The Joint Staff

I like to offer Five Points of Advice for young people and professionals in their careers. 1. FAIL TO SUCCEED – Use your failure as a motivator to move you forward.   2. CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO – If it is something you really believe in, you need to push yourself, take a chance, and challenge the status quo.   3. TRUST BUT VERIFY – Always ask for what you want. The worst that can happen is you can be told no, but you can’t be told yes if you don’t ask.   4. HAVE ATTITUDE – Talent only gets you so far. Your attitude gets you the rest of the way.   5. DEFINE SUCCESS – Map out what you want to do and figure out the pathway there.

In David De Cremer’s latest article in Harvard Business Review, titled ‘For Success with AI, Bring Everyone On Board’, he offers valuable insight on how an organization can achieve a culture shift to effectively implement Artificial Intelligence into their daily operations. He suggests a top-down approach where leaders set the foundation that facilitates an inclusive culture around AI across an organization that promotes effective data and information sharing. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to revolutionize the way we mitigate threats and inform our strategic decision making. Every organization is looking for ways to improve their capability with this new technology. Our adversaries are aggressively adopting and employing this capability to commit fraud, spread misinformation, and manipulate public opinion. It’s not enough to sprinkle AI over everything and expect transformation. There are challenges that we need to solve to turn AI from a promising idea to a tangible capability addressing our national security needs. Just as De Cremer suggests, this will require a culture shift in how we acquire and adopt new technology. We need to focus our efforts, resources, and talent on using AI to solve specific problems guided by big picture vision of the intended effects and appropriate principles of responsible use. https://lnkd.in/duxxvJaq

I recently had the privilege to speak to industry leaders at Billington Cybersecurity Summit about current and emerging cybersecurity challenges at home and abroad during a fireside chat. When considering the changing character of war, there are things that will remain constant: conflict as an extension of political will, fog and friction, and if a Nation’s military goes to war, the support of the entire nation must be behind it. What is changing is technology and what our adversaries are doing with it. We must be able to keep pace with new and emerging technology to ensure we are ready when our Nation calls. To keep pace, we need to know what is happening outside of the Department of Defense by working closely with industry to help us solve problems from a national security perspective. The integration of new technology such as AI will come with challenges to successfully implement it in our defense efforts. AI implementation will require attention in three areas: Foundation, Data, and Focus. We need to build the right infrastructure and architecture as a foundation, we need to get the right data to the right place to run on the foundation to inform the decision-making process, and we need to have focus to apply AI in the right places at the right time with the right resources. We also require talent. Exposure to opportunities is needed to recruit the right people; people in uniform who can communicate with the industries that are building these new capabilities. We must also invest in that talent by providing them with the right tools and development so they can execute what we expect them to do. Finally, we must invest in our allies and partners. As we move forward with technology, we cannot leave our partners behind. We must continue to be able to push information back and forth quickly by remaining interconnected. They are key to enhancing our capabilities and our integrated deterrence efforts to prevent us from entering into conflict. We don’t want to go into conflict, but if we do we want it to be an unfair fight.

September is Suicide Prevention Month. A topic that I take personally because it relates to our Joint Force’s greatest strength: OUR PEOPLE. The U.S. military is strong because of those who choose to serve every single day, whether in and out of uniform…because of their family members that support them on the home front. This is something we cannot take for granted. The Department of Defense is investing in significant research and resources to prioritize unimpeded access to behavioral and mental health for our people. We are also encouraging those who need help to ask for it. As our Secretary of Defense has stated, “It takes strength to ask for help”. The work our Services have dedicated to preserving our forces has not gone unnoticed, but we must continue to do more. One person lost to suicide is one too many. https://lnkd.in/dUfkzXFG

Joint Professional Military Education for our senior noncommissioned officers is critical in this increasingly complex global security environment. The knowledge they take away from the GATEWAY course, implemented through their leadership styles, will prepare the force today for tomorrow’s conflicts.    Hosted by the National Defense University in Washington, DC, the GATEWAY Course provides resident education to selected enlisted personnel of Department of Defense Services and the U.S. Coast Guard to meet the demands of emerging and future operating environments in support of the Joint Warfighting Concept.   GATEWAY reinforces joint perspectives while preparing our most qualified enlisted service members for leadership challenges at the tactical and operational level.   I firmly believe the expertise and leadership of our senior enlisted will be the guiding force in future conflict that will enable our leaders to make decisions and our service members to respond when the Nation calls.   I value the opportunity to address every class with my Senior Enlisted Advisor emphasizing the importance of their joint resident education and the critical need for their continued leadership amongst the ranks.