no longer do you necessarily have the notion of the same career pyramid for everybody ? You have a number of different ladders that people can create for themselves and put themselves on their own personal trajectory to hire more senior level leadership positions but also just more intrinsic development of the competencies within the model . Roger first demand simply must arm our airmen to out think . Outperform our partner out , innovate any potential adversary . The first command the Air Force starts here . Hello and thank you for tuning into the Air Force starts here podcast . My name is Miriam thurber and I'm excited to host this episode on developing organizations which is one of the Air Force's foundational competencies . If you've tuned in before , you know that in each episode we provide tips tricks and lessons from our talented educators , trainers and leaders . And today I have the honor of speaking with Brigadier General Campbell who is the Deputy Chief human Capital Officer for the U . S . Space Force . As well as Dr Alex Baraka , who is retired Air Force and a current consultant for A T . C . As you may already know . The Air Force charged a TC with executing force development which is the deliberate process of preparing Airmen and Guardians Air Force Wide with the required competencies to meet the challenges of the 21st century . The Air Force has identified 24 airman's foundational competencies for all airmen which are a combination of knowledge , skills and abilities that manifest in observable and measurable patterns of behavior . The airman's foundational competencies are categorized into four major groups . We have , developing self developing others , developing ideas and developing organizations and today we're discussing that last one . Developing organizations which includes resource management , change management and strategic thinking or planning . Now that we've covered the basics , let's talk with our experts about what development organizations means for every airmen and guardians across the force . Thank you both for joining us today . And if you would , let's start by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and your position , General Campbell , would you be able to give us a background of who you are and what your job is ? Certainly first of all thank you for having us here . I'm really excited to do this podcast with you . My name is Brigadier General Shawn Campbell . I'm currently the Deputy Chief Human Capital Officer for the United States Space Force . But it's important to note that I am an airman . I am not a guardian , but I have been supporting the stand up of the Space Force since the first of May 2020 and I continue in this role for the entire period of time . But dr brock , could you give us a little bit about yourself and your position as well ? Yes , thank you . My name is Alex Poor Elka . I am retired Air Force . I was one of the HR and organizational behavior professors at after after after I did some research related work in that area at A . F . R . L . And then became a professor at Illinois State University where I consult competency and competency model development with A T . C . Thank you so much for joining us . General Campbell knowing you're an airman and not a Guardian , can you tell us a little bit about your experience still holding onto that airman identity while working in the Space force ? I can and for me it's really not a long walk because the work that I was doing before I came over to help the Space Force stand up was I was the Chief of the Talent innovation Development sell for the United States Air Force . And so this is the cell that was putting together any number of new things that we're doing in the human resource environment . And so it was a natural extension for me to come over to the Space Force where we have this what we often refer to clean sheet opportunity in the Talent management life cycle to do some things very , very differently from how we did it in the United States Air Force or for that matter . The other service branches . That's not to suggest that the service branches aren't doing some things that are innovative , particularly with respect to the human resource portfolio . They are the big opportunity was for us to go a lot faster and to do more things all at once because we had less institutional inertia to overcome in order to do some of the things that were really innovating and we're doing inside what we call the Guardian ideal . So our human capital strategy . So it was really a perfect fit for me to come over here and bring that same sense of what we were working on in the U . S . Air force to the U . S . Space Force . And then where it makes sense , the desire is to take some of these things these things back for implementing inside the the U . S . Air Force . So for me it's not a loss of identity at all . I'm really just doing the things that I'm passionate about . I happen to be doing so for the Department of the Air Force and so if we're able to do things well in the Space Force and I think we are that that gives a good opportunity for us to take those things back to the U . S . Air Force so that both airmen and guardians will benefit from the some of the really unique and interesting challenges that we're undertaking in the Talent management lifecycle . It really is such a unique opportunity to have kind of almost a case study where you can start with this brand new organization and see what works and then bring the Air Force up to speed as well . Can you speak a little bit then of how you've seen this competency of developing organizations , how you've seen that in action um in a really tangible way with the Space Force and how are you going to bring that back to the Air force ? Yeah , I can . And so I think it's important though to give a little bit of a predicate for the use of developing organizations as one of the foundational competence for the United States Air Force and goes back to an Air education training command started this process that that they they defined there problem as the Air Force having to further refine a framework of observable , measurable foundational competencies to deliberately develop agile , adaptable and ethical airmen in defense of the nation . And so in terms of taking those competencies and employing them in the space force has actually been highly useful . So with