AFSO21 course offered to base leadership Published Aug. 12, 2011 By Jenny Gordon 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- Senior leaders from across Robins took part in an Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century Senior Leader Course Aug. 1-2. It was the third course hosted by the Center this year. The two-day class gave participants the opportunity to learn more about continuous process improvement; tour high-performing lean facilities at Boeing in Macon and the 402nd Electronics Maintenance Group; and receive briefings on the Center's vision, focus and transformational objectives. During a mid-morning gathering Aug. 2 at the Center's mission control room in Bldg. 215, Maj. Gen. Robert McMahon, Center commander, spoke on the responsibility of leadership and the role each person played in ensuring a successful outcome. "This is not my Center, it's our Center. The key is that every leader here - we don't have managers or supervisors here, we have leaders - understands this is their Center," said McMahon. On having several leaders in one room, he said, "What excites me most is when I don't have to do the talking, when the team is talking about what the next step is, or how we improve a process." "I'm even more excited if I go down five levels in the organization - down to our first levels - and they're the ones leading this, and I can be a mentor as opposed to a leader being served," he added. "That's when I know we've succeeded in the way that we're headed." Instructor Robert Hamm, director of process improvement at Air Education and Training Command, emphasized the course doesn't teach participants how to be facilitators. "It is designed to teach them how to build an environment in their organization where process improvement can flourish," he said. "They learn a little bit about CPI tools, but primarily what they learn is how, as a senior leader, you drive transformation." Along with hands-on group exercises, the topics discussed included understanding key lean tools and principles, strategic alignment and deployment, fiscal challenges, mission growth, problem solving and developing new ways of thinking to improve how work is accomplished. Carman Clark, chief of Robins' Organizational Consulting Office, attended the class. "Probably one of the most interesting things I've learned is ownership of the process," said Clark. "It can produce phenomenal results. When teamwork is in place, everything flows well and the whole organization runs like a well-oiled machine." She continued, "When you allow your workers to express what their concerns are, and you begin to meet their needs from the top down, then you allow other people to contribute to the process. You can get a lot of creative and great ideas on how to make an organization run well." Attending the course allowed Lt. Col. Melanie Carino, 78th Medical Support Squadron commander, to continue to address current work processes in her area and to share what she has learned. "This is about changing the culture in the Air Force," Carino said. "Bottom line is this is something that we're going to have to do for the future. There's always going to be constraints on money and manpower, and we need to be able to do what we do more efficiently."