Toward A Fail-Safe Air Force Culture: Creating a Resilient Future While Avoiding Past Mistakes.

摘要

As the Air Force matures as a service we must choose a culture for our continued long-term success. The zero-defect approach practiced by the Strategic Air Command (SAC) during the service's infancy offers short-term success, but the resulting culture of fear and reprisal is not conducive to sustained excellence. Conversely, the tolerant approach of Quality Air Force (QAF) adopted during our adolescence provides short-term morale benefits, but its culture of ambivalence lacks the discipline required to achieve 'Excellence in All We Do.' Ultimately, long-term, high performance is possible by adopting a fail-safe approach which paradoxically embraces failure through a mindful approach to building a resilient enterprise. This fail-safe culture occurs when leaders clearly articulate the boundaries of acceptable behavior and enforce them through just rewards and just discipline. It is from inside the security of these clearly-defined boundaries that our fail-safe culture will thrive.