Organizational Culture in the 184th ATKS/IN

Yeah, I'm tech sergeant Purefoy.

And today I want to talk to you about organizational

culture within the 24th Attack Squadron and the one for

the tax squadron intel shop.

What is organizational culture?

Well, we have great definitions that we learned from class

and our study materials from people like Edgar Sheen that

define organizational culture.

But I want to try to use a simple example

for you, this piece of watermelon by itself.

It's something that's common to all american culture.

But me, I've always liked to take and put a

little bit of salt on that watermelon.

It wasn't till somebody mentioned to me one day that

that's a little odd up to that point.

I believe everybody enjoyed salt on their water mountain.

But as I started to do some research for this

presentation, actually I learned that it's something specific to Southern

culture. Me being raised in the South.

I picked that up from my parents and my grandparents

now through Edgar Sheen's definition, we learned that organizational culture

or at least artifacts of it are something that are

developed to deal with external adaptations in this case the

hot southern summer.

How does the watermelon help combat the hot southern summer?

Well, watermelons, 98% water.

It's also got a lot of potassium in it, A

key element or key electrolyte.

And keeping you hydrated sodium is also a key electrolyte.

And keeping you hydrated.

So you throw a little sodium on something that's 98%

water and already has a lot of potassium.

You have something that really helps keep you hydrated, that

feels good and tastes good on a hot summer day,

hence how it was adapted, interestingly enough, it's not specific

to just the american self.

Um it's also very popular in other human environments like

Japan and South Eastern asian countries, but that's an example

of organizational culture, something that we developed and do.

Maybe we don't exactly know why, but it was developed

over time due to external adaptations.

That's just one example.

In short, it's just how things are done here and

the south would consult underwater.

Mhm. In class we broke down organizational culture using the

iceberg analogy, so I looked around, try to find something

similar that simplified things a little bit and I really

like this one.

It breaks it down into the tip of the iceberg,

what we see, what's just below the surface, what we

say and then what we believe.

So let's use another example here just to really highlight

another piece of organizational culture.

Let's take an Air force example, the first core value

of integrity.

First, it's something that we say, but it's rooted in

an underlying assumption that it's better to do business with

honesty and integrity and things are better when we do

it that way.

Now, that's not something we necessarily discussed or that we

discuss presently, but it's just an assumption that we all

had and therefore we all bought into the integrity first.

First core value.

Now, what do we see when we apply that core

value? Well, what we see is an intolerance for dishonesty

amongst members and leadership.

We expect that we're going to get the truth.

And hopefully what we also see is the mission accomplished

at a higher level than it would be otherwise.

So what's the current condition of the organizational health or

organizational culture?

Whether or not it's healthy or unhealthy?

At the one 84th on my opinion is healthy and

strong. How do I know this?

Right? Fortunately there are a lot of different organizations out

there that have put out metrics or measuring organizational health.

Now there's a lot of them and it can get

complicated. So I've tried to simplify things here in a

way that I like a little bit better and I

think is a little bit more effective.

I want to look at the mission and the people,

if the mission is being accomplished at a high level

and the people are happy and they want to be

at work then I think we have a healthy organizational

culture. So let's look at some examples of how the

mission is being um performed at a very high level

and how the people at the one of the four

seemed to be happy.

So let's look at mission performance first or sought after

over our peers.

We are the number one requested asset in our A.

O. R.

And that's because we have innovative level of commitment.

I don't think you get that innovative level of commitment

without your leadership delegating authority to the lowest level and

ensuring that they still trust in their lower ranking members

and their lower ranking members.

Knowing that they can trust their leadership.

Now as we move in the people portion, you're gonna

get some specific examples of how exactly the mission is

performed, an innovative level of commitment or the highest level

of commitment.

As we learned from class.

The people are proud to come to work every day.

They enjoy hanging out with each other.

They hang out in their spare time and they even

hang out at work outside of office hours.

It's very common after a mission to sit down and

have a beer and discuss how things went and uh

to check up on each other.

It's also very tight knit and inclusive.

We have a diverse culture that are unbiased, unconscious bias

doesn't seem to have many negative effects in the squadron

and people of all different backgrounds are accepted and included.

So let's look at some artifacts of that pride and

healthy culture.

We have lanyards that say flying razorback special and it's

also got our Arkansas room because we're in Arkansas Air

National Guard Unit and our mascot is the flying razor

bag. We also have T shirts that say the same

flying razorback special.

What is that?

What's a special hellfire employment um developed basically on the

spot at the request of a customer.

There was a dynamic situation or a are they required

um, multiple hellfires be employed in a specific manner in

order to accomplish the ground commanders desired end state.

They had gone to other squadrons to request this type

of employment and were turned down, they came to us.

And because um, our leadership delegates as much as possible

and they delegate authority to the lowest level and we

always know that they're going to cover our backs, the

intel and the operators put their heads together and freaking

out that we can make this happen.

And we did, the customer loved it.

The mission was a success.

Another example of how we're accomplishing the mission at an

innovative or very high level.

Uh Exemplifying a healthy organizational culture is the intel shops

developing publicly available information tool sets and bringing those to

the squadron at Arkansas, uh publicly available information or P.

I. Is just a way a different way of doing

research. You can utilize it to do research for targets

like H.

P. I.

S. Um We had to lower ranking members basically build

that mission set up Based out of their own interest

in doing publicly available information research.

And eventually they started building product products for outside customers.

And now they're probably the number one requested shot for

doing that type of work anywhere, at least within the

special units that we support.

So the one in the fourth is performing the mission

at a high level and its people are happy and

because people are happy, the mission gets done better.

Um, because the mission gets done better, we have a

lot of pride and are happy to come to work.

So it's uh, it's a good circle instead of a

vicious circle.

So what needs to change, there's always room for improvement.

One of things that we need is unconscious bias training,

even though it doesn't seem like they're negative impacts of

the squadron from unconscious bias.

The bad thing is that I don't think anybody would

willingly admit to having unconscious bias at the squadron or

the flight.

Um, it's still viewed as a bad thing to have

any kind of a bias against different people of any

kind. And it's right.

It is a bad thing.

But it's something that we have to learn that everybody

has just like we learned from our lesson and our

teachings and it's something that we have to acknowledge so

we can learn to disengage the clutch just like we

learned from the unconscious bias training, youtube video in class.

Uh, We also need formal training on organizational culture.

We have a healthy organizational culture at the 24th attack

squadron and also in the intelligence shop.

But even though current leadership has done a great job

of cultivating that culture, new leaders coming up might not

have the same skill sets as senior leaders.

And though the senior leaders seem to be trying to

teach by example, which is a great form of leadership,

formalized training might better benefit others who learn from a

different teaching style other than learning from example.

Yeah. In the end, we have a healthy organizational culture,

but we still need a few changes.

Organizational Culture in the 184th ATKS/IN

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