15 June 2023
NSSA-KPMG
Guardian and IC Space Workforce Culture Forum
Keynote CMSSF Message
CMSSF Roger Towberman, Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force
Reasons Why You’re a Guardians
-We all know why we chose to be guardians. Please share those reasons and the why behind your actions.
-We cannot mandate culture or put it into policy.
-We gave frameworks for you to build culture around. Dig deep in what’s behind your reasons why.
[End]
Keynote Space AQ and Its Evolving Talent and Cultural Implications
Maj. Gen. Steven Whitney, Military Deputy, SAF/SQ
FY20 NDAA & Space AQ Executive
-Created USSF, a new office in OSD, and it established a second AQ executive.
-DAF is the only place in federal government that has two AQ executives that can have the final say.
-Now we have someone who has nothing to do but focus on space AQ.
Space AQ & Culture
-We don’t have to do this in a way that’s always been done but we have to meet our commitments. Calvelli gave his tenets. They’re really about the culture piece.
-Last of nine tenets is about delivering on cost and on schedule which requires program management discipline.
-We need to have conversations and understand what motivates both sides of AQ. We need to understand what’s driving things. The more we talk the better off we’ll be.
Talent Development
-Is it operations or AQ? It can’t be separate. They have to work together.
-I want people to understand the mechanics of orbits, how systems work, but I also want them to understand how to do the AQ of it.
-Biggest challenge we have in AQ community- getting in the reps and sets to build the program managers we need. How do we get people with reps and sets? Some of that is following the tenets, getting exposure, and the culture we set.
-Do feedback, have conversations following meetings, what went right, wrong, what did we learn?
-Just because it’s not your area of expertise, doesn’t mean pencils down. Take notes and see what else you can learn.
-It’s a leadership challenge for each and every one of us.
Q&A
Warfighting Culture
-Culture we’re trying to establish supports warfighting ethos.
-There are many things we need to go faster on and there are other things we need to be assured on and keep pushing.
-Lets focus on the things we need to get done. The tenets, when Calvelli talks about them, it’s about being stable and pace.
Merging Cultures of SDA, Space RCO, SSC, and NRO Functions
-Space, NRO, making sure the IC connection is there. We need to make sure there are shared attributes to go back and forth.
-SSC is traditional, how do I build everything that’s out there and make sure it’s going to all work.
-Space RCO, looking at what’s rapidly needed.
-SDA is focused on the proliferated architecture and spacecraft industry. How do I get fast and at scale? How do I mass produce things? SDA was designed to go after a specific mission set, MW/MT.
-NRO, they’ve gone through a revolution in their development. They’re very focused on the intel collect mentality.
-I don’t know that I want to blend the cultures into one but I want to take individuals and move them around so we can learn lessons, short cuts, risks others may be doing. Then you’ll see the cultures move.
-I don’t want to see someone go to one office and never leave. That’s not development, it's repetition. I need to get the different sets in.
STARCOM
-I look at STARCOM as someone who’s on the outside of the cycle and needs to be interfaced.
Commercial & Moving Faster
-There’s nothing in our policies that prohibits us from going to commercial.
-How do we set requirements so a commercial solution is acceptable?
-Gen. Guetlein pushing hard on exploit, buy, build. “Build only what we must.” That’s a culture push and I agree with it.
-We’re pushing but have a long way to go.
Leadership & Feedback
-Feedback sessions, debriefs after missions, we need to do this. This leadership can be done at any level.
-We have to be willing to share our stories. We need to sponsor a culture that promotes sharing stories.
Current State of AQ Training
-Some of this is experience, reps and sets.
-How do we take advantage of the folks who have the experience? How do we take advantage of folks who can dissect schedules and explain what’s missing and what’s important?
-SSC has started this. There’s a lot more to be done.
-SDA talks about how they teach proliferation and production at scale.
-Again, some of this is going to be moving folks around.
Physical Security in Space AQ
-Calvelli is pushing, why do we have SAPs? Why is everything at TS/SCI?
-We’re pushing on the OSD staff to try to help us with this.