respect to developing organizations , it's one of the four subsets of the four areas underneath the foundational competencies . And so as an Air man , I'd like to think that I internalize and exhibit some of these foundational competencies . And so as we're building a new service , the ideas within the foundational competencies are strategic thinking , change management and resource management . When you're building a new service for the first time in more than 70 years , it takes all three of those competencies in order to do it . I think well you have to be able to plan at the high level at the strategic level because you're building an entirely new service , not just for example starting a new shop or a new business if you will , we're starting an entirely new service which requires all of those levels levels that we think about strategic operational and tactical , all working together at once . So being able to employ those foundational competencies there right at the heart of what we're trying to do as the proverb goes , we're building the satellite where we're flying it and that requires a high level of competency in being able to adapt and work with change . And then when you're thinking about resource management , it's the same thing Because up until next fiscal year fiscal 23 , the space force will not have its own budget and so we have to be mindful of all of our resources are being supplied by the United States Air Force and their finite and they're even smaller when you consider we comprise about 2.5% of the Department of Defense , the entire budget . So as a result we have to be able to apply those small amounts of resources to all of the things that we're attempting to do . Why we're building this new service where everything most everything I should say is really new and that requires resources . So the ability to employ the resources that are available to you where you always have more requirement than you have resources that that competency comes directly into play and what we're doing as we're building out the Space Force , there really is an incredible mission . Such a unique situation to be in . I love that you use that high level of competency because you have , as you said , minimal resources with a really big important mission . So this competency is kind of a thread that we're seeing happening in a lot of airmen development and creating this system that really pulls the most quality airmen who really is highly competitive and really competent when they get into the workforce . Um Doctor Welcome . Could you tell us a little bit of how does competency based development give airmen a clear idea of what's expected of them when they're a member of the Air Force ? Yeah , that's that's a great question . Um It's a great question because in the in the past we've always had lists , write lists of things we've been told we should try to do better . Right ? So we go off to a development program , whether it's a leadership development program or teamwork development program or organizational development program and we are taught different things and given different topics that we should consider in order to improve our own capabilities and interests in those in those areas . And we typically will write those things down , take a lot of really good notes and we'll go back to our home office um and we'll sit down at our desks and pull out that piece of paper and look at it and all too often we wonder , right , we wonder how to take that , that list of topics and actually do something with them and make them meaningful and useful in the context , we find ourselves in at that moment . That's what competencies really speak to because they add the not only the the actual topic , the actual item that we try to get people to learn more about and and and develop , but also the behaviors , the specific behaviors that might be attached to those competencies uh for a specific level and maybe even a specific a fsc . And so now we have a way to not just tell people what to do what they need to think about and what topics and and and headline information they need to learn more about . But actually how to do it , we can at least give them a start . We can go ahead and give them more information about how it is . They can't improve themselves in any number of these different competencies in a very meaningful , real and tangible way in the position that they find themselves in the Air force . Yeah . And not just telling them what needs to be done but also equipping them to complete it . And telling them how to do it as well . That really speaks to the importance of using those resources and using everything at our disposal correctly . Just as General Campbell was talking about , we've heard some about Pathfinder , we've heard some about my vector . Could you give us a little bit more of a clearer picture about what Pathfinder is and why airmen should check out the air force competencies on my vector . You bet you bet Pathfinder is the airman's foundational competency model measure that exists on my vector . It was built by Air Education and Training Command A three J . And it asks members several specific questions about themselves and based on their responses . The tool more or less computes a rating of attainment for each of the individual competencies . Now , speaking of measurements , the famous physicist Niels Bohr is thought to have said nothing is real until you measure it . Now of course we can debate the limits of that statement but at its core is the notion that it's difficult to describe , explain control , predict what's going on around you unless you can measure the entire point of the developing organizational competency of change management is knowing where you are and knowing where you want to go , but none of that is possible unless you can measure where you are and measure where you want to go when we travel . We use a map with direction and distance on it to help us get somewhere and in the same way we need a map to help us understand where we are and where we want to go to and for the A . F . C . M . That that tool is the Pathfinder , uh It measures your current level of each competency of course measuring someone change management or strategic thinking isn't as easy as measuring a distance on a map . Uh There's no natural scale . They're like we have in the physical world like meters like we would