Are You Replaceable?

  • Published
  • By Colonel Jay B. Silveria
  • 48th Fighter Wing Commander
ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England --  I ask you to stop for a moment and think about this question: Are you replaceable? While I'd argue that in some areas of my life I am not, it is a reality in our Air Force, and even in my current position, that I am replaceable - we all are.

As your wing commander, I think I speak for all of the leaders in your chain of command when I say we value you as a member of our team. However, we realize your time at RAF Lakenheath and in the Air Force will come to an end, and another Airman will replace you. So, I'd like to take some time now to share my perspective on why I think it is important to be a replaceable member of our team. Also, I would like to stress the importance of teaching members about Lakenheath and developing them as leaders within your organization.

As we wind down the end of our summer PCS season, we have welcomed more than 550 new Airmen to our Liberty Wing family since May. For each new member we receive, someone else either retires or moves to another base and replaces another Airman ... it's a continuous cycle.

You are an important part of that cycle, and you play two key roles in it: 1) you are the Airman that gets the job done every single day in this busy wing and 2) you are also a key to the success of your team as a new member.

We all need a break from the daily operations tempo, the exercises, and the deployments. If we understand we are replaceable and someone else is capable of doing our jobs, then we can take the days of leave we earn and actually enjoy our time in Europe without stressing about work.

Additionally, in today's Air Force where we are supporting operations all over the world, there is a very real possibility you will deploy or be sent TDY for training or actual mission support. Your part of Lakenheath's mission doesn't go away when you do. Just as you have a "go bag" for getting out of town, you should also have a "go file" on your job that you can pass to someone else to keep the mission on track.

How wonderful would it be if everyone did that? Imagine no frantic calls to your cell phone when you are relaxing on the beach and no added stress from home station responsibilities when you reach your deployed location. So you're starting to see that being replaceable isn't so bad after all, right?
In terms of your role as the "old guy," you teach the ropes to the "new guy" and all that they need to succeed in their new role. But developing the new guy shouldn't start when your replacement arrives or a month before you PCS. It should start when you are the new guy or girl and should continue throughout your tour. Make a list of all the things you wished you'd known and continue to add to this list as you learn more or as policies and procedures change. Update that continuity binder, because it is a key enabler to your replacement's success.

Once your replacement arrives, help them complete the requirements for in-processing to the base and settle into a home. Once settled, you must teach them about your unit, mission and personnel, and share that list of things you wished you knew. Hopefully, when it is your time to move away from RAF Lakenheath, there is someone on the other end doing the same thing for you. While this may seem like a huge undertaking as you try to get yourself and your family out-processed and still perform the day-to-day duties of your job, I will tell you that the investment you and your co-workers make in new people is well worth the effort, and soon they will become the old people.

Embracing this reality will ensure a smooth transition for both you and your replacement and will ultimately benefit our great Air Force. After all, what goes around comes around, and it all starts with you!