-Wargaming, in the ops world, we’re known for gaming then debriefing how it went. In AQ, it takes months to see how it plays out. How can we get through this faster?
Development of Enlisted AQ Track
-There are a lot of things in our enlisted force, knowledge and skills we aren’t taking advantage of.
-There’s a lot of opportunity and it creates options for where we want to go and more knowledge on how we’re building things.
Spiral Development & Classic Waterfall POR
-I’m a huge fan of where SDA’s been going in terms of development.
-SDA has traded performance for schedule. We’ve traditionally made performance the king and if we couldn’t make it we’d go back to requirements.
-SDA has benefited from having codified requirements.
-It’s also a mindset. Even GPS takes about six years to build. Some of that is the time of tech. SDA crowd is taking tech that’s already available. That’s what Calvelli is pushing.
-SSC MEO MW, they’re doing this too.
Addressing Change Fatigue
-Change fatigue is real and I acknowledge that. SSC ground, SMC, to SMC 2.0 to something else to something else to now. That’s change fatigue and that’s real.
-We as leaders need to acknowledge that there’s a price when we make changes.
-You’ve got to do change with a sense of urgency and get it done and then celebrate.
[End]
Keynote Space Warfighting Ethos as an Enterprise-Wide Combat-Ready Imperative
Maj. Gen. Brook Leonard, USAF, Deputy Commander and Director of Operations, Combined Joint Task Force, Space Operations, USSC
Connection
-It’s not only what we need to win but it’s the path to get there.
-Connecting is about connecting our mindset.
-Connection to the adversary and acknowledging we will be opposed towards the path to winning. China is our pacing challenge. They’ll attack logistics, C2.
-Connection to ambiguity. Connection to learning and adapting. Connection to readiness and preparation. Connection to teamwork. Teamwork is all about trust and delivery.
Building Culture
-Sharing stories and helping others understand that they are a key piece.
-Shared experiences and shared difficulty is very important. Every day, earn your delta. Having shared understanding is really important.
-Everyone has to own the culture especially leaders. You have to drive home the collective attributes. every day. Model, scale, fade, and coach.
-Space has everyone’s back. They protect a lot of folks. Be the spotter and partner.
Q&A
Enablers to Creating Culture & Inhibitors
-First inhibitor, telling someone they can’t see themselves in. Define your terms and communicate. Being able to model this and showing others what this looks like.
-SF doing awards across categories. Those are great in showing culture.
[End]
Panel: Perspectives on Guardian Spirit
Moderator- CMSgt Boston Alexander, USAF (Ret.)
CMSgt James Seballes, Senior Enlisted Leader, STARCOM
CMSgt Willie Frazier, Senior Enlisted Leader, SSC
CMSgt Jacob Simmons, Senior Enlisted Leader, SpOC
CMSgt Jason Childers, Chief, Enlisted Force Development
Alexander
Leadership
-If there’s nothing to get done, you probably don’t need leaders. Leadership is about getting people where they ought to be.
Philosophy of Leadership
-Every day America sends sons and daughters to stand in the gap between good and evil. No one here is good with being second.
-Without the right culture, strategy, technology, orbits, they are only fancy props. Culture executes it.
-We must develop a culture we’d want for the most important people in our lives.
Charge/Why
-When you break down the why, what you must do to accomplish the why becomes easier.
Q&A
Efforts USSF is Doing Well
Frazier: -There’s a difference between culture and climate.
-I believe we’re doing a lot of things well. We’re ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’re making sure we get the best perspectives from everyone.
-We owe you an experience because you stopped what you do and you came to do what we do.
Seballes: -SF is doing a lot of great things to create culture.
-Talent management we’re now doing. Key thing, members provide input. They get to tell us what they want to do and what they don’t want to do.
-STARCOM, one thing I’m proud of, we created a patching ceremony. That’s where an active current guardian wears the current space patch then members are given the patch and they’re welcomed into the service with a hand written card.
-We have a lot of work still ahead but I’m optimistic.
Simmons: -Army is almost 250 years old. SF is only 42 months. How much have we gotten done? A lot. That’s part of our culture.
