Solution in Search of a Problem
Air Force's obsession with personal appearance revived in 4-star memo
Whenever a policy is issued without a clear statement of the problem it is meant to address, grab your wallet. This means there isn’t the data or evidence to demonstrate a problem. Which means there isn’t a problem, or there is a different one.
We’re going to discuss the memo below. I paste it here now so you can glance over it and locate the problem statement.
If you’re like me, you couldn’t find one.
So it seems we have a memo which purports to fix a problem with adherence to certain standards. But if there isn’t such a problem, then the memo can’t be fixing it.
If a thing isn’t meant to do what it purports, then what is it meant to do?
Something else. Sometimes, directives are issued to justify someone’s position, or make them feel more consequential. Sometimes, to create theater for third-party audiences. Sometimes, merely to hand-wax the already gleaming surface of a senior figure’s burgeoning ego.
Or sometimes, simply to flex. To feed on the euphoric notion that the whole world, to borrow the parlance of our time, is your bitch. You can do whatever you want, so do something petty just to instigate sobbing, then laugh about it.
Earlier this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy directed corporate staff in flexible working roles to get themselves back into the office. He didn’t present data or evidence. His rationale was basically limited to because I said so, topped off with a threat to fire the non-compliant.
But there’s something many executives don’t understand about power. We should briefly discuss it, though the digression will further bury a deeply-buried lede.
Executives, including most Air Force generals, believe their power derives from their title. Their position. The stars on their shoulder.
This is what they’ve been conditioned to think, having been developed and promoted by adhering to the notion.
But it’s not correct. Authority derives from position, status, title, rank. Authority is the ability to make people do things and be backed by law. It goes so far as the law goes. It generates compliance.
Power is different. It’s bigger. It extends beyond law. Beyond status, rank, or position. Power is the ability to get people to do things they’re not obliged to do. To go further than required. It generates contribution beyond compliance.
And power has always been derived from exactly one source: the consent of the governed. Not law, not status, not stars. It is earned from those conferring it and allowing themselves to be subject to it.
We were supposed to learn this from waging two counterinsurgencies. Success in a counterinsurgency requires that the community reject and exclude insurgents rather than provide them shelter and sustenance.
Communities do this not because they are coerced by the authority of a pacifying external force. They do it because they consent to what that force seeks to achieve. And they consent because they were influenced persuaded. Felt seen and heard.
Before I digress further, let me say a word or two about Gen. Ken Wilsbach, who I will critique in this newsletter.
I’m sure he’s a great guy. A capable guy. I’m sure he has a huge fan base. Some of those fans will object to my characterizations. Some will let me know what an irremediable prick I continue to be. Some will disengage to avoid information which tests their beliefs and biases.
I’ve no doubt he’s an honorable and well-meaning leader. And at the end of the day, who am I to question such an esteemed and credible senior officer? What gives me the right to do that?
Existence. Which confers a right to dignity and respect. That’s all we require to question the decisions of those given authority over us. And the less they invite questions, the more we should question, as authority seeking to obscure its object should be automatically suspected of invalidity.
Authority which bypasses respect and leaves subjects voiceless seeks something expedient, which recommends to suspicion it seeks something it shouldn’t. By failing to have a conversation with airmen before deciding, Wilsbach denied them the chance to question.
But they are questioning, even if they can’t do it stridently. Let’s give those questions a voice.
A great many airmen will right now be questioning, at varying volumes, Gen. Wilsbach’s approach, and indeed his basic grip.
Because he has done something beyond comprehension. He has dragged us into a time machine.
Wilsbach has transported us back in time to the worst period of contemporary Air Force history. A time of undue obsession over the straightness of someone’s tie in the thirteenth hour of their thirteenth consecutive workday. A time of kicking people out for an extra inch around the middle when we were tens of thousands short of the strength needed to have manageable workloads. A time of persecuting unruly moustaches while Rome burned.
I thought we’d learned from that. I thought the pilot shortage, recruitment problems, and crumbling morale of the past decade had made it clear that generals have a duty to support airmen rather than hound them for lack of a better idea.
But it seems those days are back.
And I expect morale will soon be “pretty darn good” as a result.
Authority is keyed tightly to the psychological safety of the people in an organization. They submit to authority in exchange for its responsible use.
When authority is used responsibly, people give their consent and provide their full effort. Authority grows into power.
When authority is abused, people will not feel safe. They will be disempowered. Unduly subject to someone’s else’s impunity. Someone else’s whimsy. They will worry about the impact to their lives of authority unchained from necessity.
Instead of growing into power, authority will experience significant shrinkage. it will become the minimal version of itself.
People will withdraw discretionary effort and do just enough to stay out of trouble. Disempowered, they will seek to feel powerful again. This leads to mischief. Subtle subversion. Eventually, it leads to abandonment of the organization.
These are taxes levied on the organization for removing psychological safety, which it does any time authority is overplayed.
Executives who've been properly developed and bring the proper skillset to their roles understand this.
