Thinking to Win
 

I have just lifted the following paragraph from the "Aerospace Insight" blog on the Royal Aeronautical Society's website:

"Sponsored by the Air Force Board Standing Committee and led by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Andrew Pulford personally, T2W represents an intention to re-ignite Whole Force innovation culture for a ‘Whole Force’. I suspect that a key aim of T2W has been built around a perceived need to ‘apply’ Air Power more effectively today and to think more imaginatively about the needs of tomorrow through an attempt to better clarify focus, inspire innovation and in better advocating Air Power influence. T2W is physical, moral and conceptual in its design and as I suggest, is intended to create a culture of innovation within the Whole Force and to applaud and encourage the thinking power and opinions from all individuals."

Hmmm!

Great buzzwords, Sir.

Does that mean "Get a grip of your sh!t and start thinking"?

PS: Was I ever in Whole Force?

Here is the T2W presentation deck ...

CAS : Thinking To Win

Golden Bull
 

Awards

Might be a contender for an award? :confused:

In my day, T2W would have meant (had text speak been invented then) Transition to War.

Maybe the change of definition has something to do with the need to try to refocus attention on the true purpose of the Armed Forces.

Seventy-one years ago, we didn't Think To Win - we just got on with it, and won.

Sounds all well and good... What can possibly go wrong... U.K. Plc flogging off the assets like the Harriers comes to mind..

CM, with you there which may be why he went for that rather than TTW.

To use an old quote:

When you are up to your area in alligators it is difficult to remember your mission was to drain the swamp.

Decades ago, during the cold war when we were manned to establishment, we worked day to day and next week was a future problem, we didn't have the luxury of thinking ahead. Now your lean, mean, under manned . . . has time to T2W?

"OK boss, will do, next week all right while we think this through?"

"Well, when you haven't actually got an Air Force, I suppose the next best thing is to think about one!"

(This proposition is so bizarre that it is taking on the nature of a Caption Competition)

D.

I had the (Mis)fortune to attend the presentation at Shrivenham as part of the rent-a-crowd... I don't think I have ever seen so many people looking as utterly clueless about what they have just been told than "thinking to win".

It seemed to be a collection of buzzwords & management/corporate speak stuck together, which really didn't make much sense at all. I think the point was "do more with less".

What a crock of business b/s.
And I speak as a former head of corporate affairs with an MBA.
The job is simple.
Project force.
Kill people.
Or break their stuff.
Using aircraft.

Isn't that how he and every other senior officer got their jobs?

I've now read the slideshow ... and it's even worse than the initial summary posted by 1.3VStall.

What a load of meaningless verbiage. I think Slide 6 is the worst ... And how are we expected to come up with better ideas, Sir? How do you make that happen?

MPN11,

Answer came there none.

MPN, like you I have now read it, fortunately brief if lacking accuracy or clarity. One thought is frightening.

Is he old enough to remember when we didn't have a phone in every office and signals took hours? We had to talk to each other albeit lines to Group were hard to get.

Urgent emails may be ignored because if they were really urgent they would have been sent last week!

So he is also saying "not invented here" is no reason to reject an idea.

I have no doubt lots of innovative ideas will flood into assorted in-trays/in-boxes, especially from newly-appointed Stn and Sqn Cdrs. After due staffing it will be revealed that the idea has been mooted on a bi-annual basis for years/decades and rejected for [usually] the same reasons. It was the bane of my life at 11 Gp :(

However, I occasionally had the pleasure of drafting a response from SASO to a stn cdr referring the latter to his predecessor's correspondence on the same file reference. :D

Ah, PN, those happy days of long-distance comms. "Rothwell Haig, are you still working? ... CLICK." :mad:

I wonder how many people have been tied up for months making sure the slides are the right colour, font and the message looks funky and modern...when they could have been better employed...employing air power n shizzle..really...what a load of honk...:(

I hope someone read it out as that font looks mighty small. I gave up after "re-ignition of our innovation culture". Does that include sacking those who blew out the flame? As everyone in MoD seems clueless about this, the cynic in me thinks someone about to retire will soon be working for the comoany who gets the contract.

They missed out the bit that we will ....'boldly go where no one has gone before...'

MPN, however I can remember a startling piece of staff work out of 11Gp. At the time the F4 sqns at Leuchars with the Mk1 Phantoms had developed an entirely different code system from the southern Mk2 Sqns for practice intercepts.

No doubt there had been moves the years to get the sqns to agree common cause. However a wg cdr from Leuchars, posted to the staff, implemented the change wef - no warning, nothing. The Leuchars guys got airborne unaware of the change :)

OTOH, more recently, Air Cdre Support at Strike brought in New training facilities; there was no take up by the bomber sqns as they were not under command.