Social Fitness

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a young lady that was waiting on my wife and I at a local Applebees. We overheard her say that her husband was military. When she came back to where we were, I asked what her husband did. She told me that he was Security Forces and a K9 handler. She also said that the last several months have been pretty stressful during the Presidential campaign, since his dog was a bomb dog, he got deployed quite a bit to help with clearing event areas where the candidates would be visiting. They have four children all under 10 years old; many times she wasn’t able to work her shift at the restaurant. That particular evening, she was able to work because her mother was visiting and was with the children.  

I wanted to gain further insight on how active duty squadrons were taking care of families. I asked if while he was deployed, did the squadron assign someone as a point of contact if she needed help with anything. She told me that they didn’t, she had little or no contact with her husband’s supervisors. This got me started thinking about how fortunate we are in our Guard family to have proactive leaders who contact the families on a regular basis during deployments.

This conversation makes me wonder if a basic Wingman concept is being missed. When we look at the Wingman concept, it applies to many areas, Physical, Mental, Spiritual and Social. To take a quote from the Air Force Reserve Center Wingman Toolkit, “Life is not static. Relationships and situations never stay the same. We must be cognizant of the impact social fitness has on mission readiness. Relationships with our families, with our friends, among our coworkers and in our communities all affect our ability to be mission ready. If we commit ourselves to staying focused on what really matters, it is easier to overcome unusual challenges and even enhance our resiliency as a total force.” ⁱ Our experiences with our families have a direct impact on our individual readiness. When those concerns from providing for our families spill over, we can’t perform at the level we need to be on the mission.

So what can we do or improve on? In an article I published several months ago, we need to establish and foster relationships. It is in these areas when we know our Wingman well enough, we can detect that something is wrong. We do this by creating opportunities on and off duty to build those relationships. Many times the off duty opportunities we can use to build the relationships among our families. The senior leaders are dedicated to provide these opportunities and we need to take advantage of them.

Some other tips are: being open to change. There’s one thing in life that is sure to happen and that is change.  Having the ability to trust. Learn from our mistakes. Build on our strengths and focus on a purpose.

We should be aware of how we can use the Wingman concept to help our fellow Airmen and their families. To be a resource and support when they need us. Many times we focus on the one on one relationship, but in reality, it’s a one to many relationship. What is your social mission readiness?

References:

ⁱ  Citizen Airman, “Supporting Social Fitness,” 12 Aug 2012, Wingman Toolkit, US Air Force Reserve Center, 30 Nov 2012, http://afrc.wingmantoolkit.org/CategoryItems.aspx?Category=Social

What’s my Time Worth

By

CMSgt Gary Sparks

We have all had days and/or weeks where we’ve been simply just overwhelmed with all the activities we have going on in our lives. How can we sort those out and keep everything in perspective and get them accomplished without physically or mentally hurting ourselves? Let’s consider a couple of things: figuring out what’s important, and how to weigh and balance what’s important.

When determining what’s important, this can and will mean different things to different people. However, we must recognize what we are passionate about. What do we get excited about? For some, they get excited about going home at the end of the day, where others are excited about going to work. Those that have the excitement about going to work literally love their work. They have great passion for what they do and go home satisfied. We all dislike spending time that we can’t get back, so making the most out of the day is important.

How do we weigh and balance what’s important? According to WebMD, there are five things we can do to strike a work-life balance.

1.     Build downtime into your schedule. With all the activities with kids and other life demands, it’s essential to have time to relax.

2.     Drop energy sapping activities. These are non-productive activities like gossiping or spending too much time on social media. What we consider is how can we better use the time we have.

3.     Rethink errands. Plan your errands the most efficient route to minimize the time spent traveling. This can also tie to over thinking situations. If we over analyze or add complication to what we are doing, then that can and will zap more of our energy. As a general rule of thumb, keep it simple.

4.     Get Moving. Finding time to exercise is really difficult in today’s work environment. However, to maintain our health and wellness, we must find ways to get moving. It doesn’t have to be big, just doing something.

5.     A little relaxation goes a long way. Setting realistic goals goes a long way to helping balancing our work. That plus practicing delegation. In a high-paced environment we work in, we can’t do everything. Building trust among those we work with is a must and many times our words and actions indicate that others may have trust us. ⁱ

By looking at our work-life schedule on a weekly and not a daily basis, we can better manage our days, activities and stressors. In addition, these tips can help in scheduling activities or off-loading tasks to those that can help. It also helps in building continuity for the future.

ⁱ Uscher, Jen, “5 Tips for Better Work-Life Balance,” n.d., WebMD, 5 Aug 12, http://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/5-strategies-for-life-balance

Managing by Wandering Around

In the last several months, we’ve considered being resilient. How can we build resiliency in our troops? What are some of the things we can do as a leader to mentor and develop our followers.

As leaders getting to know your followers is a key component in being able to detect trends and possible issues that impact the person and the mission. In the book, “It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership,” Colin Powell, discusses the walk-about that he would do from the time he was a young officer in the Army through being the Secretary of State. By doing so, it allowed, as the Gen says, “I followed precise paths through troop areas and predictable times. Junior officers, NCOs and troops knew when and where they could ambush me with their problems. I found out things that would never or not easily flow through the staff or up the chain of command.” ⁱ He followed up on each of the problems, but did it in a way that didn’t undercut the chain of command.  This demonstrated that there was legitimate concern for the wellness of the personnel assigned to the unit and still supported the formal chain of command.

Management by Walking Around (MBWA) is a concept that’s used in many organizations. Cornell University Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) School list the benefits:

·      Builds trust and relationships.

·      Motivates staff by suggesting that leaders take an active interest in its personnel.

·      Encourages staff to achieve individual and collective goals.

·      Strengthens ability to drive cultural change.

·      Refreshes organizational value.

·      Makes work less formal.

·      Creates a healthy organization. ⁱⁱ

When you consider the benefits listed, you can see how Gen Powell was so effective. During the last UTA, I noticed that many of the Airmen I worked with in Comm saw me at the change of command and took the time to come over, shake my hand and say hello. This shows the impact someone can have by just bringing someone into being. We as senior leader, (Senior NCOs, Officers and First Sergeants) taking the time to manage (lead) by walking around can build a stronger and more cohesive unit. When we have a good relationship and knowledge of those we work with, it is much easier to detect if there is something terribly wrong.  With the increased stressors on our Airmen, we must be proactive and watchful for changes that would indicate a problem. Is it time for a walk about?

ⁱ Powell, Colin, “It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership,” Harper Collins Publishing, 2012

ii Serrat, Olivier, “Managing by Walking Around,” April 1, 2