Uncertainty, inspection and the 'new normal' - Signature Article

TIG Brief: The Inspector General, Sept-Oct, 2003 by Curtis M. Bedke

Editor's Note: General Bedke was Inspector General, Air Combat Command, at the time he authored this guest commentary. He has since been reassigned as deputy chief, Central Security Service, Fort Meade, Md.

Well, gang, our neat, orderly, linear world has gone bye-bye. It's time to stop waiting for things to return to normal--the "new normal" is already here.

We can expect the optempo and perstempo to remain high, with plenty of unit deployments and ECS taskings all the time; if you think you'll be able to "get back to that normal inspection schedule any month now," you need to splash some cold water on your face! Not only will we continue to have units "on tap" for their AEF periods; they can probably expect to actually deploy.

On top of that, we can expect the turbulence to remain high; if you consider 9/11 and Iraq to be "just anomalies," then dream on--but your dreams better assume "more anomalies" are ahead.

Even without 9/11, the world is rapidly changing ... network-centric warfare is starting to happen, and network-centric thinking is already here. Our sharp airmen, raised on computers and the Internet, don't even see things in linear progression; rather, everything and everybody and every idea are connected in a spider web of information. It means a change in one place will have some effect on every other.

That's good and bad. Terrorists have learned that one small act can ripple across a wide area. On the other hand, it also means there's a natural damping effect; shocks can be absorbed and repaired more quickly. In the end, the important point is not whether the new world is better or worse--it's that it's here to stay!

For those of us with complex, full inspection schedules that have been slipping to the right since 9/ 11, this isn't particularly easy news to accept. Some units say they're too busy to have inspections; their deployment projections appear to bear them out; and many of them will assert that they should be given "full credit" for their OR/ requirements based on their real-world operational taskings. Yet the list of units who've been inspected within the last 5 years is shrinking each month. What's the right answer?

I'm reminded of what quantum physics says about the inspection process. In 1927, Werner Heisenberg was trying to learn about the properties of subatomic particles. He wanted to measure their position and momentum. What he found was startling and revolutionary:

THE HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE:

"The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa."

In very simple terms, what this meant was this: "You can never exactly measure something, because the act of measuring it changes it."

This works in the IG business, too--but in a very good way. I call it ...

THE IG INSPECTION CERTAINTY PRINCIPLE:

"If you measure something, you are guaranteed to change it. In readiness and compliance inspections, this is a positive outcome!"

The mission of the IG, of course, is not "to inspect units." The real reason we exist is to improve the command's combat capability--and we do that not only by inspecting, but also by motivating and educating. And we do it one airman, one shop, one unit at a time.

When I was describing this to a senior general officer recently, he asked (somewhat tongue-in-cheek), "How do you guys motivate anyone?!" The answer, of course, is that as soon as a unit shows up on the inspection schedule, they get motivated to start preparing for it! Then, once we arrive, we remember that it's as important to give praise for the 95-plus percent we see that's really impressive as it is to point out the areas that need improvement.

And, of course, we don't just tell them what's broke; we explain the standards, suggest ways to improve and even guide them toward other units that provide positive examples of how to do it right. That education is why the unit is better when we leave than when we arrived!

There are a few corollaries to this principle:

Corollary 1: If you don't measure it, it won't get changed positively.

Because we take that extra step of educating the units, we leave the unit knowing we've made it better able to perform its mission.

Corollary 2: If you don't measure it, it won't be taught or trained.

One of the most valuable statements I've heard as an IG was from a wing commander, who said, "Look, we're really busy. Let me be brutally honest: your folks haven't given us a Phase 2 ORI in 7 years--and we haven't exercised Phase 2 since the last ORI."

Corollary 3: If you pretend to inspect it, they will pretend to teach and train it.

We need to resist the temptation to simulate unless absolutely necessary; it's bad training, it confuses both the unit and the inspectors, and it disrupts continuity--especially in a scenario-based evaluation.

Sometimes the Uncertainty Principle can be a real problem. We try to reach the ideal: to inspect every part of every shop in the unit, to achieve 100 percent effectiveness. We want to send everyone on the team because more inspectors give a more accurate picture. In this new, high-tempo, high-turbulence world, we even get tempted to delay an inspection because parts of the unit are deployed.