This post continues the discussion begun in September, covering the third category of the Airman’s Foundational Competencies: Developing Ideas.
Like last month’s post, I’ll touch on the competencies that fall under Developing Ideas, providing the Air Force-given definition and giving my own interpretation why anyone – including those outside of the military – ought to care.
The Developing Ideas category also includes 5 competencies that are meant to “imagine the future today.” They are presented in alphabetical order below.
| Developing Ideas Competency |
| What Is It? |
| Why Should You Care? |
| Analytical Thinking |
| What: Identifies problems, evaluates alternative perspectives / solutions, makes effectiverecommendations, and identifies courses of action. |
| Why: This competency enables an individual or team to understand a situation. |
| Creative Thinking |
| What: Develops new insights into new situations;Questions conventional approaches. |
| Why: This competency enables an individual or team to solve unfamiliar problems. |
| Digital Literacy |
| What: Uses technology to identify, critically evaluate and synthesize data and information;Explore, create and manage digital content; Appropriately interact in a virtual environment. |
| Why: This competency enables rapid coordination and communication, especially in more geographically distributed organizations.This also enables long-term or portfolio projects to more easily share information with future personnel, follow-on projects, and related projects. |
| Fostering Innovation |
| What: Builds a culture of behaviors and business practices that encourages, champions, andrewards creativity and informed risk-taking;Is open to change. |
| Why: In conjunction with Developing Others, Fostering Innovation is important because it enhances the overall capability for your team to adapt to new problems – there’s not much use in your team being digitally literate or being good creative thinkers if the environment won’t facilitate those competencies. |
| Influence |
| What: Intends to persuade, convince, or impress others to elicit their support to make specificimpacts or achieve particular effects on others |
| Why: Even if you have good ideas and understand things rather well, you need to be able to convey the benefits of your approach to others – especially when resources or support are needed. |
After getting a basic foundation in Developing Self and Developing Others, establishing a foundation of Developing Ideas begins to push the contributions of individuals in their teams – it’s not enough to be the most competent you can be or for your team members to be the most competent they can be if they aren’t also given some creative control and have the ability to clearly express that creativity.
What thoughts about my interpretations do you have?
What do you agree or disagree with, and why?
What thoughts do you have about the competencies themselves?
How do you think you are doing as a leader with regard to these competencies?
What specifically do you think you could do to easily improve in any competency above?
Reference
72 Airman's Writings 