You know who doesn't? Bureaucrats.
They like alternative uses of authority. Like posturing, or theatrics. Or to distract from other issues they deem unfavorable or unassailable.
Which brings us to Gen Wilsbach. Newly installed as the commander of Air Combat Command (ACC), the US Air Force’s 155,000-strong tip of the combat spear, Wilsbach took a few months to acclimate.
And after plumbing the depths of strategic insight formed across 39 years of experience, education, and operational delivery, he came up with a genius idea.
A policy memo.
A policy memo outlining concerns and plans of action to address customs and courtesies, dress and appearance standards, and shaving waivers.
Never let anyone convince you the Air Force doesn’t instil strategic genius in its senior leaders. This guy has obviously unearthed something no one ever thought of before. A war-winning checkmate so sublime it seems obvious and even infantile.
And yet, it takes a lot of explaining, probably because it’s so wickedly clever.
Alongside the memo, Wilsbach birthed eight pages of communications guidance to “sell” the memo to airmen and “manage” how it’s perceived by others. Including retired officers who write blogs.
You can read that guidance at the popular Facebook page which obtained a leaked copy.
Every unit in ACC is required to conduct a basic training styled open ranks inspection within 30 days. That’s an unplanned and unbudgeted manpower bill of 465,000 hours at a cost of roughly $14M.
So it must be really important, right?
Except it isn’t.
This is the kind of stuff that drives airmen nuts. They’re already engaged in perpetual heavy breathing just to keep pace in an endemically under-resourced and over-tasked service. And this is how their leaders choose to “help.”
I’m honestly surprised at this memo. I continue to harbor unhealthy naivete about the Air Force. I continue to romanticize its role and relevance. I continue to overestimate its leaders. So I get surprised when I shouldn’t.
This is the kind of stuff I would expect from a sharp-elbowed O-4 with less than six months in-grade. Someone whose heart still does a whifferdill when he sees his own signature on something official.
This is the kind of stuff I would expect in a Basic Training or pipeline environment. You know, where people are trained to wear the uniform and that’s a lot of the point. Where the basics are being ingrained so we can take them for granted in someone who makes it to the field.
This is the kind of stuff which unwittingly self-critiques. Because if you need to say it to career airmen, you've already failed at the basics long ago.
But this all misses the point.
The point is, this memo from Wilsbach is not for the airmen of ACC.
It won't help them. It doesn’t support them. They won't fight more effectively. They won't fight harder. Enemy ships won’t sink faster. White flags won’t be raised when they realize we’ve outlawed facial hair.
Airmen don’t need to hear this stuff any more than they needed it the last time around. When the Air Force defaulted to cosmetics and trivialities in the middle of two wars, not because it would make the service more lethal. But because generals were powerless to provide actual material support on things that could make the service more lethal. Unable to do what they should, they did what they could.
Thing is, airmen know they don’t need to hear this. They know it's not for them. Which compounds the alienation.
They know this is for Wilsbach and his coterie at the top. It's for executives. So they can feel they're doing something. So they can validate their roles. So they can look in charge. So they can engage in “high standards theater.”
It’s been done before, and no executives were harmed in the process. So hey, nothing else we can really do, let’s try it again.
But to validate their roles, 4-stars and their staffs should be explaining what they will do to support airmen.
What they will do about under-manning. About under-funding. About a lack of spare parts which imposes double work on maintenance units who are stuck cannibalizing their way to a flying schedule.
What they will do about mental health. Suicide rates. Stress on the force. How they will manage the coming reorganization. How they will deal with crumbling infrastructure, lagging base support, a widening pay gap for military families vs their civilian counterparts, and chronic shortages of health care and child care resources in Air Force communities.
What is Wilsbach doing about the fighter pilot shortage? What is he doing to make sure it doesn’t get worse?
What is ACC doing to connect with airmen, build a culture of mutual support, and ensure a cohesive and integrated fighting force?
How is ACC partnering with mobility and special operations forces to integrate effectively in our next fight? How is ACC planning to compensate for the F-35 program’s missed milestones and anemic mission capability rates?
These are the things I would expect from a 2-star, never mind his boss’s boss. Strategic things.
Instead, Wilsbach has used his galactic authority to gift airmen with a solution in search of a problem.
I say that with all fairness. Because the problem he’s trying to solve, if there is one, is unstated. There is no data illustrating a problem with uniform compliance. There is no evidence customs and courtesies are being neglected. There’s no fact pattern connecting shaving waivers to a decline in readiness.
Here’s the entire body of evidence offered to support Wilsbach’s $14M inspection plan. It’s basically his opinion, which he admits is a product of inductive reasoning.
“While the vast majority of Airmen maintain professional standards, I am concerned by a discernable decline in the commitment to, and enforcement of, military standards.”
I question this. I question operating on impression in all cases. But I definitely question it as a foundation for mass action.
Wilsbach’s problem statement impeaches itself. He concedes that “the vast majority” of airmen don’t need open ranks inspections.