-We were birthed in operations. We focus on space, cyber, intel. That’s part of our culture. We have a set purpose.
-We’re leveraging the best of breed practices from all the services. We’re doing this extremely fast.
-Look at how fast we’re moving in such a short amount of time. Look at how much we’ve accomplished. We move fast. We’re doing it very well.
Childers: -Connection and communication. If we do surveys, people would say we’re terrible at communication. I’d argue that. Because of connection I’d argue we’re communicating well.
-We have members in Delta 9 figuring out what it means to be an enlisted guardian. They’re building a handbook at HQ level.
-Delta 2, some members work if the promotion process is right for our service.
Areas for Improvements
Seballes: -We cannot lose focus of what we started and why. Over time, things become normal.
-Being a digital service, and you’re coming into the office and a computer doesn’t work, we need to get better at things like that.
Simmons: -Areas of improvement, it’s very important for us to own the narrative.
-What do others know about you? People understand what a soldier is. What’s the reputation of a guardian? We have a chance to shape it.
-While we don’t have recruiting number problems, we are not a topic of discussion at the kitchen table.
-We need to be in charge of our rep and not leave it up to others.
Amplifying the Urgency of Now
Simmons: -We didn’t start to compete until we put a man on the moon. That took a concerted effort to move from waiting to battle ready.
-Every guardian should know the joint partner expects us to know the opponents in the domain as well as they do. The others have scouted, practiced, they know their strengths and weaknesses. We’ve got to have that in our guardian spirit.
-We must know who we are and most importantly why.
SSC Ensuring a Champion Culture
Frazier: -SSC, we’re everything from idea to orbit. My boss, with good reason, believes the fight is coming in 2026. We have to retain what we have now and figure out how to exploit, buy, build.
-We went around and saw amazing things companies are doing. We have to ensure we play nice together along with allies and partners.
-We have banners showing the threat. We have clocks in every building showing how long until 2026.
-We’re working on CASR. Russia and China have both said it’s game on for commercial and military assets.
STARCOM Producing Critical Thinkers & Problem Solvers
Seballes: Black Skies, Blue Skies exercises that work on getting into the warfighter mindset. Black Skies is EW. Red Skies will be in 2024. Blue Skies after that.
-Black Skies, EW exercise, 3-4 days.
-These help build a wholistic picture. It helps us think and react.
-We’re building warfighters, not just people behind keyboards.
Initiatives to Ensure Talent
Childers: -We have a challenge on how we educate the public. Space is the way of our future. I see it only growing. I believe for the advancement of humankind, we must figure out ways to leverage space.
-SF, we’re part of the critical path.
-We’ve got to be able to offer the development of expertise and create opportunities so guardians will want to continue to invest.
-We’re managing talent through assignments.
-One of our strengths is that we can go fast. There’s also risk in that. We still have so much to do and we have to be careful about how we stand up the service and appreciate the problem sets and really think through the path forward.
Actions USSF Has Taken to Sustain Our People
Simmons: -The reality, AI is here. ML is here. Hypersonics are here. Satellites attacking satellites are here. Cislunar is here. Redirecting asteroids is here. The age of aggressive advancement is here. This is what our guardians will face. A constant need for a ready state. We need guardians to constantly be in a ready state.
-We have to elevate every guardian's experience. Not just what they know but their environment, things that they’re taught. It all has to be elevated. This is necessary. -Every guardian must know they are mission essential. The amount of knowledge we’ll have to maintain and sustain to win… Everyone must know that if they don’t show up today, we lose. It matters what you know and how well you know it.
-It’s ok to want to do a lot of things but I need you to be great at something so that I can call on you when I need to.
-Truth to power, it’s really knowledge, expertise, and understanding to power SF.
-Trust, that’s a two-way street. We have to be able to trust our guardians. We must develop them to be able to carry the loads.
-Things are moving too fast for us to wait and stand still. We’re talking about giving adversaries so much uncertainty that they will never ever think today is the today to attack. That’s how we maintain stability.
