Doing ‘less with less’ stems from core values

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Bruce Russell
  • 436th CS first sergeant
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  I remember back in the '90s when Gen. Ronald Fogleman, and Sheila Widnall, who were the CSAF and the Secretary of the Air Force at the time, stated that there are '...three simple words that epitomize the core of the military profession.' These words are integrity, service and excellence, the words from which we derive our core values.

As a general rule of thumb, we refer to integrity as the bedrock of them all.

Personally, I find each core value extremely important and would have a hard time prioritizing one over the other. However, we are definitely living in an era when excellence in all we do is required of every Airman when they are completing their assigned duties.

It's no secret that Airmen serving in today's Air Force are facing large budget and force reductions. One way we can all overcome these reductions is by performing every task we take on with an excellence in all we do mentality. This isn't a new concept. My grandfather instilled this in me as a young boy. He said, "If there is a job worth doing, it's worth doing right." I found this mindset to be exceptionally helpful when I was in my early twenties and working in my families' business.

Our company was small and we didn't have the resources to hire numerous employees. We had to strive for perfection on the first attempt. We were stretched thin and didn't have time to redo a task that we didn't do properly the first time. Since the company was so small, there were no extra bodies available to clean up any loose ends and errors left behind. In addition, I quickly found that rushing through a job was a recipe for disaster.

It seemed when I tried to hurry my way through a task, I was more prone to making mistakes. This, of course, would lead me back to accomplishing the job a second time ... time I just didn't have available.

The situation I faced working in my families' business is very similar to what we face in today's Air Force. The budget and force reductions we are facing require each one of us to perform our assigned tasks correctly the first time we attempt them. This may also be one of the easiest ways to 'lean' a process.

Lean describes defective products as 'Making a product that has a defect (or isn't up to par), knowingly passing on the defect to the customer costs units time and money down the line, when they have to rework the product later.' Time and money are two things that aren't in abundance for any of us.

We are facing challenging times in today's Air Force and we've all heard the term 'do more with less' more than we'd care to. Maybe it's time to put a different spin on that catchphrase and start doing 'less with less'. It's possible to do less by doing the job at hand right the first time. We can achieve that level of success by attacking our assigned duties with an excellence in all we do mentality.