Accelerating for the Future

As a founding member of the National Security Space Association, Lockheed Martin Space is passionate about how we, and the collective industry, demonstrate continuous improvement for our customers' missions. Whether it's development or execution, we need to move with pace – because the threat doesn't stop to catch its breath. So when I challenged my team to go twice as fast and at half the cost, it's because what we do saves lives, and we must embrace digital transformation and think differently about the partnerships we need to foster so we can deliver more mission value per dollar.

Hearing General John Hyten at the NSSA's recent Space Time engagement was a clarion call for even greater acceleration, and I was struck by the variety of ways we can hit the gas pedal. Implementing digital tools, rapidly deploying new technologies to test, learn and scale, and applying artificial intelligence can only get us so far unless we accelerate our mindset. What I mean by that is removing real and perceived barriers. Modernizing processes and throwing out the ones that just don't work anymore. Safely bringing to market an 80% capability because waiting for perfect means not addressing the threat on our doorstep. And being mindful of the permission team members often need to move faster.

For me, that means not sitting on the sidelines. Rather, it's about rolling up our sleeves and actively engaging with our teams, colleagues and customers to figure out what's missing in their mission and offering that solution. I've been reading about intrapreneurship, which is the concept of employees taking on an entrepreneurial mindset in their own companies – proactive, self-starter approaches. And I've been incredibly proud of how our team has safely embodied that concept throughout the pandemic so we didn't lose a year of experimentation and innovation.

Thank you, General Hyten, and to the NSSA for hosting this engagement. We couldn’t be in more agreement that it's time to accelerate faster than ever before. Now let's have a discussion – how are you helping accelerate your team's mindset?