A633.2.3.RB - Butterfly Effect

In my organization there is a newer Lieutenant (Lt P.) who is inexperienced and eager to please upper supervision.  In the morning meetings for turnover he doesn’t pay attention near as much as he should on the important information and tends to ask a lot of insignificant questions.  His focus on trivial details has resulted in the members of our section wasting time answering questions and researching useless information.  For example, after discovering we had a piece of tape missing off of a panel in the crew station Lt P. had us research that panel, why the panel had tape where there should have been a button, and when the panel was installed.  Even after finding out that the button was modified years ago and replaced with simple aircraft tape he inquired if we had more tape (or panels) in the supply system and who last performed maintenance on that panel.  While these actions needed to be performed eventually, they are not questions or answers that need to be known or briefed by his level of supervision.  Because of his probing we have also gone out of our way to troubleshoot systems and components that could have simple answers to.  

This week, we had a B-2 mission to drop test weapons at the range.  During the flight, the aircrew received a fault code with the weapon which is fairly common and internal to the weapon itself, not the aircraft or weapon rack.  Meaning once the weapon was downloaded and tested there is no other required maintenance or troubleshooting.  After the aircraft landed and was downloaded, we performed tests on the weapon and they all passed, which is also common.  However, our previous shift knew that Lt P. would not be satisfied with that answer and he’d scrutinize our actions.  Therefore, it was decided to hook up equipment to the aircraft itself and test the weapon racks.  When hooking up the equipment, a connector was damaged which cannot be simply replaced.  Rather, the entire 480 inches long wire must be replaced and drives many hours of maintenance and operational checks.  So, now we have a “broken” aircraft due to a task that shouldn’t have been performed yet was because the Lt. likes to ask insignificant questions and push meaningless maintenance.  

Another example of where small changes yield large results in your organization occurred when I was in charge of the Support Section.

Last April, I became the Section Chief of the 509 Aircraft Maintenance Squadron Support Section. Our job was to manage the tools and equipment used to maintain the B-2 fleet. We were responsible for the security, control, and accountability of equipment. However, the section was in a troubled state. The Quality Assurance pass rates were very low and morale was almost non-existent. Not to mention the fact that our customer service reputation was lacking. The support members would greet customers with irritability and slowly retrieve tools.  I need to fix it, but wasn't sure how.  My answer was inspired by a story in a book I was reading.

It all started a year prior when I walked in to the library to waste some time.  While there, the cover of a book caught my eye and grabbed my attention.  It had a picture of a two feet; one in a dress shoe, the other was barefoot and injured.  The title read, "Leading with Honor: Leadership Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton. I love reading but at the time I enjoyed romance and suspense.  This book was about Leadership and history but I was intrigued.  I was scheduled to drive down for a month long Tdy to Mississippi the next day and noticed they had an audiobook so I decided to check it out.  This book changed my life and ultimately led to the choosing of this Master's program.  

I listened to that audiobook on repeat for weeks, soaking in the lessons.  I eventually bought more and handed them out to friends and peers as well as led a 14-week workshop.  After reading that, I got on a "leadership" kick and found the book "Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box" by the Arbinger Institute which eventually led me to read their book "The Outward Mindset".

While reading a story in this book I first got the idea to implement the outward mindset in my section. The story in the book described how Bill Bartman built a debt collection company that figured out ways to help their clients make money. “They operate from the premise that their clients owe them money precisely because they don’t have enough money to pay them.” (The Arbinger Institute, p.61) This sparked an idea in me to find ways to help our customers and section. 

 I started with a dry-erase board. At the front counter where our customers stood to check out their tools, I hung a dry erase board and simply wrote “How can we make your job easier?”. I was fishing for ideas, changes, improvements that we could make.  At first there was pessimism and hesitation.  Finally, after a week of negative comments and complaints, real suggestions started to flow.  We implemented the suggestions and our section began to improve as well as our relationship with our customers.  Each time we completed a project, I would write it on the left with a check. Weeks went by and we received more and more suggestions and my team continued implementing them. 

We started to communicate. Not only, were the customers communicating their ideas with us, we were communicating with each other. Within a few months, we QA pass rates increased and the number of lost tools lessened. Our customers would come in with smiling faces and my Airmen would optimistically greet them while quickly retrieving whatever tools needed. The support Airmen also came up with a myriad of ideas to improve the section and benefit the customers. We shifted our organizational mindset from an inward one, to an outward mindset. A simple dry erase board was the

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership. Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

The Arbinger Institute. (2016). The outward mindset seeing beyond ourselves how to change lives and transform organizations. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler .