Skip to main content (Press Enter).
 News
    
        Photos

    Week in Photos

    Air Force TV

    Commentaries

    Features

    Art

    About Us
    
        Air Force Senior Leaders
    
        SECAF

    CSAF

    CMSAF

    Biographies

    Fact Sheets

    SECAF Reading List

    CSAF Leadership Library
    
        CSAF Leadership Library 2022

    CSAF Leadership Library 2021

    CSAF Reading List Pre-2020 Archive
    
        2018 CSAF Reading List

    2017 CSAF Reading List

    2016 CSAF Reading List

    CSAF Leadership Library 2023

    CMSAF Leadership Library

    50 Years of the CMSAF

    Adjunct Professors

    Air Force Strategic Documents

    Arctic Strategy

    Empowered Airmen

    State Licensure Portability

    Careers

    AF Federal Advisory Committees

    AF 75th Anniversary

    Policy Updates

    AF Content Management

    Contact Us

    AF Sites
    
        Site RegistrationU.S. Air Force LogoAir Force

        Policy UpdatesNewsroomReoptimizationBIOGRAPHIESAF Senior Leaders      Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. meets with outstanding Airmen of the 319th Reconnaissance Wing at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., Feb. 17, 2021. The Airmen were nominated by their leadership, leading by example and for exceptional work in their duties across the base. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Elora J. McCutcheon)CSAF visits Grand Forks, AFB.
                        
                        
                        Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. meets with outstanding Airmen of the 319th Reconnaissance Wing at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., Feb. 17, 2021. The Airmen were nominated by their leadership, leading by example and for exceptional work in their duties across the base. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Elora J. McCutcheon)
                
                Photo Details /
                        Download Hi-Res
        


        Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Q. Brown, Jr. is briefed by Senior Master Sgt. LaShonna Wooten, 319th Force Support Squadron sustainment services flight superintendent about changes to the Airey Dining Facility following its Food 2.0 initiative in 2018 at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., Feb. 17, 2021. The Food 2.0 initiative included cosmetic structural upgrades to the DFAC, as well as a multitude of newer and healthier food choices for Airmen. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Elora J. McCutcheon)CSAF visits Grand Forks, AFB.
                        
                        
                        Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Q. Brown, Jr. is briefed by Senior Master Sgt. LaShonna Wooten, 319th Force Support Squadron sustainment services flight superintendent about changes to the Airey Dining Facility following its Food 2.0 initiative in 2018 at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., Feb. 17, 2021. The Food 2.0 initiative included cosmetic structural upgrades to the DFAC, as well as a multitude of newer and healthier food choices for Airmen. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Elora J. McCutcheon)
                
                Photo Details /
                        Download Hi-Res
        


        Brown presented Boules and Stretch with the 2019 MacKay Trophy, for “Most Meritorious Flight,” for a historic combat mission they flew over Afghanistan.CSAF awards A-10 pilots
                        
                        
                        Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., Capt. Alexander E. Boules, 354th Fighter Squadron A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot and Lt. Col. Charles C. Stretch, 355th Operations Support Squadron commander, stand for a photo at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., Feb. 18, 2021. Brown presented Boules and Stretch with the 2019 MacKay Trophy, for “Most Meritorious Flight,” for a historic combat mission they flew over Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Sergio A. Gamboa)
                
                Photo Details /
                        Download Hi-Res
        


        A photo of Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. giving a speech.A-10 pilots awarded trophy for ‘most meritorious flight’
                        
                        
                        Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. speaks during the 2019 MacKay Trophy presentation ceremony at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., Feb. 18, 2021. Brown presented the trophy to two Davis-Monthan AFB A-10 Thunderbolt II pilots for their meritorious combat mission over Afghanistan in 2019. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Sergio A. Gamboa)
                
                Photo Details /
                        Download Hi-Res
        


        Col. Cameron Pringle, 319th Reconnaissance Wing commander, (third from left), Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., Sen. John Hoeven and Senator Kevin Cramer, depart an aircraft hangar at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., Feb. 17, 2021. Brown received a brief from members of the 319th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, who shared information regarding the critical role the RQ-4 Global Hawk plays in the Air Force’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Elora J. McCutcheon)CSAF visits Grand Forks, AFB.
                        
