EXIT INTERVIEW: CULTURE STILL EATS STRATEGY
So beneath this large concern, which I believe will contribute greatly to our success or failure, are my three subordinate ones:
1. Technological urgency—from our threats—versus our current and desired capabilities. As the Army chief of staff recently said, we have to modernize now. Twenty years of overseas operations have badly beaten up our major platforms across all formations. Tey need modern replacements now, and the Army’s new “Big 6” can’t arrive soon enough. We will have to use some $60 billion devoted to our modernization over the next five years very prudently, with ample experimentation before commitment. And we know it will be much longer before development really ends on these systems and fielding can commence—longer still before full fielding and operational capability.
Te Army is much more diverse than the other services, and with more mission complexity. And so it may require large organiza- tions to allocate resources based upon operational mission and capability analyses, etc. But it has never been lost upon me that the Navy has no Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), Army Materiel Command (AMC), or Army Futures Command (AFC), and seems to do just fine with its own modernization efforts. Having these three, four-star major commands now, I certainly hope the Army can adapt to Morgan’s paradigm
Our commitment to technical excellence has never been needed more.
regarding the current environment and facilitate each other’s efforts rather than get in each other’s way. To be nimble and agile doesn’t require us to be small. But as my friend Vice Adm. (Ret.) Tom Hughes said to me regarding organizational agility a few years before he passed away, “Te DOD is often a victim of its own size, its bigness.”
He felt that the sheer scale of DOD’s organization and mission sets made it difficult to maneuver and reform. Participants of the O-5/GS-14 Product Manager Pre-Command Course conducted at the Pentagon in the last five years have said to me privately, after senior leaders leave the room, “Tere are a lot of folks between them [senior leaders] and me who haven’t yet gotten the memo on that urgency thing.” Once again, a culture of lethargy and rewards for mediocrity, with no penalty for delaying progress, hinders those trying to “move the needle.” We cannot let ourselves be a
WHEN SUBCULTURES UNITE
At Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Blanchfield Army Community Hospital Commander Col. Patrick T. Birchfield gives an elbow bump to Screaming Eagle Medical Home Behavioral Health Consultant Joan Lovett before presenting her the Commander’s Certificate of Achievement on Oct. 20. When civilian- and military-led expertise comes together, remarkable partnerships can result. (Photo by Maria Christina Yager, Blanchfield Army Community Hospital)
94 Army AL&T Magazine Spring 2021
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