Q&A
Rules to be Broken
Childers: We run into this daily. There are a lot of things we’re faced with as far as tasks and challenges. Everything we have we basically inherited. Along with it comes different policies, the way we did business…
-Everything we do we have to ask questions. There are a lot of rules that come with that. There are a number of things we’re making great strides from.
-Things will need to be broken and rewritten.
Culture
Frazier: -We’re building a culture not just for us but for those who haven’t even been born yet. Figure out if you’re going to tell them you’re welcome or I’m sorry.
Seballes: Help us get to ‘yes if’ and not ‘no because.
Simmons: Guardians, you’ve got to understand what the outcomes are. You don’t know how important you are yet. You are resetting where we’re going to move in the future.
Childers: We’ve got to make this service known and invest in each other.
[End]
Panel: Perspectives on Guardian Spirit 2
Junior-Mid Level Guardians
Scale of 1-10 on USSF Culture (1 Bad 10 Good, Can’t Use 7) & What You’d Implement
-8. I’d implement- I love the data driving decisions but we heard a lot about our adversaries. Physical fitness, visual display of leadership, it’s important for resilience. Are we physically fit? Not just because we need to pass a test but because we need resiliency in the fight.
-6. I think we need to get rid of awards. Still recognize people but take it out of promotions. If you’re having to work towards an award, everyone values different things. What you have to do to be competitive, it all looks different. If you do this you open the aperture for guardians. We don’t need an award to highlight because the record will show.
-8. First, I’d create a group for innovation and technology where everyone can use the knowledge they have. Second, guardians want training to fight. I know we don’t physically fight but we’re in the military and people want to be ready to fight as well.
-6. Interaction between us and industry. Reentry, not many pathways.
-6. We really need to break traditional processes. We’re lean and agile. We’re constrained and some of the processes are stopping work across the force. We need to accept risk and make it so the ‘yes if’ can happen.
-8. Junior enlisted, we’re very uninformed on the opportunities we have. When I’m asked the question on what I want to do from leadership, I’m confused because I don’t know what there is to do. I’d implement a ‘career day’ and directions we have available to us.
-8. 8 mostly for the tactical level of culture. New guardians don’t know what’s available. I think there’s a disconnect. You are a guardian but when you start doing the operational job is when you are actually doing the mission.
-I’ve had 4, 7, 8, a lot lower. Communication, I can see how easy it is for me to talk up but I think there’s stovepipes preventing things from coming down to the tactical level. That’s what’s really going to help culture. Also I don’t understand why we’re competing against each other when we’re supposed to be working towards the future. Strats have become a game. We should be worried about becoming warfighters.
-5. Inconsistency. Fostering knowledge guardians come in with. Our goal should be taking that and not letting the fire die. Having a formalized mechanism so guardians can see the degree and impact of their contribution. It’s not just knowing what buttons to press but seeing how you fit into the bigger picture.
-5. 10 is championship level. We’re rookies and it will take time. We need time to let this evolve into what it’s going to be. We’re moving so fast. Everyone is saying we need it today. We need it tomorrow. Rome wasn’t built in a day. We’re implementing. Our culture will be established years from now.
Areas of Improvement
-There’s a lot of people that still don’t know we exist. I think we should push commercials to different apps, sporting games. We need to promote ourselves more.
-Space needs a brand. If we help people to understand how space affects their daily lives, the more it becomes self-evident as to why it needs defending.
-I don’t think the other services know what we do either. People in the other branches need to know too. I can tell the people at the store about GPS and banking, but our soldiers also need to know that we’re helping them on the ground.
Message to Leaders
-Don’t be afraid to change and try something new.
-In the era of AI and new technologies, we need to keep in mind that technology is a vehicle and tool for us to use but it will not save us. We need to ground ourselves in that the tech won’t save us, it's the people with the technology by our side as a tool.
-Thank you for empowering us. I’m a Lt. and I feel like I’ve been doing a Maj. job. We’ll keep doing the best we can do. We need your continued guidance.
-Take mission risk not people risk. Culture comes from not what we do but who we are.
-I really like the C Notes. I like that we’re hearing the information high up so that we’re still informed.