                        
                        Col. Cameron Pringle, 319th Reconnaissance Wing commander, (third from left), Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., Sen. John Hoeven and Sen. Kevin Cramer, depart an aircraft hangar at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., Feb. 17, 2021. Brown received a brief from members of the 319th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, who shared information regarding the critical role the RQ-4 Global Hawk plays in the Air Force’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Elora J. McCutcheon)
                
                Photo Details /
                        Download Hi-Res

Brown looks to accelerate while changing Air Force culturePublished March 10, 2021
                    
                    By Charles Pope
                    
                    
                    Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
            **ARLINGTON, Va. (AFNS) --**Air Force Chief of Staff **Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr.** rarely disguises his intentions or pulls punches. He wants to go fast. He wants Airmen to succeed and feel enriched. He wants the best and most unvarnished information. Most of all, he wants to win.
Which is why, one day early in his tenure, he arrived at a Pentagon conference room and rather than taking a seat at the head of the table as is custom, he picked a seat on the side.
“At first it confused the heck out of people,” Brown said recently in a wide-ranging interview to discuss his approach to the job, his methods and expectations. He also discussed the progress so far meeting requirements of “**Accelerate Change or Lose,**” his philosophical blueprint for what the Air Force must do to succeed.
“I see myself as an action officer just like they see themselves and I like having more of a roundtable atmosphere,” Brown said in explaining his seat selection.
“We’re all in it for the same thing – making it better for the Air Force. If there’s too much deference you don’t get the dialogue. People will tell you what they think you want to hear. What I really want to hear is all the various feedback.”
Now, more than six months since becoming the Air Force’s highest-ranking uniformed officer, Brown continues to press his strategy for ensuring the Air Force meets every mission, every time. He’s focused on ensuring the Air Force successfully reshapes itself to satisfy the **National Defense Strategy**’s requirements while nurturing an environment that rewards ambition, innovation and excellence while repelling sexual harassment, racial inequality and extremist ideologies.
Brown’s plan for achieving all of this is included in the document “Accelerate Change or Lose” he released in August soon after becoming Chief of Staff. In December, he released a more detailed collection of “**Action Orders**” for how best to achieve those goals.
None of it is easy, Brown acknowledges.
To achieve the goals requires new technology, a rethinking of how the Air Force operates and in some cases organizing and shifting deeply ingrained cultural practices across the organization.
But, he says, the Air Force and the nation have no choice.
“Our Air Force must accelerate change to control and exploit the air domain to the standard the Nation expects and requires from us. If we don’t change – if we fail to adapt – we risk losing the certainty with which we have defended our national interests for decades,” Brown writes in “Accelerate Change or Lose.”
The “Action Orders” provide a pathway and are hooked to four priorities. The first emphasizes the Air Force’s mission to “recruit, assess, educate, train, experience, develop, and retain Airmen;” the second calls for a “tune up” of the service’s bureaucracy to make it faster, more efficient and focused.
The third priority requires the Air Force “to fully understand our competitors” and to adapt its decision-making, doctrine, capabilities and tactics with U.S. competition in mind. China is mentioned by name, illustrating the shift to great power competition and a geographic change in focus as well.
The final priority is called “design implementation,” a dense term that essentially means reconsidering the way the Air Force decides what the future might bring and how best to organize, train and equip the force to meet that anticipated threat.
“We need to identify systems and programs that are outdated and/or unaffordable to make way for capabilities that will make us competitive in the future high-end fight,” Brown states in Action Order D.
Like his predecessors, Brown says his highest priority is serving, supporting and sustaining Airmen. It’s no accident, he said, the first directive in his December document – Action Order A – is focused on Airmen.
“I want to create an environment where all Airmen can reach their full potential. That’s what they expect,” Brown said in the interview. “Parents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters send young people to our Air Force and what they expect is they will reach their full potential.
“The other part is the operational piece. We’ve had great success with air power in the United States Air Force and because of that success in various conflicts dating back to World War I we are expected to provide air superiority so Americans, our allies and our partners are not attacked from the air.
“That’s part of our challenge,” he said. “There is an expectation (for superiority) that’s taken for granted. We have an advancing threat so we must advance as well. You can’t keep an advantage just by sitting there, using the status quo. Just like any athlete, when somebody is pushing you, you have to push as well.”
For Brown that means a focus on “capabilities over platforms.” It means perfecting and refining still-evolving strategies such as Joint All Domain Command and Control and the Advanced Battle Management System. Those systems are able to collect, synthesize and analyze vast amounts of information from air, land, sea, space and cyber, and then share the crucial results instantly with commanders and forces on the battlefield.
It means fostering a new cadre of Airmen who are experts in software development, artificial intelligence, and joint operations in addition to the crucial traditional job categories that have fueled the Air Force’s excellence for generations.
Like the engineer and pilot he is, Brown has clear ideas for how to find the best answers to difficult questions. One major element is exposing him to information he may not want to hear.
“The analogy I’ve been using is, just like a Supreme Court decision, you’ll have the majority ruling and there’s also someone representing the dissenting view that’s packaged together,” he said.
“We want to figure out how to work together to be faster but also to eliminate blind spots. ... There may be merit on both sides,” Brown said, noting he is meticulous about reading materials before meetings so the discussion can be robust, challenging and efficient.
On especially tough questions and issues, Brown has an approach as well.
“I look at it like a Venn diagram versus approaching it from points of disagreement,” he said. “What do we agree on already? Then how do we work on the parts where there’s disagreement?”
He also likes information, background materials and presentations provided in narrative form rather than bullets. Narratives, he says, provide important context and nuance; it can reveal the underlying rationale and motive that drives to a better and faster conclusion.
“When you do bullets, you can tap-dance around bullets when I ask a question,” he said. “If you put it in a paragraph, it means you’ve fully thought through it and you feel confident you can defend it. I like narratives because then they can fully put their thoughts down on paper.”
He is also determined to streamline – and speed up – decision-making.
“There’s a Harvard Business Review article I read that said, when you’re making a key decision you need to keep the group to about seven,” he said. “For every additional person you add to the decision making body you decrease your effectiveness by 10 percent. So once you get to 14 you’re pretty much stagnated; you’re trying to please too many people.”
Most of all, he understands the value of “reality checks,” which is another way of saying he travels to escape the Washington bubble.
On a recent trip to **Grand Forks Air Force Base**, N.D., and **Davis-Monthan Air Force Base**, Arizona, for example, he met with each base’s senior leaders as well as with senators from both states. He also held several roundtables with Airmen.
The sessions were valuable.
“I get that candid feedback,” he said. “It helps me understand where they’re coming from. At the same time, it allows me to explain the things I’m trying to accomplish.
“There are a lot of good ideas that come out of the Pentagon but not every ‘good idea’ is as good as we think it is once it hits our Airmen,” he said. “They’re probably not going to tell me the bad news at the Pentagon; they’ll tell me how good everything is going. But with Airmen it’s unfiltered.”AFWN 



