Vanguard Magazine

Secondly, as the steward of the profession of arms, we are making certain that we envision how the Armed Forces develop into the future; what kind of environment we are going to be operating in and making sure that we gear all of the policy decision-making around that. General Jonathan Vance, Chief of the Defence Staff, inspects the troops during an official visit to Operation IMPACT. Photos: DND www.vanguardcanada.com AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016 25 IntervIew I Mission command will still prevail, but you are going to be ac- countable to deliver absolutely assertive effects. To be able to do that we need an architecture that informs the commander and di- rects the commander to achieve the things that are achievable. It's operational art, but it's kind of on steroids, really focused. Those two are related (operations and the profession of arms), but now how do I affect the profession of arms to cover operations. So that accounts for maybe 20 per cent of my time on each, and the other 60 per cent of my vision is on the institution itself, as a place to work, have a career; the people side, which includes the equip- ment side too. When I say take care of the institution, I need to look at all of it. I know now, how our people need an element of individualization and customization in their military career that allows them to continue to serve in a satisfying way. Q: Are you talking about accommodating people? It's more than accommodating; it's encouraging it. We need to learn from the fact that if we want to draw from the best across the country, we are going to have employer-of-choice kind of ideas. We are not going to be that today unless there is an element of in- dividualization that doesn't cross the line between service before self, but allows people that may have a slightly different path in mind to still be able to serve. Q: Op Honour is an initiative that you felt you had to grip right from the start. How do you feel this is going? Frankly, it's going the way that I had envisioned. I started off making my intent clear, we're now going from intent into the spe- cifics of understanding better where we are really at through the Statscan survey. So we are looking forward to the results of that and at the same time, putting in place and updating the policies, getting the definitions right, putting in place the structures that can help people, making it a victim-centered approach, all that stuff. So it never goes fast enough or well enough for me, but I think that we are all on that mindset and I know the senior leader- ship is all in that mindset. I see this is as a strait leadership/take care of our people issue: having a workplace environment that encourages a – no kidding – satisfied, happy life in the military. Q: Are you still finding that there are a lot of folks that just don't get it, that are still in the Forces? I ask you that because I still hear of incidents happening, that you just have to shake your head and say, "What is it you don't understand in the way that we should be dealing with folks today?" It still goes on. However, everywhere I go people have heard of Op Honor, they understand Op Honor, and I think the chain of command and leadership did a good job in getting it out there. The problem is, it's not a onetime thing. It's got to be a persistent effort and so I'm pushing and won't let up. I issued that order to the Armed Forces on 17 July [2015], and I of course realized that not everybody will instantly follow the course. I knew that what that did was to seize people's attention for the vast majority, but yes there are still some people that just don't get it. But I've got to tell you we're following up and I'm watching this really closely. Not only has it got to be done because it's the right thing to do, but we have other cultural issues to move along and therefore if we can't deal with this which is pretty black and white, we'll have trouble with the rest. Q: What about this culture of conformity that you spoke about? There is a whole other part of our culture in this institutional evo- lution that we've got to go through where each individual counts. Individuals that have a problem or stick their hand up and say I'm a little bit different, at this point, are not the enemy. They are not criminals and I want people to start to manage and make decisions that benefit the individual provided that they will not cross any [policy] lines. Decisions that benefit the individual so they can continue to serve, so they can continue to do the best they can. That's difficult space, particularly because we all came from a world where policies were very clear: you're in or you're out. And the one thing that makes me confident that we are going the right way, is that the best war fighters, the best operations are performed by people with creativity, problem solving skills, those

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