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THE SERVICES ARE EXPERIMENTING. THAT’S GOOD, AND WE ENCOURAGE THAT, BUT THE THING WE’VE REALLY GOT TO GET AT—AND IT TAKES TIME, AND IT’S PROBABLY THE MOST DIFFICULT PART AND THE HARDEST TO CHANGE—IS THE CULTURE.

—FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MARK ESPER

PLEASE CHANGE THE ACQUISITION CULTURE!

by BRIAN SCHULTZ

One of the recent themes in Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition reform is the need for culture change. The consensus is that our culture is too risk-averse, too resistant to change, and too focused on compliance. While defense acquisition is a very broad subject that involves many

diferent organizations, stakeholders, and cultures, this article will focus on an acquisition program ofce.

The recent rollout of the Adaptive Acquisition Framework (AAF) provides impetus and opportunity for significant culture change. The framework empowers milestone decision authorities (MDAs) and program managers (PMs) with broad authority to plan and manage their programs. DoD Instruction 5000.02, Operation of the AAF, directs PMs to “employ a thoughtful, innovative, and disciplined approach to program management” and identifes that the acquisition system needs a culture of performance. PMs should ensure that the culture in their program office suits the new landscape, including actions to shift away from the legacy culture they may have inherited.

MDAs and PMs cannot go it alone when addressing acquisition culture change. Congress plays an important role by enabling the change through statutory language that DoD receives every year in defense authorization acts and other statutes. All the oversight and emphasis on legal, regulatory, and policy requirements have contributed to a compliance-focused acquisition environment. Changing this culture, which has

existed for decades, will not be easy and must be a concerted effort. Other key stakeholders such as the requirements, test, comptroller, and headquarters staff organizations must support the culture change as PMs rely on their collaboration for success.

PMs plan and execute programs in a program office that can include hundreds of business, technical, and functional staff. So, assuming the PM wants to transform the program office culture, how would one go about it, what should it look like, and how would we know when we have achieved it?

We will begin by identifying some common issues in the acquisition culture. They often appear in climate or organizational effectiveness surveys when new PMs baseline their new organization to get a feel of strengths, issues, and potential areas for improvement. As I refect on many of these climate surveys—some of which I have helped administer for other organizations as a third-party consultant—common threads for improvement often emerge. Survey

respondents identify issues such as poor communications, unclear roles and responsibilities, too many layers of management, excessive micro-management, lack of trust, and lack of empowerment.

Many of these common issues link back to the longstanding risk-averse and compliance-focused culture. These issues will lead to behaviors that become ingrained in the organization, and we can observe the “culture in action” in the daily conversations and behaviors of staf. Newcomers to the organization will quickly learn the unwritten rules as they observe how things operate in different scenarios and routine tasks. For example, one may learn quickly that a poor quality paper or presentation is acceptable, as long as the individual submits it on time and has included a minimum of content. Even though the presentation has multiple errors and does not fully address the important issues, no one provides that feedback to the originator. The message becomes clear: Just submit something on time, even a poor product.

SCHULTZ is a professor of Program Management and an executive coach in DAU’s Capital and Northeast Region at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

The author can be contacted at Brian.Schultz@dau.edu.

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Confronted with these issues, PMs should take corrective actions, as the issues will not go away and usually get worse over time. Many of these climate survey issues can be resolved by changing the organizational culture. The imperative to change the culture should follow a process that starts with a baseline of the current organization, identifes issues and weaknesses, and then addresses a plan of action for change. The process will take time to yield results, but it is well worth the time and efort. While there are numerous models from organizational development experts, Figure 1 shows an approach based on my experience and reflects many common elements found in other process models. PMs can leverage the expertise of many organization development specialists as they decide to implement such a process.

As the model shows, the critical upfront question is what behaviors do we want to ingrain and reinforce in the new culture? One could come up with a long list, but I will discuss my top three behavior categories. Within each behavior category, I will identify an example of the desired behavior.

1. Critical ThinkingOutside of the functional core competencies, critical thinking is the top skill needed in defense acquisition. This skill improves with practical application and training. PMs must carefully plan how to establish a critical thinking culture and ensure that integrated product teams embrace this skill. Priority should be given to developing both individual and team skills while establishing group norms and expectations.

One important behavior associated with critical thinking is to take an objective view of possible courses of action. This involves active listening and fact fnding to avoid the tendency to jump to a conclusion after only a cursory review of information. The critical thinker applies a disciplined analytical approach to the task and employs appropriate intellectual standards throughout the process.

2. Trust DoD acquisition has historically lacked trust. We see it in the continued attempts at acquisition policy reform, new policy mandates, and intense oversight. This lack of trust flows downhill and eventually lands in the program ofce. The data is clear on the importance of organizational trust. Studies show that organizations with high trust not only deliver better

Figure 1. An Approach to Culture Change

IDENTIFY DESIRED

BEHAVIORS

ADJUST AS

NEEDED

OBSERVE AND COLLECT DATA;

CELEBRATE SUCCESS

REINFORCE BEHAVIORS AND KEEP

MOMENTUM

OBSERVE AND COLLECT DATA,

ASSESS STRENGTHS,

WEAKNESSES, AND CONSTRAINTS

EXECUTE CHANGE PLAN;

MEASURE PROGRESS

ASSESS PLAN EFFECTIVENESS

AND ADJUST

IDENTIFY ISSUES AND

ROOT CAUSES; BROADCAST

FINDINGS

IDENTIFY DESIRED

BEHAVIORS; DEVELOP AND VET CHANGE

PLAN

Source: The author.

Many years ago my team was recommending a sole-source business strategy based on a lack of data rights for a complex integration efort and a legacy of previous sole-source contracts. My boss suggested that I work with the project team and stakeholders to explore other alternatives, including the costs, risks, and benefits. After additional analysis and deeper thinking, we developed a strategy that avoided a sole-source contract to the original equipment manufacturer. The new approach would cost less and open the door to greater competition in subsequent contracting actions. This experience highlighted the general need to analyze alternatives and new possibilities with an open mind and fully explore the realm of the possible. Critical thinking enables these new possibilities, but only if the culture reinforces this behavior.

outcomes but are more desirable places to work and have higher morale.

A common behavior associated with trust is to empower staff. A strong, motivating influence is imparted when team members see that leadership has chartered them to

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accomplish some important objective and they own it. People like to be challenged, but they also want the support and help they need to meet the challenge without being micro-managed.

In my industry experience, I had no choice with a lean staff but to empower my team. The business model, unlike most government organizations, also provided a great deal of autonomy to managers in running their part of the organization. Managers at each level understood that they would be accountable for achieving their business goals. This autonomy actually enhanced communication and teamwork as managers would assess their business

3. Continuous LearningThe pace of new technology, emerging threats, and new methodologies means that acquisition professionals must improve and learn new skills. As many have suggested, if we are just staying the same and not improving, then we are going backward. Continuous learning does not necessarily mean that staf must disengage from work while taking training courses. We all have opportunities every day to learn something new.

One of my previous organizations instituted regular “integration weeks.” These integration weeks, typically occurring during a shortened holiday week, were devoted to

progress, identify barriers or issues, and seek assistance from others when appropriate. Assistance included practices such as offering aggressive price discounts, sharing resources across business centers, or approving of the hiring and fring of personnel. Compensation incentives at a larger business-unit level encouraged the teamwork and collaboration to meet the desired outcomes.

DoD PMs should empower integrated product teams in the program ofce and give them the autonomy and support to develop sound plans and strategies. Once the staf believes that leadership trusts them, great things will happen.

special topics, catch-up training, brown-bag lunch learning sessions, and other events designed to instill a culture of continuous learning. Most sessions were not mandatory, but attendance was usually very robust. As a newcomer to the organization, I asked a colleague why the learning sessions were so popular. She indicated that subject-matter experts conducted the sessions with relevant content, and there was a good exchange of ideas. Sometimes we even follow up with the experts to explore something further or to vet ideas on how to solve a problem. Continuous learners seek new ideas and knowledge and are eager to apply it on the job.

Measuring Culture Change Culture change, like any signifcant change initiative, should involve multiple strategies and supporting actions. As we develop the change plan, we should ensure that our eforts are measurable. If we cannot measure the progress with meaningful metrics, we do not have an efective plan.

There are many possible metrics, but they should include both soft and hard measures. By soft, we mean things like job satisfaction, trust, communications, and work environment. Climate surveys are a good tool to capture these soft measures. PMs should introduce the survey and its importance in advance and then address results of and actions to make timely improvements. It sends a bad message to the staf

when communications and follow-up lag, so consider providing an interim update if needed and communicate the actions and progress.

The hard metrics should link either directly or indirectly to business results. These measures provide insight into how well the organization is accomplishing its mission. While each organization will have unique circumstances, items such as process time, quality checks, system cycle time, cost savings, and value assessments of delivered capability are some examples. Most change models suggest establishing some early success metrics to gain confdence in the change and build momentum.

Final Thoughts Many have suggested that changing the culture is the most difficult challenge in bringing about real change in acquisition. It all starts with leadership setting the standard and then leading by example. Leaders at all levels should continually reinforce the desired behaviors and avoid any temptation to revert to the old, familiar ways. It will not be easy, but now is the time to get started.

Please share your ideas and experience with culture change. There is no one-size-fts-all approach, and we can all beneft from collaborating on new ideas and methods. I am optimistic that we can complete this difcult task, but only if we fully commit to it and stay the course! n

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