“You teach people how to be innovative by teaching them to observe human nature and understand what motivates people. Everything that prevents us from being creative, everything that prevents us from being innovative as a group is rooted in human nature.

 We must be masters at this game of innovation and we better be world class at developing a culture of innovation. The two forms of innovation that keep you perpetually relevant are innovation that sustains what you are doing today and what is working, and then innovation that changes you into something that can do the same thing in a different game, a different world, a different economic curve.

Through new programs like Pilot Training Next, which is using virtual and augmented reality technology to study how Airmen learn more rapidly, AETC is embracing a culture of innovative thinkers who are emboldened to always look for better ways to complete the mission.

The trick here is to have a strategy for sustaining innovation that is traditional, but the strategy for a transformational innovation has to be fluid — it cannot be bogged down, because it will grow and migrate and move as you explore and try to bring it online. The predicate is that you design something that uplifts the current investment to the maximum degree possible, so that it will be accepted, eventually, as the strategy evolves.

Developing Airmen requires promoting learning and experience opportunities across the Continuum of Learning. Airmen should always strive to learn and innovate faster, because that is the only sustainable advantage in modern warfare.

If there is one question you ought to leave here remembering, it’s this…How can I do this job better?”

-Lt. Gen. Steve Kwast

Commander of Air Education and Training Command