Future Focused, Career Ready: Today's rapidly changing world requires speed and agility
By Gary Packard
May 10, 2022 Updated Jun 17, 2022
In April, I wrote about my attendance at the Air Force Association’s Warfare Symposium in Orlando on March 3 and 4. The theme of the conference was “Air and Space Power: Indispensable to Deter, Fight, and Win.” Over the course of the conference, eight key themes stood out. This column is the first of eight on those themes.
This month’s theme is “Speed and Agility.” Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the 22nd chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, puts it this way, “Accelerate change or lose.” The world is changing at a speed that has never been seen in human history. The list of issues that are rapidly changing is large and growing — immigration, climate change, technology, political divide, racial disparity, growing earning gaps, inflation, etc. Which one do you do you focus on first? How do you fund all the work that needs to be done? Which one puts our nation most at risk?
The dilemma we face reminds me of an old story. A couple enters the shop of a furniture maker wanting to order a new dining room set. The couple’s demands are high. They want the best wood and high-quality workmanship, they want it at a low price, and they want it next week. The furniture maker says I can deliver two of the three demands. If you want quality and speed, it won’t be cheap. If you want it fast and cheap, it won’t be high quality. If you want it cheap with quality, it won’t be fast. Which two do you want?
If we are to heed Gen. Brown’s admonition to “accelerate change or lose,” there is only one answer to the furniture maker’s question. We must approach the world today with speed that matches the pace of change and with the quality required to ensure agility and excellence. That means it won’t be cheap.
As a nation, we must be willing to invest heavily in our future. This investment must include funding, but it cannot stop there. We must be willing to invest our time, our talents and our efforts in the success of our nation and its security and prosperity. This commitment is reminiscent of the nation’s commitment to success during the dark days of World War II. Citizens hung blackout curtains in their windows, rationed food, grew victory gardens, recycled practical everything, went to work for the troops not their own pocketbook, and united together to propel us to victory.
In the 21st century, the threat to our security is not as clear as the Axis powers we defeated with the help of equally committed allies in World War II. While blackout curtains may not be needed today, we do need firewalls and the commitment to keep cyberspace safe and secure. Closing the curtains and updating your password are ways to keep prying eyes away from a potential target. What we also need are communities that can reach across religious, political or racial divides and unite to improve their neighborhoods. We could use more civility and willingness to meet in the middle. We could spend more time lifting people up and less time putting each other down. Maybe a victory garden or two would help as well.
At the College of Applied Science and Technology, we are preparing our students to be future focused and career ready so they can succeed in this rapidly changing, increasingly complex world. We embrace a culture that puts security over comfort, collaboration over personal accolades and integration over going it alone. We are investing in our campus and our programs so they can be agile enough to keep up with the crazy pace of change. We want our students to learn to do the same. We want them to be highly capable, agile and able to operate at the speed of change. That means we must invest our time, our funds, our passion and our teaching in their success. We must operate this way if we are to prepare our students for their future.
We are committed to graduate students ready to be difference makers in their communities no matter their chosen career field. We want them to embrace Gen. Brown’s warning to “accelerate change or lose.” We hope you will embrace it as well.