Commentary -- A culture of innovation and efficiency Published Feb. 23, 2011 By Lt. Col. Gregory Keeton 434th Fighter Training Squadron commander LAUGHLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- The fiscal problems faced by our nation are nothing new. After World War II, President Truman placed an emphasis on national debt reduction and established a ceiling on defense spending. The figure in 1950 was $14.5 billion compared to today's defense budget, including overseas contingency operations, of $708.2 billion. In today's society, the ability to sustain that amount is virtually impossible considering the desires and demands of the American public. Through the wing's vision of teamwork, mutual respect and trust, the mission will be achieved because we as a community of Airmen are willing to sacrifice in order to ensure success. How much should we be willing to sacrifice? The answer to that question differs from person to person. Normally the sacrifice is one's time or the Air Force's money. With impending budget cuts, more Air Force money will not be readily available. This brings us to four of the most despised words in our culture. "Doing more with less" is a phrase some of us have heard our entire career and, odds are, we will hear it for the rest of our time in the military. While we may feel we have reached our limit in terms of capacity, we will continue to face challenges involving limited resources. This is where innovation and efficiency will come to play a major part in how much sacrifice we are forced to make. Efficiency will allow us to accomplish a task in less time or in a more economic manner. We must remain within the constraints of a regulation, but our ability to adapt and come up with ingenious methods to accomplish our tasks will allow us to save both time and resources. If we ignore chances to improve the methodology and live in the "this is the way we have always done it" mentality, we obstruct this innovation. We must also maintain the same level of effectiveness in accomplishing our individual tasks. Efficiency and effectiveness are terms that are often interchanged but are different. We must continue to accomplish the same level of capability, or effectiveness, in order to meet our primary mission. Accomplishing a task to a lesser quality but much faster does not necessarily solve our problem. In order to keep the effectiveness of this base intact, we must strive for excellence in every aspect of our jobs. No one wants to give up more time or effort to accomplish something, but our future will most likely demand it unless we improve the efficiency of this base. We must strive to use creative ways to meet our requirements while continuing to enforce the standards that are in place. Collectively, this innovation and efficiency will allow for continued mission success without undue sacrifice from the individuals.