what it would on a map . So instead we use the use the science of psycho metrics . Now I know that sounds like a really big scary word but but at its core it means nothing more than the science of measuring the un observable and it's the science we use to create these measures um and allows us to measure things that are more un observable like love or hate or leadership or strategic thinking or change management . And so we've applied that science in in this regard to develop the pathfinder right now , the pathfinder is available to anyone who has access to my vector . This is about total force development and if dr Brooke if I if I may expand on that a little bit the the assessment . So knowing if you will as a baseline where you are is great when you can then connect it through digital university and you to me to actual resources that will help you improve in those competency areas . So it's not simply that we're doing what we often refer to as gap analysis for an airman or for that matter for guardians because we're doing very similar work in the in the Space force for guardians as we're developing . They're foundational competencies and the intention is to use a very similar tool so that both airmen and guardians are able to do this baseline assessment and then connect themselves to resources to help them improve in those areas . So if one of those competencies for example is your ability to communicate if I'm skilled as an order but maybe I'm not as skilled in the physical writing and this is an opportunity for me to connected to coursework to help me improve these skill sets . And if we think about this in a broader sense this is how we think about it in application in the space force in particular borrowing from what we've learned from Air education and training Command . Doing this work for both foundational and occupational competencies , those skill sets tied to the occupations that any of our airmen or guardians fulfill is that we're trying to develop those airmen and guardians to become what I often refer to as fifth generation human weapons systems . So the best version of themselves and when we think about the real threats , the things that were required to do as members of the Department of Defense , we'll just take china as the pacing threat if we want to be better and faster and more agile and adaptive and creative than our chinese counterparts than skilling people is the way for us to get there . And and one of the beautiful things about going through this competency based model as doctor Morocco indicated is this is scientifically based . So this is this is not pure qualitative touchy feely sort of things , there is hard science in terms of how we develop people and how we make them the best versions of themselves . So that part is really exciting to me to apply this competency based framework . So you talk about this fifth generation of human weapons system , could you give a little preview of where you think we're going to be in the future , What it would take to get us to a position where we really are all optimized human weapons systems . Part of this is my personal aspirational goal but I think really what we're getting to is once I identify the things that I'm asking you to accomplish as an airman or as a guardian as a war fighter , if you will is once I know what all those competencies are then I can put you on a very deliberate developmental pathway to improve those skill sets , what we often refer to as level of mastery . And so ultimately , and I'll use the space force as an example because it's such a small service . At the , at the end of this current fiscal year we're going to be a little short of 17,000 total guardians and so I think it's incumbent upon us to develop guardians to be the most skilled they can possibly be . So when a guardian is on console , find one of our weapons systems , find a satellite , they're the very best version of themselves they have to be because there isn't bench depth , I don't have six or eight or 12 other people to bring into the game . I need that particular guardian and by extension those particular Airmen to to be the best trained , best developed , best able to apply knowledge , skills , behaviors , attributes not just that they can cognitively take a test and regurgitate an answer but in actual application in the I'll say the danger zone when things are complicated when there's the volatility , uncertainty , complexity and ambiguity of high end fight . We need those airmen and guardians to be able to think very clearly crisply and apply those skill sets and competencies that they've mastered . And a lot of the education that we're moving towards in their education training command is very airmen centric like you said that very specific path of training and towards this excellence . You don't have all these people that can do your job . You are the person who's in that position . You're the one who needs to make the decision . So equipping them , equipping everyone to be the best version of themselves is really important . And part of that that I know we've talked to a lot of different people about is being able to ascertain where you are yourself and have that self awareness which I think kind of goes back to this self reporting dr brock . I know you were talking about um all the tools at our disposal can you give us a little bit more about what we've learned from this self reporting tool and how these assessments and elected trainings can help us better understand the Total force . Yeah great question . We have some initial data from the tool that that we've been able to analyze . It brings up some really interesting ideas and thoughts right now . Our initial findings from the pathfinder measure shows that most people actually rate themselves the lowest in the area of developing organizations than any of the other three areas in the A . F . C . M . Perhaps what's even more interesting is that the difference between ratings for lower ranking people and the global average is actually three times lower for developing organizations than any other competency area . So what does that mean ? I'm kind of in total this would suggest that not only does everyone in the Air Force need to be able to Develop organizations and develop their own competencies in that area more . But this is something in particular are junior force would probably benefit from