[End]
Panel: International and Commercial Space Warfighting Culture Intersect
Maj. Gen. Brook Leonard, USAF, Deputy Commander and Director of Operations, Combined Joint Task Force, Space Operations, USSC
Erin Bodie, NRO
Brian Bone, Director of Strategy, Loft Orbital
John Reed, Chief Rocket Scientist, ULA
Guardians Today & in the Future
Bodie: -A lot of the new tech will be fielded by commercial and it’s going to be more automated. We’re going to have to start automating systems a little more. It’s going to change how we interact with systems.
-AI/ML is going to take the details out of your way so we can focus on the way. Commercial operators or guardians, I think you’re really going to be able to focus on the art.
Reed:-I see change in the digital force. Model based systems, digital transformation.
-There’s a lot of opportunity space for the force to go explore. Be creative and think about what those options are.
SF Learning from Startup Community
Bone: - In the startup world you have to embrace chaos, the unknown. You’re forming the vision and deciding where you’re going to go.
-Idea of no job too small.
-What’s right for the first three years might not be right for the fourth.
Integrating with Commercial & Winning
Leonard: -Bringing everyone to the fight is key. Adversaries are going to try to win without fighting. I worry that we’re not going to realize that they’ve already won when they've won.
-Need to thicken sensor network and resiliency piece.
-We have to practice this and acknowledge everyone is a sensor but you have to be able to communicate.
-We need to really look at what commercial brings and we really have to get going.
Rules to be Broken
Bone: Stop looking at buying systems all or nothing.
Bodie: Checklists. When the balloon goes up and it’s time to make decisions, we will have to be able to have freedom to make decisions that involve risks.
Reed: Anything you’re trying to buy as a service, you need to let the markets continue to evolve to continue to give you better services year after year.
Leonard: Only folks in uniform are fighting.
Bone: You are getting ready to fight in 2026 and we are in the fight now. Adversaries are currently working to erode our capability and economy so that we cannot fight.
[End]
Keynote: Space Warfare Mindset in the Third Space Age
Lt. Gen John Shaw, Deputy Commander, USSC
Breaking the Rules
-We need to bend and break some rules.
-We need to change the way we’re flying satellites. We’ve been putting satellites in positions. It’s very positional and easily predictable. When has positional operations ever been better than maneuverable? How do we change this? We’re changing this. SF is helping bring us these solutions.
-We’re going to put a demand signal for this to SF and others. That’s where we’re headed. What solution we come up with will bring a whole new architecture.
Being Successful
-We need to shape ourselves and our culture and have the realization that we’re fighting a thinking adversary. We need to realize there’s someone out there thinking about how they can beat us every single day they go to work.
-They’re hungry and they want to be able to beat us and that motivates me to want to beat them. We have to be 10x better. We should not underestimate them. I think that’ll motivate us.
Q&A
Third Space Age & Needs for Your People
-2015, first reusable booster by SpaceX. They filed their license for Starlink. NASA really got committed to going back to the moon. Military, we started talking publicly about space as a warfighting domain. All the sectors are starting to become more dependent on each other.
-We’re relying on commercial more than we ever have before. Commercial in some ways is the gold standard for some things that used to be government. They are really cranking out capability.
-We need to find ways to partner together because we’re all in it together.
Balancing Frameworks
-You’ve got to incentivize and reward risk. That’s got to change the equation.
Difference Between Incremental Risk and Failure & Total Failure
-We should reward incremental risk. If you reward, it gets better and better if the risk pays off.
-We’re really after reward, not risk. Do you invest a little because of risk or are you trying to maximize the reward? How can we maximize the reward and minimize the downside?
Failing in SF & What it Looks Like
-I don’t think DOD is good at developing and procuring capabilities in the absence of a threat. When there’s no threat we do what we did in the second space age.
-Contrast that with what we’re seeing in Ukraine. They are really focused and failing fast and getting rewarded every day. How do we get more like that?
Preventing Complacency
-If I’m in an activity where I’m facing a thinking adversary I think I’d want my guardians to be slightly complacent. I’m stretching the definition a bit but I want them to be confident they can beat the adversary and they know what they’re doing and they don’t need a checklist.
[End]
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