This means at least 95% of airmen don’t need their gig lines checked. They don’t need their badge placement measured. If 5% of ACC airmen would benefit from more attention to basics, their commanders will already know that and be dealing with it. And their First Sergeants. And their superintendents. And their supervisors. And their operations officers.
It’s nice of the 4-star to volunteer to help, but he will have pissed off the vast majority of squadron-level leaders across his command. By burglarizing their authority and giving them a new problem to solve. Not conducting open ranks, which will be annoying yet simple. The new problem is pissed off airmen who have a little less confidence in senior leaders.
Most of today’s squadron and wing leaders have seen that movie before, 10-15 years ago. They know how it ends. They came to their positions vowing to do basically the opposite.
Before I relinquish this chew toy, let me say one more thing.
Hounding airmen over shaving waivers, whatever the motive, is not a good look. It creates the impression, sought or unsought, that you're targeting black airmen. They are the ones who disproportionately qualify for shaving waivers.
So establish the process and follow the process. It doesn't require 4-star emphasis.
And that’s the problem. There really is no such thing as 4-star emphasis. When a 4-star gets interested in something, it creates top down coercion. It’s like releasing a steam roller at the summit of Everest. Everything in its path will get flattened.
Subtlety gets lost. Nuance gets lost.
If we're not careful, tolerance gets lost. Inclusion gets lost. Not the political bumper sticker version. The real version, where someone feels excluded from their team based on things they can’t control. Like the presence of a skin condition which makes shaving a health hazard.
With a squadron commander calibrating responses to waiver compliance, it’s possible to fish out the scant few who are speeding without alienating everyone else. The Everest steamroller is less discriminate. It’ll flatten everyone.
Some voices online who tend toward a more cynical view are wondering if maybe this is the underlying motive for Gen. Wilsbach. Congress is a named audience in his communication plan. Loud voices in congress are sport-bitching about “woke culture,” and are joined for an occasional chorus by generals who believe skinny jeans and facial hair are manifestations of woke subversion.
Is targeting beards an effort to sidle up to woke stereotypes and curry favor with Congress?
It pains me that this can be theorized. But such is the dark path trod in the exercise of executive authority absent of a credible problem statement.
This will backfire. Wilsbach has likely underestimated the power of his words and the hazards he invites by giving himself over to triviality.
I give it a few months before we start hearing complaints from the field about hyper obsession over personal appearance. There will be foreseeable absurdities. There will be discrimination.
Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all this emphasis on uniforms and beards and waistlines, all this obsession with superficiality, will result in cowering enemies. Maybe they'll be too scared to fight. Maybe they'll lay down their arms. Maybe obsessing over small stuff is the path to strategic solvency.
Or maybe enemies will draw the conclusion that we're even more intellectually adrift than they thought.
Inspections and reviews about combat tactics, employment readiness, fleet mission capable rates, unit manning and mobility; these things would scare enemies.
Brigadier generals counting buttons and scrutinizing whiskers, not so much. Future enemies will be glad to see us remove strong warriors from our ranks over facial hair. They’ll chalk it up as a signal that we’ve once again lost our focus on lethality. They’ll be emboldened.
You give control of your life to the military. And you expect that control to be exercised with respect.
And you expect the exercise of that privilege will go no further than military necessity.
You expect intellectual humility from leaders, and real conversations about navigating the future. Not the self-importance of political posturing.
When people see self-obsession from a leader, they realize they don't have a good wingman at the top. When that happens, the feeling of safety declines. Distraction sets in. Readiness erodes.
Remember, power doesn't derive from title or stars or status. Authority comes from those places.
Power comes from the consent of the governed. It’s bigger than authority. It requires more investment to unlock, but grants more latitude. Because it earns trust and confidence rather than assume they exist.
When executives try to wield power absent the consent of the governed, usually by stretching authority too far without earning trust and confidence, a reaction is triggered. Mischief, friction, and resistance will thrive. Because consent was not earned.
Attrition is the ultimate form of resistance to unwarranted authority. And as this situation unfolds, the stench of growing attrition will become more noticeable.
Take a look at pilot retention and overall recruitment. And then tell me why we insist on revisiting a lesson we’ve already observed but evidently didn’t learn.
Good luck to Gen. Wilsbach. He's gonna need it.
Because if there isn’t a readiness problem now, there might soon be. A solution looking for a problem has a tendency to create its own problem.
Authority, exercised responsibly, grows power. Discretionary effort expands. This is the road from good to great.
Authority, overplayed, shrinks power and eventually shrinks itself. This is the road from good to mediocre.
I thought we’d learned this in the past quarter century. Clearly I was mistaken.
TC is an independent writer specializing in organizational leadership. He is also a retired US Air Force officer and occasional voice on veteran and military issues.
I retired with the sore thought that the problem with the USAF is that it’s ran by pilots. No offense. But I’ve been impressed with the depth and breadth of experience of logistics and maintenance FGOs and GOs.