonstrating to your airmen a sense of urgency a sense of mission focus and what the ramifications are and the risk associated with a failure to act I'll I'll stop there. What was the second pme question? You got tell me So the the second question regarding e pme Um is Would and if so, how would you re-focus our e pme to be more execution focused? Yeah, and I see the full question up on the on the chat as well. So um I think we we definitely in the context of the question also talks about, you know push to make it more strategic Um, certainly if you're not tracking in the in the past Uh, a couple years the chief master of the air force has asked to take its complete look Validating our our enlisted pme. Uh, we also at the same time she commissioned a group to get together Of not just people from pme, but different ranks across the air force Also officers and and and hey reimagine the future of pme. What that resulted in is In the last six months we we've released the the airmanship continuum And what we're doing right now is now this 100 and 900 continuum That includes foundations that are elements that will happen at a base level between pme Is now we're asking our ourself the question. Well, what should happen and at what level? Particularly, I think is why we we we live in this information world now where things can happen very very fast And information spreads very very fast While we want our airmen to be strategically aware we want them to also be tactically relevant To be able to do things so it's not just about the thinking side to understand that but the actual actions they take You know as leaders of their teams Particularly if we're going to operate Speed and in alignment through through different echelons And so what I would say is is we've always the strength of our our service and this is talked about both in the international partners Is our enlisted force and we know that and so we definitely want to balance those we we we don't want the to overdo it too much Where they where they don't get great at execution of what they do and so from the pme lens I would say it the the the brilliance of what we're trying to do here is not look at what happens in pme stays in pme Right, you've probably heard the term for that. We want to re-blue people But it has to be things that apply and actually make them better at their j o b And and and at the same time those things are not too far off of wherever wherever Unit they're coming from or whatever the background is that that when they come to an institutional level of training or education That it's vastly different And so it's got to be fused into the dna of the progression of that airman And what I think is good news is our career field managers and we're going to be we're going to be actually having the foundational competencies dot mil pf To look at what is the right progression at what level so we can balance those two things again being strategically aware and tactfully relevant relevant to to execute um as needed at whatever echelon Yeah, I think I think um for this audience too since we have probably a collection of command chiefs out there um potentially at two different echelons the group and and the wing um I think we've learned a lot from the covet experience that area university has the ability to Uh get our content to be much more accessible in small bites and in modules to to meet the particularly the senior nco core Where they are meaning some of you may have gotten pitched into a joint assignment or found yourself on a staff I know when I was at the pentagon. I had senior nco's showing up in the security forces director They'd never been to the pentagon before they'd never been on a staff before and we gave them Like no training to show up. It was like hey, you show up figured out, right? And so I think when when when you say how do we get more strategic? It's not just about um making sure you're you have situational and situational awareness on the Strategic environment. It's Hey, if i'm sending you to a fill in the blank You're going to work in an aoc or you're in a on a staff even if it's you're on the acc staff for the first time Like I should have content that I can give to you beforehand or deliver to you If you can't come or I should have a course that prepares you for that. Maybe it's a week. Maybe it's two weeks It might not be quote pme But to chief's point it prepares you for your job. It gives you that little package skill set Maybe it's a ppc code on your assignment We're trying to figure out right now like at the at the majcom staff level like our majcom staffs on the officer side too There's no training that they get they just kind of show up And we've gotten so small that there are very few field grade officers that get Well, first I went to a naff staff and then I got to go to a majcom staff And then I got to go to the pentagon to be a stuff Like hey, you're just you're getting what you get and you might be going directly to the pentagon You might be directly going down range into a A war fighting staff construct and we haven't provided you Not just pme, but that skill set And so we're those are the conversations that we're having is is how do we better prepare our airmen just for the Further responsibilities and the tasks that they're facing every day And so we're going to have to do that by bringing the air university brand Into our operate operational units to a greater degree than we are right now I'm not saying we do the training for you I'm a huge proponent that look you got plenty of instructors out in your wings Like if you got senior nco stripes on guess what I consider you an instructor you've task certified somebody I want to have some standardization of content But I want to leverage the leadership and the and the expertise that you have out there in your wings To strengthen that supervisory bond that leadership bond Your airmen should be looking to the personnel in your units To learn those skill sets not necessarily defaulting to well, let's go to the au website and see what we can find So we want to get that content into the hands of our command chiefs, you know at echelon and the scls Send out some npt ts Centralize some training and see what we can do like the foundations is going really well I think we're it's going better than I would have predicted this early In the development, but this is my ask now, right? I'm going to be a demanding customer We need your feedback, right? So for those of you who may have experienced it because you're on the early end of delivery Please let us know how we're doing ask for more and Thank you For helping us make your airmen better We're down to three minutes. So I think that's That's final comment. So My final comment is if there was a question you you just didn't want to ask on the chat Or you think of it later Send us an email And I will get you an answer And if there's a way we can do this better again, we didn't plan to do this this way apologies that you didn't get to get this in the classroom We've got one more iteration of this But your relief will be getting this in their commanders courses and then the chiefs are coming. We're doing it as command teams now So so just let us know I think However, you rsvp'd rsvp is the wrong word However, you communicated to us that you were going to be participating today. It might have been colonel marcia check. He's the Commander's professional development school and the vice at acre shoot him an email and we'll get you an answer I'll give you final comments, please. Oh, thank you, ma'am. Yeah. So happy holidays everybody. Thank you guys for joining us again if you didn't know What I think is really great is we actually are doing this a lot more as as teams You know PMEs traditionally, you know, the officer and the listed but the only in the past two years where the the wing Commander course and group commander course has shifted to command team course and I really love that There's a lot of shared conversations We can actually look at each other And learn from each other and understand how we will execute the team because we know how we employ forces That's exactly how it's going to be and so Thank you guys for being the great teammates you are Again, there's a lot going on area university for us to to not just think about area university when you come And sit in a seat while you're here or log into some device But it actually helps you out in operational force. So let us know how we can do that better Happy holidays again, and thanks for your time. Thanks for joining us