USAF 



AF 



Air Force 



CSAF 



Air Force Chief of Staff 



Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr 



accelerate 



Change 



culture 



Blueprint 



NDS 



National Defense Strategy 



action orders Featured News
        Senior Leader Priorities
                DAF leaders talk budget, reoptimizing the force
                    
                    DAF leaders speak at National Character and Leadership Symposium
                    
                    DAF members recognized during BEYA STEM awards
                    
                    DAF senior enlisted advisors discuss Airmen, Guardians in the fight
                    
                    SecAF Kendall AFA Warfare Symposium Q&A: Reoptimizing for Great Power CompetitionInnovation
                AFWERX director discusses role of tech startups, quick innovation in Great Power Competition
                    
                    DAF delivers lethality at the speed of data during Project Convergence Capstone 4
                    
                    DAF welcomes industry partners to HQ development program
                    
                    DAF announces Spark Tank 2024 finalists
                    
                    Chief Digital, Artificial Intelligence Office to host hackathon in HawaiiMAJCOM News
                Safety enterprise announces new mission, vision, goals in 2024 strategic plan
                    
                    Air Combat Command welcomes new commander
                    
                    USAFE-AFAFRICA commander discusses Integrated Air, Missile Defense during Munich Security Conference
                    
                    Flosi to AFMC family: Embrace change, make every day count
                    
                    AMC rises to increasing global tension
 Quick Links
AccessibilityContact UsEqual OpportunityFOIA | Privacy | Section 508Information QualityInspector GeneralJAG Court-Martial DocketLink DisclaimerNo FEAR ActOpen GovernmentOSI Tip LinePlain LanguageQuestionsResilienceRSSSite MapVeterans Crisis LineCareers
Join the Air ForceAir Force BenefitsAir Force CareersAir Force ReserveAir National GuardCivilian ServiceConnect
            Get Social with Us
            
            Official United States Air Force Website
    Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil