- Roger 4807 approaching runway seven, Bravo. - The Air Force has announced the creation of a new information operations technical training school. - The First Command simply must arm our Airmen to outthink, outperform, outpartner, outinnovate any potential adversary. - Air Force Basic Military Training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality. - The First Command, The Air Force Starts Here. - Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Air Force Starts Here podcast. I'm your host for this professional development podcast, Jennifer Gonzalez from the AETC Public Affairs team. As you know, this podcast is dedicated to bringing Total Force big A Airmen tips, tricks and lessons learned from recruiting, training and the education worlds. In this episode, we are discussing an initiative that has ripple effects across the Air Force. As you likely know, AETC is dual-hatted as the Force Development Command. Force Development is just a deliberate process of preparing Airmen, Air Force-wide with the required competencies to meet the challenges of the 21st century. So what is a competency, you ask. Well, it's a combination of knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics that manifest in observable and measurable patterns of behavior. The Airman's Foundational Competencies are categorized in four major groups, Developing Self, Developing Others, Developing Ideas and Developing Organizations. In all, there are 22 competencies which fall into these four buckets. More are under study and on the way. Joining us to discuss these competencies and the impacts they will have Air Force-wide is the Branch Chief of the Foundational Competencies, Jamal Qalyym, and Industrial Organizational Psychologist, Dr. Laura Barron. Thank you both for joining us today. So before we get things started, tell me a little bit about yourself. - I'm retired Air Force and I'm a former Avionics Specialist and also I was a previous Instructor for the Air Force. But as a civilian, I've worked the technical training side of AETC as a Curriculum Developer. I've been a Training Development Element Chief, AETC Training Manager and a Training Pipeline Manager. I've been working competencies since early 2018. - So quite some time. And Dr. Barron, a little bit about your background. - So I'm a career Air Force Civilian. I've worked for the Air Force for nine years. My background is in personnel research, conducting studies and analysis. Previously, I was an Assistant Professor in psychology. Also spent a lot of time at AFPC where I was the Chief of Strategic Research and Assessments. - So your skill sets definitely come into serious play here. - Yes, they do. - Absolutely, I appreciate Q's knowledge and expertise in education and training. And I think Q is a bit of a data guy and he appreciates some of where I can help with the research. - Yes, I do. - (laughs) Dynamic Duo over here. Well, thank you both again for joining us today. So currently, the Air Force has 22 Foundational Competencies. Can you guys tell us a little bit briefly about what they are and how we got to this? - So the competencies, the way that they are structured is that they are structured into bins or buckets. And there are four buckets, Developing Self, Developing Others, Developing Ideas and Developing Organization. So when you think of them from that perspective, then in Developing Self, the competencies that are associated with Developing Self are accountability, communication, decision-making, results-focused, self control, information seeking, initiative and resilience. And Developing Others, we have teamwork, develops people, perseverance, service mindset, leadership, flexibility and precision. Under Developing Ideas, we have competencies analytical thinking, influence and creative thinking. And Developing Organizations, we have resource management, change management and strategic thinking. Now, we do have two competencies that are under study. And that's digital literacy and fosters inclusion. - So digital literacy and fosters inclusion, those are two relatively high visibility competencies. - They are, they are at the recent corona. The Chief of Staff and the other MAJCOM commander said that we have two more competencies that are important to the Air Force. And that's digital literacy and fosters inclusion. However, what we're doing is we're taking them through a rigorous process where we find out what those behaviors are that are associated with those two particular competencies. - So tell me about those processes because in order to get to the 22 we're at now, you had to do the same process that you're currently doing for digital literacy. What are those processes, what do they look like? - So let me start off by saying that the original competencies that we came up with went through a four-phase process where it started off with a competency summit where representatives from across the Air Force, AETC, SAF/MR, HAF/A1, USAFA and other organizations reviewed competencies and associative measures previously validated as relevant across a wide variety of jobs. So what was important about these behaviors is that they distinguish high performing members against those who are just average job performance. So that gives you a context of the importance of these behaviors and what they go towards. So in Phase 2, A3J, up under Force Development, we conducted behavioral event interviews where we talked to chaplains and chaplain assistants to get those critical incidents of what made them successful. Phase 3 was a survey that lent itself to gathering that data a little quicker. We sent this survey out to the elite enlisted community, officer community and a civilian community in order to validate the importance of the identified competencies based on those competency measures that we obtained from academic literature. And then in Phase 4, a large survey that we sent out to a representative population of the Air Force, 23,511 personnel across civilian, enlisted and officers participated, were invited to participate in the survey. The results of that survey 3,200 and roughly 69 respondents helped us vetted the competencies. Now, Dr. Barron may have a lot more because she had the scientific mind that helps us get more into the depths of the process. - Yeah, I'd like to think of that large scale survey as crowdsourcing the question of what competencies are important for success in an Air Force career. So we went out to representative samples of enlisted, officers, civilian, all ranks, all grades. And we started with a very long list of competencies and a very long list of competency behaviors. And we were able to get down to a smaller number based on their input, input from the Air Force, what was consistent across all of those groups in terms of distinguishing success from non-success or a high level of success from an average level of success. So just to give you an example, the initial list that we were working from based on some of those earlier focus groups that Q mentioned, we had competencies like directiveness, like self esteem. And while certainly those things may be important for success in an Air Force career, they just didn't reach that same bar or that same threshold as importance ratings for the current Foundational Competencies. - So Dr. Barron, you mentioned a bar or threshold, what is that bar or threshold and how can these competencies actually be measured that they're reaching that threshold? - Well, so I mean, it was a quantitative threshold in terms of the large scale survey we did. So if you're looking at a Likert-type survey and three is slightly important and four is very important, things that were only slightly important didn't make the cut. So I mentioned that one survey that was done in 2018 that was large that went out to representative samples. We did a follow-up survey of Air Force supervisors in 2020 to make sure that we weren't missing out on important insights. And that really helped us get down deeper to the finer grade level of competency behaviors. There was those behaviors that we used in developing the competency assessments that are now available on MyVector. - So it sounds like that these competencies all work together to make a well-rounded Airman. And we're in this period of time where we are developing the Airmen we need. This is a statement that could be heard Air Force-wide. - So I'm glad that you recognize it that way and hopefully as other Airmen, - Absolutely. as they're being exposed to these competencies that they recognize them the same way. - So one question I do have when looking at this process and 22 competencies, this sounds like a long, long process. - It sounds like a long process, however, it's a meaningful process. And it's meaningful from the aspect of we tend to live our lives a lot using checklists. Check this off, check this off, check this off. What makes competencies unique is that the Air Force says that they're important. They are transferrable across jobs, across roles, across functions, across organizations. They are even usable in our daily lives. So they in essence become a part of the Airman. - That's almost where we're trying to get also with our physical standards, too, that it's something that we do all the time. (laughs) - Yes. So who are these Foundational Competencies for? - So they're for everyone. - Okay. They're for everyone, big A Airmen. Big A Airmen includes enlisted, officer and civilian. So no one is left out. And that's from the beginning of their career in the Air Force until the day they retire and beyond. So it is for everyone. It is for that new session that comes in as a lieutenant or comes in as an Airman. It is for a supervisor, it is for the commander, it is for the coaches, for the mentors, for those relationships that we form within the Air Force where we can have more meaningful, more contextual conversations, especially when you couch them on foundational competencies, foundational. Foundational, build a foundation because you can't build a house without a foundation. - And this is Air Force-wide, this is for someone in the AETC, someone in ACC? - Air Force-wide, every MASH comm. So if I had my way, we would share it with the Army, with the Navy, with Space Force and with the Marines, and every department within the federal government. - Well, someone's gotta lead the way. We're happy to do it here in the Air Force. (laughs) - Exactly. - So we have these 22 Foundational Competencies that have been well-defined by the processes that you guys have painstakingly gone through, how important is it to have those well-defined sets of competencies to any organization? - So when we think about that, we think about those guideposts that individuals set for their career goals. By knowing what success means and what those behaviors are within the Air Force, then it lays out a road map, makes it a little bit easier to have those developmental conversations with your supervisor. It makes a little bit easier to have those developmental conversations with your coaches, with your mentors, with each other. By knowing what those behaviors are, what those behaviors of successful members in the Air Force have indicated what made them successful, it just creates that road map that just makes it easy to follow. I mean, there are 20, maybe 30 different ways to get to a destination if you pick a destination on the map, but you want the most effective destination. - I think part of what's so important about the Foundational Competencies as Q said, we need to communicate to Airmen what's expected. And part of that expectation is that Airmen need to be more than just technically proficient if they wanna be successful in an Air Force career. And so this is really a clear recognition that there's some core things that you need to work on throughout your career that will help serve you, that will be transferrable. It's very narrow technical skills that make you successful as an intel analyst or as an manpower analyst or as working in special warfare. But some of these core things teamwork, analytical thinking, resilience, these will serve you well wherever you go. - This sounds very much like a developmental tool but one question that I do have is when you talk to people and you're saying teamwork and resiliency and analytical thinking, how can you really measure those things? I don't know, is there really a way to measure this? - Absolutely, and I think it's such a great question because there's often a perception that things like that can't be measured, that they're too intangible. But that just isn't true. So primarily measuring a competency well depends on getting beyond a label, getting beyond a bumper sticker of teamwork or resilience to drill down and say what are those specific behaviors that are associated with the competency. So in other words, don't just ask, well, how good is someone at teamwork but ask about how they demonstrate it. Do they acknowledge the contributions made by others on their team? Do they freely share information with their team members? Do they invite all members of their group to contribute? Do they encourage others to make them feel important? So I mean I frame these as yes-no questions here, but it's not a matter of whether you use these things once, it's the extent to which you do these things consistently and effectively over time. And all of the competency measures that we have available on MyVector are based on this continuum, this continuum of consistency, of effectiveness, recognizing that no one is perfect, no one checks the box to say yes, I'm proficient and can't grow and get better. The other thing that I'd like to highlight and that I'm really proud of is that we developed the competency measures that appear on MyVector. We really did our homework. So we did that large scale survey of Air Force supervisors to really identify what are the specific behaviors that distinguish Airmen with the highest potential for future career success from other Airmen. So what do those high potential Airmen do that others don't? And those are the behaviors, those are the assessment questions that appear as competency measures on MyVector. And then the second thing I would add recognizing we're never gonna have a perfect measure, but we do measure competency better when we get input from multiple raters. So if my supervisor, my peers, my subordinates are all rating me highly on teamwork behaviors, well then we can probably be safe in inferring that I'm in fact highly skilled at that versus if only one individual had rated on me. And so that's why on MyVector, we do make available access to what's called a 360 feedback tool so that members can stop with the self-assessment, they can stop with the supervisor assessment, but if they want that additional insight, they can request feedback from peers or subordinates or higher ranking members. Because when we average across ratings from all of those groups and we do that in a way that's confidential, that protects the anonymity of raters, we can get a really good measure and a good read on people's skills. - And Dr. Barron, you touched on MyVector. And this is where folks can actually take their own assessment on their competencies. And the assessment asks questions that as you said drill down to those specific behaviors. So tell me a little bit about the assessment, how it works and how Airmen can benefit from going on to MyVector and taking it? - Go ahead, Q. - So let me start by just stating that once an Airman logs in to MyVector, there's a new tab on the left-hand side on the bottom, it says Air Force Competencies. And we're very proud of that tag because now what they're going to do is open up a whole new world of development, a whole new opportunity. And so there's a self-assessment that they can take where they can self-assess themselves against these behaviors that link to the competencies. And as Dr. Barron said before that there's an opportunity where they have the control of electing to have the additional assessment come from a supervisor and also from their peers, subordinates and superiors. - If they elect to do that. - And that's the most important part of that anonymity, not only on the part of the raters because we want those raters to be as honest as possible. We want those raters to be as honest as possible. But also having the control. The individual having the control of who they seek that feedback from. And Dr. Barron, she can answer. - This is intended as an optional tool. It's really developed with eager aggressive learners in mind. And I would encourage every Airman when they go on the site start with a competency self-assessment. So we call this the Pathfinder Assessment. We're trying to identify your developmental path for you. And it takes five to 10 minutes, respond to a list of different competency behaviors and you'll see your results immediately. And there's a few parts to the feedback that I think folks will find helpful. The first is that you can see how you've viewed yourself as compared to norms for other members of the same rank as you. But then the most important piece of the results is your personal improvement plan. So you'll see your competency strengths, you'll see it based on the assessment your potential areas for improvement. And then you'll also see personalized recommendations for online resources that can help with your professional development. And so we've included a variety of different types of resources, courses, books, articles, videos. All of them freely available, either through Air Force E-learning or external websites, things like Ted Talks to really give you a starting point to help you focus, to give you some tips about how to improve at the same time recognizing that competencies are developed over time with practice. - It definitely gives Airmen an opportunity to take more ownership of their development. I mean, we have a lot of tools that are out there. I mentioned the coaching and the mentoring. But to really add context to those relationships, if I have a tool which generates a development plan based on an assessment of important skills. Of important skills, that makes the conversation more meaningful. I mean, think about something like job satisfaction. How do I get satisfaction out of a job? Look, Airmen work. They do the work today, but they're also thinking about their future. So what better way to pursue your future than through some sort of development that is meaningful, that is leading you down that road to success? - So this is known as competency-based development, is that correct? - Exactly, it creates a common currency when you talk about competencies because it is a clear way to communicate to Airmen, to supervisors the necessary behaviors that are required to succeed in the Air Force. And it supports Airmen throughout their career, which is very key. So there's a chance for continual development because if you look at these competencies and you look at the proficiency levels, the criteria is that they be able to apply these competencies in progressively complex situations. So it's not to say just because I'm at Base X working in Base X unit that if I do this competency, then I'm good to go. No, it is a continuous growth because the situations that you have within your current location may not be the same situation that you have in a different location. - So will the assessments change as well the more you take them or will the assessments always be the same? - The assessment will change over time based on the change in competencies. However, if you take the assessment at let's say you take the assessment at the beginning of 2021, you don't have to just take it just once. What signifies that growth is that you have the opportunity to take that assessment again. - So you do the development and put the time and effort in and then you take that assessment again and see where you're at? - Yes. Oh, okay. So the idea of competencies is not a new thing. This is something industry already has and implements and does. - It is, it's a development tool that will give Airmen something extra because as was stated earlier that we focus on the technical know-how, how you do your job, but that's not a wide enough aspect of you as a performer. There are behavioral characteristics that also contribute to your performance. I was thinking about something today, just today, driving. So if I spent my whole life or a good amount of my time driving in San Antonio where it doesn't snow a lot, so I don't get that adverse weather that I would get if I was up North. Up North, driving is very different. Now, of course the skills that I use, not only my driving skills but my ability to think, to think about what other drivers are doing. If I did that all the time on these roads here in San Antonio, then I go up to a place like Chicago in February, it's a much different driving situation. My driving skills are still useful but the complexity of driving changes. It changes, so I have to be able to adapt. And so with those transferrable competencies, so thinking, thinking about how I drive, thinking about my decisions. Decision-making when I'm driving in those adverse conditions or in complex situations, they change. I have to apply them differently. So it is not a one-time, it is a continuous development that goes on with Airmen. - It sounds like you guys are definitely holding the banner for Foundational Competencies because I'll be honest, when I first heard about this, I was like, what! But the more that I've engaged and spoke with you, the more that I'm understanding the importance and the impact that this will have for our Air Force. - So from my perspective growing up in the Air Force, I think that we knew of some of those aspects of performance but we couldn't quite put our finger on it. So it wasn't until recently working with competencies that it started the light bulb that came on. Whoa, if I'd of had this when I was a young Airman or a young Sergeant or a young supervisor, it would have made the world of difference in my ability to help develop my Airmen. And I believe in it that much, I do. I don't have a tattoo yet, but... - You're getting close. - I don't know, I'm afraid of the needle. - So what's next now? Oh, go ahead, Dr. Barron, I'm sorry. - So I think that's really the beauty of it. You asked isn't industry already doing this and they are, they have competency models but typically they wouldn't have a 360 assessment tool that's available to someone new to the organization, not in a senior leadership role. So to have this capability so that a young Airman just out of high school can get this type of feedback so early in his or her career, I think that really is something that's new, that's different, that's valuable and yeah, like Q, I would've appreciated having that kind of feedback early on. - It gets you on the right path right from the start. - It does, so I think as a former supervisor that you want to do the best for your Airmen. Because one of the things that's important is you investing as well as the Airman investing in themselves. And so it goes towards things like job retention. You want them to benefit from a successful career because you can see things in them. And having those indicators of how can we bridge that conversation of where you are and where you wanna go. So I think it is timely and it's very important. - It gets after a lot of things that you hear Big Air Force talking about. We're talking about aggressive learners, people who are hungry for knowledge and passionate about where they're going. It gets after retention. We wanna retain the best and recruit the best. - Exactly, correct, you are absolutely correct. Now, how do we get after that, is that thing. How do we arm ourselves, how do we arm supervisors, how do we arm commanders, how do we arm Airmen and when do we start getting after them? We should get after that starting day one. - And now with this, with MyVector, with these Foundational Competencies... - MyVector is almost like a hidden gem because it can provide you all the tools that you need. And its flexibility to be able to grow that system to have a central location to where you can get after those different aspects of development, after create better performance by doing the work that will lead you to better conversations with your supervisor because I think that's so key in that supervisor-subordinate relationship. If you don't know what's available to you, then how do you advocate for it? I want to advocate for development. - And I think we would always hope that there would be that strong connection between the supervisor and the member, but where that isn't the case, I'd just add that the competency tools really complement a lot of the content that's already on MyVector. So to be able to search for a mentor, to be able to have that additional capability so that if you wanna sit down and talk to someone else about your competency results, doesn't have to be your supervisor. You can reach out and touch someone else who's more experienced. And this tool can really give you some good material to work from as a conversation starter. - And you guys have had good success so far with your launch, as far as people taking the assessment? - Yes, we have. I would say we have, Dr. Barron? - This hasn't been messaged very heavily so far, but we've already had over 3,000 people who have taken it. This hasn't been people being told go do. This really reflects people saying this fills the need, this is a tool I'd like to have for me. - And it's only been out for a few months now. - No, for a few weeks. - Oh, a few weeks. - A few weeks. - Yes, wow! - So I think that lends to the credibility. So we've used a tool in some of the commander's courses in certain MAJCOMs, Air Force Global Strike Command has used it in their commanders course, AETC has used it in their commanders course, ACC has used it in their commanders course and PACAF has used it in their commanders course. - That's wonderful. - So every bit of marketing opportunity that we can get is much appreciated. (laughing) - So what's next? - Well, I think there's a few things that are coming. One is trying to develop assessments that will blend occupational and foundational competencies within the same assessment, received a lot of interest on that from career field managers that want a one-stop shop. The technical is important but so is the non-technical. How can we make this easy for our people? The second thing and I think you got at it a little bit in terms of the question on retention, we need to be thinking about how we can use the Foundational Competencies for person job match. So even though we certainly all aspire to improve on all 22 competencies, no person is gonna be the strongest on all 22. And no job is gonna put equal emphasis on all 22. So to the extent that we can match people with their strengths. If your strengths are in analytical thinking, let's try to set something up so that it's communicated to you that you get that feedback that there are Air Force jobs out there that can play to your strengths and can give you that job satisfaction that maybe you didn't have when you were initially matched to a career field out of basic training. We've already begun surveying career field managers and what are those unique, or I should say Foundational Competencies that are most strongly important for their career fields, for their special duties, so that we will be set up to build in that functionality to give person job match feedback to the member based on the same types of assessments that we have on MyVector now. - That's wonderful. So what am I forgetting to ask? - I think that one of the important questions that come to my mind is how do we get this message out to all the Airmen. That's an important question because the sooner we get the message out to all the Airmen, the sooner that they can get started, the sooner that they can use the tools. And I think that advocacy is everything, marketing is everything, knowing that this is not a stagnant process. The competencies they can change because as the mission of the Air Force changes, it may change what the Air Force sees as most important. Though, like Dr. Barron said, you're not gonna be an expert at all of the competencies, but it doesn't stop you from developing in any of the competencies that you choose, that you may not be using currently in a position or in a job and a function in a role. That question is a question of should Airmen take ownership of their development? Absolutely, absolutely. - And I think when I asked you who was this for, you said big A Airmen, just going back to the beginning, I get that now because this is beneficial for leaders or supervisors because their Airmen will be developed and have stronger competencies to support them. - Yes, and there are civilian career fields that ask about and that are engaged with these competencies as well. So we're not leaving out the civilians by any means. We're not leaving out the officers by any means. We're not leaving out the enlisted. It is all inclusive, any role, any function, any organizations, these competencies, and I think it's very important to highlight are transferrable. They are transferrable. So you can carry them anywhere you go. - Q said it well that the Air Force mission may change, certainly our jobs, our assignments come and go, but this idea, these four major categories, Developing Self, Developing People, Developing Ideas, Developing Organizations, we all need those to be successful. And if we have tools to help us on that path, I think that's a big win for the Air Force. - A win-win. - Definitely, well, wonderful. Thank you both so much for your time today. - Well, thank you. - Thank you. - And thank you for listening. Be sure to check out MyVector to take your self-assessment to determine your level of proficiency in these competencies and learn how to develop them further. From our entire AETC Public Affairs team, I'm Jennifer Gonzalez and talk to you next time on The Air Force Starts Here.