very much . The pathfinder itself is also a 360° tour which means that You can collect data not only from the individual but you can actually collect it from their peers and their subordinates um and their supervisors . And so you kind of get this full , as they say 360 multi source perspective of of competency attainment for for an individual . Um And and we find some interesting results there . Again those findings from those data suggests that the differences between supervisor ratings and subordinate self ratings is greatest Again for developing organizations than for any other competency area . Uh This would tend to suggest that supervisors think that subordinates have more ability in this area than the subordinates think they have compared to all the other competency areas . Um That might lead to a situation where we have leaders over estimate the capacity of our membership to develop organizations . So obviously another opportunity there for us to raise our level of attainment in that area and and a need for us to be able to do that . All of this is even more made more interesting I think by the fact that A . T . C . Has done some unit competency modeling for air staff organizations . And what that has shown is that after communication competencies the competencies consistent with what is in developing organizations like strategic thinking are some of the strongest needs in the Air force . So so this would also tend to suggest that while the Air Force has a strong need for developing organizational competencies , more development is needed in that area going forward . So it's very strong demand signal out there for just the type of competencies that are in this area of developing organizations . And if someone takes that quiz and waits themselves pretty low for that question whether it's because they really don't have the experience to react well in that situation or because they lack the confidence that they would what's some sort of training or development that we would do to bridge that gap and get them to that next level ? Oh yeah . Fantastic question . Um This gets back to the idea that you know , courses are being offered than you know through you know money and and other programs that a a TSC is putting together that will help address decreasing gaps that people have in the area of competency attainment . So if they find themselves being low in one particular area , A . E . T . C . Is developing training programs that that can help actually increase their competency in that area . But this goes past just training , right ? This also obviously relates to on the job training and individual even personal experiences . So perhaps if someone rates a little bit lower in for for instance communication , well maybe they could be put into a situation where they're forced to learn how to communicate more . Right ? Or if they're uh a little bit lower in resource management they could be assigned a low threat kind of job that would teach them more about resource management and the importance of it and and the skills that would go along with it . It's not just about formal training , there's on the job training and then there's um again , even potentially personal related experiences that you might want to participate in to grow your ability and certain competencies . Um For instance going back to the idea if you're a little bit lower in communication , maybe you know , you might want to join a acting group or or Toastmasters or a a speech writing kind of activity where you are being put in a position where you have to perform uh potentially at a higher level than you actually were able to before in the area of communication and this could be done on your own time . This could be done after hours . The really good part of that is that what we can now also do is we can give people credit for things they were probably already doing outside of the job in the area of competency attainment . So there are plenty of things people do all the time . Like you know maybe you're a part of a computer club right ? And so you go off and you learn more about computers . Well obviously your ability to learn more about computers just because that's your hobby and that's your interest will have a potential direct impact on your obtain mint of certain competencies in the A . F . C . M . So so we're able to take advantage not just what you have done on the job but also what you might do just because you want to do it because it's intrinsically motivated and apply what you've learned there To competency attainment in the air force . Um and and on your job . These are things that that we are doing from day one . If we can just pick up on the resource management competency for example it might be as dr Baraka indicated you start as the snack . Oh and you work your way up . But part of what we're doing is teaching people how to think about the application of those resources . So when you get into a more senior position , by the time you've grown and groomed into more senior leadership opportunities , you're presumably if we do this well your risk tolerance changes , meaning I'm a little less risk adverse at a more senior level where the gap between the certainty of things actually gets greater and so my ability to make all quantitative decisions becomes more challenged . And so that frame of reference , if you will conditioned responses , I can look at what my resources to requirements are and make risk assessments for where to apply that next dollar or where to apply that next airman or guardian that's available to help me meet my mission requirements . And so you're exactly right that this this builds over time and I like the way that they're education . Training command has thought about this and Dr Baraka hinted at this . So I just want to tie it in one type bow here . Really , what they're talking about doing is linking training , education and experiences altogether . And that full set is applied to your level of mastery across the different competencies . And so often what happens is and we found this as we've been developing and building out the space forces . We we have skill sets that people have mastered at certain levels that we don't capture anywhere in their personnel documents . And so the idea , again , going back to the self assessment and using Pathfinder , it tells me things that I don't know about myself potentially , but also those around me maybe don't recognize that I have these competencies at a certain level of skill . And so part of what we're attempting to do is to not just improve you , but also help Help supervisors connect those dots for those they supervise to to help them improve themselves over the entirety of their careers , whether it lasts four years in the air force or for 40 years That you're continually improving yourself and and we're measuring that over time . One thing that dr broke and I talked about this at some length , one of the things that we're doing inside the space force is this idea that we're going to assess you every 2-3 years . And so we're continuing to build you across the arc of your entire career . And so as you improve in your competency levels , we know that we can then make projections about your ability or what we call propensity to succeed at that next position , that next grade , the next opportunity and threading that together so that we don't put people who are unprepared into positions where they have to do all that on the job , learning some of that , it's going to naturally happen , but to the extent that we can get to the left of that , and once you take a new position , you're you're fully prepared to operate at the level required in that position . And again that ties to an objective set of measurable things . These competencies at a certain level of mastery , those are some great points and to just kind of use those as a springboard to something else . General Campbell and I have been working on in Space Force is the idea that these competencies exist and are intended to help people grow over the span of their career and it's not so so it's no longer just about assessing people and their performance today in a specific job . It's about using these competencies to provide developmental feedback that exists for what they're doing today , but also for what they're doing tomorrow . And then as General Campbell mentioned , helping them understand what they need to learn to get to that next level to attain their goals . So to a very large degree , this is a tool and a mechanism by which individuals , both in in in the Air Force and in the Space Force can have more of a direct input and more of a direct um impact on their own career trajectory . They it gives them information about where they are , it gives them more information about where they need to go and it helps through training and on the job training and outside experiences to decrease uh any gaps that are there and set them up for success , not just today but tomorrow as well . Many of the competencies in in the area of developing organizations has the word management in the title . Right . Resource management . Change management are both very important elements to the proper development and functioning of of any organization . Um Along with strategic thinking or planning you have the foundation of what the literature would consider . Basic management right ? Um more specifically use strategic thinking to plan resource management to allocate and then change management to make it all a reality . This completely conforms to the traditional definition of management . I think all of this is important to consider because I think in the military there is and rightfully so an emphasis on leadership um and and again that's done for important and appropriate reasons but a lot of the work we do and we find ourselves doing on on a daily basis even by the best leaders relates to management and relates to management and how it relates to developing organizations . So I think it's important to keep both the elements of leadership and management as it relates to developing organizations in mind . Thank you so much for that . Um General Campbell , do you have anything you would like to add what I want to make sure the audience takes away from this is don't be afraid of competencies ? Yes , it is a big word but this , this is really about what are you capable of doing right now and what are you capable of doing later and identifying how we , how we develop you to be able to do those things down online in your career . And as we've discussed during this podcast , developing you to be the best version of you to be that fifth generation human weapons system . This is this is a I'm very excited about this . I know Dr Baraka is as well . This is a great way for us to think about how we deliberately develop at depth our airmen and our guardians and all of them officer enlisted civilians alike . So this is not just the province , for example , of the military part of our formation , but it's all of our airmen and guardians in the big a big g sense and how we get there is competencies measurable observable and then we can develop you to meet those requirements . And really it's about matching those those resources to the mission that we have now and the missions that will evolve in the future . And and as as you ask , Miriam earlier , that's how you get to the fifth generation human weapons systems so that we're we're outpacing where our adversaries are because we're being this deep and this deliberate about developing our our airmen and our guardians . Thank you so much for joining us today . General Campbell and Dr Baraka . We really appreciated it and thank you listeners for tuning in if you're an airman who wants more information on new competencies or to take the self assessment yourself , you can go ahead and log into my vector and then select Air Force competencies from the main menu . Once you complete that self assessment , you will be able to immediately view your results and receive a personal improvement plan . And if you want , the director competency assessment will also allows you to request feedback from your supervisors . And as dr broken mentioned , there's a 3 60 degree function if you want where you can receive feedback from subordinates , peers or higher ranking members . Thank you for the subscribe stream or download and as a reminder you can follow Air Education Training Command and the Air E . T . C . Command team on social media . We're on facebook twitter , instagram , youtube linkedin . You can also catch up on the latest news from around the command on our website at a e t c dot af dot no from our entire 80 c public affairs team . I'm Miriam thurber and we will talk to you next time on the Air Force starts here