Gen Welsh - USAF Chief of Staff

[Azimuth]

Aren't you a Guard guy?

Does it matter?

[C-21.Pilot]

Just the fact that there's more communication directed at the AF from him is different.

Sure the vector is late in coming, but I'm sure he's just lounging around not doing anything. I mean, he is the CSAF he can do anything he wants immediately according to you guys.

Hell, it took Gen Hobbins awhile to unscrew Foglesong's nonsense. Combat Proud anyone?

Uh, I was stationed at ETAR during both Gen Douchenuts and Hobbins. It didn't take "awhile" -- it took about 3 weeks. Bigger fish to fry.

[Gravedigger]

Its time for those at the top to make actions match the words.

I agree with you on the whole, but you aren't considering that instead of making instantaneous decisions, which he certainly could do, he is trying to influence the culture in a way that will keep some of these changes around when he retires. With the current crop of O-6+ folks in the Air Force, the odds are good that they will eventually reject the decisions that they felt they didn't have a hand in. When dealing with stupid people, you can often trick them into thinking that the decisions you made were really their ideas. Then when it comes time for you to move on, the changes have been made and embraced by the masses because they felt like they were involved in the process. I personally believe that Gen Welsh generally understands our plight, genuinely cares, and is working for long-term solutions.

[Clayton Bigsby]

I really wish people would stop making excuses. Welsh doesn't have to let the sequester define his term.

[Fuzz]

I agree with you on the whole, but you aren't considering that instead of making instantaneous decisions, which he certainly could do, he is trying to influence the culture in a way that will keep some of these changes around when he retires. With the current crop of O-6+ folks in the Air Force, the odds are good that they will eventually reject the decisions that they felt they didn't have a hand in. When dealing with stupid people, you can often trick them into thinking that the decisions you made were really their ideas. Then when it comes time for you to move on, the changes have been made and embraced by the masses because they felt like they were involved in the process. I personally believe that Gen Welsh generally understands our plight, genuinely cares, and is working for long-term solutions.

When some ones on fire do you teach them about fire safety first and then put the fire out? No, you fix the problem and debrief accordingly. Welsh could do the same thing here, overturn all the dumb policies and debrief the leadership accordingly. Allowing the AF culture to fix itself as he guides it won't make a big enough impact in his 4 years and as soon as he's gone all the show clerks will come out of the woodwork.

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

Aside from a few good [sounding] emails and speeches have there been any tangible changes from the CSAF?

[Gravedigger]

Other than abolishing blues Monday?

[ThreeHoler]

Y'all do understand that culture change takes a lot of effort from more than just a leader, right? Yes, the leader sets the tone, but the rest of us need to do our part to fix the broken shit.

Every one of us has far more power to fix things than we think. Focus on making things better for your bros instead of what makes you look good. If you see a problem, come up with a solution that solves it in the simplest way possible. Take the time to document how you solved the problem so when the next dude takes over your additional duty from you, he can continue what you started.

It takes real work from each of us to fix things within our areas. That might mean you have to stay late some nights. It might take you several months to get to the root cause of the problem. More than likely, it is a cultural problem...the most often problems I've seen are: "I'm just a Lt/wingman/copilot/fill-in-the-blank"; "It's not my job to fix that"; "We don't have the resources/manpower/knowledge to fix that."

Guess what? Every last one of those problems is an excuse and a deeply-seated cultural problem within our units, commands, and entire force structure. And cultural problems are devilish to fix.

"Leadership is all around you on the ground. Pick it up and do something good with it." -- former Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Paul W. Airey.

[ThreeHoler]

Although vague and non-specific, that's great advice.

..for fixing continuity binders.

Perfect example of why cultural change is so difficult.

[Whitman]

Aren't you a Guard guy?

Stiffler has a really unique perspective based off his current job as a civilian, I'll just leave it at that. Plus, he's spot on as usual.

[joe1234]

Y'all do understand that culture change takes a lot of effort from more than just a leader, right? Yes, the leader sets the tone, but the rest of us need to do our part to fix the broken shit.

Every one of us has far more power to fix things than we think. Focus on making things better for your bros instead of what makes you look good. If you see a problem, come up with a solution that solves it in the simplest way possible. Take the time to document how you solved the problem so when the next dude takes over your additional duty from you, he can continue what you started.

It takes real work from each of us to fix things within our areas. That might mean you have to stay late some nights. It might take you several months to get to the root cause of the problem. More than likely, it is a cultural problem...the most often problems I've seen are: "I'm just a Lt/wingman/copilot/fill-in-the-blank"; "It's not my job to fix that"; "We don't have the resources/manpower/knowledge to fix that."

Guess what? Every last one of those problems is an excuse and a deeply-seated cultural problem within our units, commands, and entire force structure. And cultural problems are devilish to fix.

"Leadership is all around you on the ground. Pick it up and do something good with it." -- former Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Paul W. Airey.

You're apologizing for him. You're apologizing for Welsh the same way that people apologize for Obama. Either the problem is too big that nobody can be expected to fix it, prattling on about culture, or whatever else.

This whole "change the culture" stuff is bullshit, and we all know it. Why is it we can spend our careers dealing with knee-jerk decisions, but when it comes to changing things for the better, then holy shit, slow down, we need to take our time because culture!. Fuck that, he either lacks the will or ability to implement changes. We didn't wait to change the culture when it came to desegregating the Armed Forces. Nor did we wait to change the culture to let women serve. Nor did we wait to change the culture for the all-volunteer force. Someone said "these are the new rules", and that's what happened, because it's the military, and we don't get a vote, we just have to do it.

[WABoom]

Joe1234 and Threeholer-I agree with you both. Yes we can fix those things around us that we have control over and yes it's bullshit to hide behind the culture argument. I actually liked the fact that General Welsh gave MAJCOM CCs the ability to make their own decision about blues Monday, I just didn't like the fact that it took so long for them to pull the trigger on it. These are some of the strangest times the AF has gone through in my 16 yrs and I hope during these times the CSAF and CMSAF make some real tangible common sense changes. I will say that some of what I hear from CMSgt Cody scares me because he reverts to the "it may be too hard to change argument" which I despise. I wish he realized that he is the top dog of the enlisted force and that HE can makes things happen. Shit, I have 20 things I would change immediately given the chance, I sure hope he had a list when he stepped into that office.

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

I get the "culture" argument, but the problem is that the ability to truly LEAD really has been taken back up to the highest possible level. There is a definite feeling of always having to ask "mother may I" for just about anything. This isn't just a "culture" thing either. If a guy sticks his neck out to change something, and it doesn't work the dude is HAMMERED for not getting "permission" first. The concept of centralized control/decentralized execution is dead. The strategic level of leadership is DEEP into the tactical level of execution, and I'm not just talking about combat ops. You just about need MAJCOM guidance just to figure out which cheek to lift when you have to fart. If you guess wrong, you're on the hook for "speeding" and not getting the thumbs up from the "appropriate" level of leadership. Your punishment can come in many forms, perhaps as simple as falling down the strat list, which sounds painless until you realize that the strat list is apparently the most important "leadership" tool out there. Most guys are content being a faceless middle third guy because taking a gamble and losing can drop you to the bottom third because the only thing the boss knows you for is your "bad" idea. THIS is what needs to change, but it is easier said than done. Until there truly is a "no harm/no foul" culture, guys will be content being graymen.

[SurelySerious]

The concept of centralized control/decentralized execution is dead.

True

[Clayton Bigsby]

You're apologizing for him. You're apologizing for Welsh the same way that people apologize for Obama. Either the problem is too big that nobody can be expected to fix it, prattling on about culture, or whatever else.

Could not agree more. The enthusiasm for Welsh seemed to be, and continues to be just like the President's meteoric rise as a candidate - tons of cheerleaders who have since continuously apologized or made excuses of why all that promise hasn't been fulfilled. Yeah, take ownership of your shit at a local level and hope it spreads, because you just can't expect much to come from the top down.

[guineapigfury]

Joe1234 and Threeholer-I agree with you both. Yes we can fix those things around us that we have control over and yes it's bullshit to hide behind the culture argument. I actually liked the fact that General Welsh gave MAJCOM CCs the ability to make their own decision about blues Monday, I just didn't like the fact that it took so long for them to pull the trigger on it. These are some of the strangest times the AF has gone through in my 16 yrs and I hope during these times the CSAF and CMSAF make some real tangible common sense changes. I will say that some of what I hear from CMSgt Cody scares me because he reverts to the "it may be too hard to change argument" which I despise. I wish he realized that he is the top dog of the enlisted force and that HE can makes things happen. Shit, I have 20 things I would change immediately given the chance, I sure hope he had a list when he stepped into that office.

If this is in reference to the waist measurement, I read the AF Crimes article differently. I thought they were implying "This is too hard to fix, so let's just stop doing it." That would be a significant improvement. We've had multiple* articles in the last month that were relatively anti waist measurement. I think either higher ups are floating a trial balloon or hopefully the fix is in. I suspect that this is largely driven by the Grand Forks debacle.

*I couldn't find good links for the others. Not without everyone needing a subscription

[17D_guy]

You heard it here first:

Large organizational cultural change is easy and just requires the guy at the "top" to say what to do.

[matmacwc]

So much for decentralized control......

[joe1234]

You heard it here first:

Large organizational cultural change is easy and just requires the guy at the "top" to say what to do.

It's not like the entire service is a top-down organization with a clear chain of command that is mostly governed by a bunch of regulations written by generals that mandate one thing or another. No, in fact, all of the rules in the Air Force stem from constant opinion polls that measure the culture of the Air Force. Kinda like how when you get tagged to do something, the CC and DO just shrug and say "we can't do anything about it because culture".

[17D_guy]

It's not like the entire service is a top-down organization with a clear chain of command that is mostly governed by a bunch of regulations written by generals that mandate one thing or another. No, in fact, all of the rules in the Air Force stem from constant opinion polls that measure the culture of the Air Force. Kinda like how when you get tagged to do something, the CC and DO just shrug and say "we can't do anything about it because culture".

Cool, I'll wait for that AFI CSAF writes to fix everything. Perhaps he can just release it in MFR format.

Hell.. I bet this Vector thing will fix it all since it's so easy being the guy on "top".

Edited April 19, 2013 by 17D_guy

[joe1234]

[WABoom]

If this is in reference to the waist measurement, I read the AF Crimes article differently. I thought they were implying "This is too hard to fix, so let's just stop doing it." That would be a significant improvement. We've had multiple* articles in the last month that were relatively anti waist measurement. I think either higher ups are floating a trial balloon or hopefully the fix is in. I suspect that this is largely driven by the Grand Forks debacle.

*I couldn't find good links for the others. Not without everyone needing a subscription

I took the article the way I posed it. When I attended a SNCO call with him here at Altus a few months prior to his selection as CMSAF, he left me utterly confused. The first 30 minutes he focused on telling us that we should work on changing things around us and the last 10 minutes on accepting the fact that some things we couldn't change and we should "just get on the bus". I shit you not, I was left shaking my head and wondering if I entered the Twilight Zone. Why is it he wanted us focused on saving a buck here and there when we could change big things and save TONS of cash???

Edited April 20, 2013 by WABoom

[amcflyboy]

I get the "culture" argument, but the problem is that the ability to truly LEAD really has been taken back up to the highest possible level. There is a definite feeling of always having to ask "mother may I" for just about anything. This isn't just a "culture" thing either. If a guy sticks his neck out to change something, and it doesn't work the dude is HAMMERED for not getting "permission" first. The concept of centralized control/decentralized execution is dead. The strategic level of leadership is DEEP into the tactical level of execution, and I'm not just talking about combat ops. You just about need MAJCOM guidance just to figure out which cheek to lift when you have to fart. If you guess wrong, you're on the hook for "speeding" and not getting the thumbs up from the "appropriate" level of leadership. Your punishment can come in many forms, perhaps as simple as falling down the strat list, which sounds painless until you realize that the strat list is apparently the most important "leadership" tool out there. Most guys are content being a faceless middle third guy because taking a gamble and losing can drop you to the bottom third because the only thing the boss knows you for is your "bad" idea. THIS is what needs to change, but it is easier said than done. Until there truly is a "no harm/no foul" culture, guys will be content being graymen.

I feel like I just read an excerpt from one of my SOS Correspondence readings!!

Either way, well said.

Two biggest complaints on the surface level as anecdotal for the culture of the Airforce was PT Gear at the 'Died, and blues Monday. Werent both situations resolved? Im not active duty and I understand that its alot worse than the Guard (Though the guard is trying its best to look like AD unfortunately) but from what Ive seen, we have a genuinely good leader. Dont stare a gift horse in the mouth. (Not sure what that actually means!) Whats a gift horse?

The leadership at my Guard base is forcing us to use PT gear for all PT tests starting in October. This should probably go in the "WTF?" thread. For all the other Guard guys, is this coming your way?

Edited April 21, 2013 by amcflyboy

[matmacwc]

Already here

[herkbum]

The leadership at my Guard base is forcing us to use PT gear for all PT tests starting in October. This should probably go in the "WTF?" thread. For all the other Guard guys, is this coming your way?

We can wear whatever PT clothes we would like.