Abstract
Precise, controlled, disciplined, uniform. All of these words are synonymous with the ideas of the military. Many times the military has also been compared to a machine. Everything working together, all mechanisms lined up, each piece doing its part. Much like an auto maker's assembly line the Air Force technical training school house works efficiently to push brand new Airmen out to start being part of the organizational mission. The question remains though, can keeping this approach to training the future of the Air Force maintain the quality of Airmen in both technical skills and military training? Throughout this paper there will be an analysis of the methods in which technical training is accomplished for Air Traffic Controllers in the Air Force and how there could be a more productive way to manage the students, the instructors, and the training. Keywords: Air Traffic Controllers, Airmen, technical training

Airmen Off the Assembly Line
Imagine being a brand new Airman in the Air Force. You have just completed a rigorous eight weeks in basic training where every single minute was planned and you were constantly being yelled at by your Military Training Instructor. You graduate with a relief thinking that the hard part is over, however Basic Training was the easy part.
As AF.mil (2006) explains: After basic training, Airmen assigned to be ATCs will attend a 72-day Air Traffic Control operator course at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., where they will learn ATC principles and procedures. These include: flight characteristics of aircraft, International Civil Aviation Organization and United States federal and military air directives, the use of aeronautical charts, maps, and publications and the interpretation, use, and limitations of ATC radar, communications systems and navigational aids (Training, para. 1).
On a daily basis, Airmen are barraged with the information listed above and expected to know and understand it at a break-neck pace. The course is separated into three different sections and each section is twenty-four days. They first go through fundamentals which is all book-based information, after passing that they will proceed into the RADAR section in which they will learn how to apply the information they have learned into real world scenarios. This section has proven to be the most difficult part of the course and where the most students are eliminated from the training. Upon completion of RADAR, they then move on to the Tower section. Here they are expected to apply their knowledge in tower simulation scenarios to better gauge their aptitude for the principles of Air Traffic Control. The tower section is the last hurdle that these students must complete in order to graduate the course. Even though the students receive certificates of completion, they are still nowhere close to becoming certified controllers. Once they arrive at their first duty station, they will be placed into on-the-job training, which can last anywhere from seven to eighteen months depending on the volume of traffic that the student will see. It is during this time that these students are truly tested as to whether they have the ability to do the job or not.
While reading this, one must keep in mind that most Airmen are straight out of high school, barely out from under the watchful eye of their parents. Some for the first time, doing their own laundry, making their own decisions both on and off duty, and now, are thrust straight into one of the most difficult career fields in the Air force.
The Instructors at this school have the challenge of managing how each and every minute is spent and where the most time can be applied. The curriculum that they use is specifically outlined into what task items will be taught on which days of training. When measured in their performance, students are measured using a standardized checklist with a points value associated with each task item. As long as the students stay below a certain amount of points they pass, go above they fail. One of the main problems with this system of measure is that one instructor observing the performance check could interpret a specific scenario one way and another instructor could observe the same scenario completely different. "The interpretation given to the behavior will depend on the schema held by the observer. This schema will be based on the observer's own life experience and knowledge of the organizational culture and climate" (Hamburger & Itzhayek, 1998, Metaphor as Schema, para. 5). In this case the life experience that the observation is based on the instructor's experience in both the operational and training field. This difference in interpretation can pose extremely large problems as it could mean the difference between the student passing and failing. With some students failing twice or three times this can result in poor quality of product when going into the operational side of the career field since students begin to understand less the procedures and more memorization of the scenarios. Even though from varying decades and varying ranks, enlisted to officer, each instructor was once a student at what is affectionately referred to as "the school house". Their backgrounds and specialties differ, however they all have experience in the operational side of Air Traffic Control. Both military and civilian controllers, the instructors are responsible for between nine and fifteen students eight hours a day. They instruct not only in the principles of Air Traffic Control but also in the discipline of the military. As Fenley (1998) states: The punitive approach to discipline has usually been associated with hard management, and the corrective approach with soft management. Arguably the corrective approach has come to be viewed as morally, legally, and operationally superior to the punitive approach. Most organizations and managers are now exposed to increasing pressures; those of competition, client demand, customer care, and financial constraints, which, it can be argued, warrant a reassessment of models of discipline. Managers increasingly find themselves in contexts or situations where they are required to be hard in their approach, and adopt a punitive approach to problem situations. Correcting students where needed and preparing them for the mission that they will be expected to perform, instructors become a form of quality control.
The format of is much like that of a machine and is the epitome of a mechanistic organization. Morgan's (1998) following description of organizational structure emphasizes the similarities between the school house and the mechanistic organization:
By giving detailed attention to patterns of authority and to the general process of direction, discipline, and subordination of individual to general interest, the classical theorists sought to ensure that when commands were issued from the top of the organization they would travel throughout the organization in a precisely determined way to created a precisely determined effect (p. 25). The system of management has taken the form of top-down control where the students end up becoming the product and the instructors are expected to produce at high tempos, sometimes with disregard for quality.
Controllers on the Conveyer Belt Weber has stated "Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of the files, continuity, discretion, unity strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs - these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration" (as cited in Morgan, 1989, p. 49). This statement describes the manner in which both instructors and students are expected to operate. The production line of training begins the day they drop their bags at Keesler. The conveyer belt of training is constantly moving and if a student takes a little longer to catch on to one piece of the mechanism they have to start the process again. Just like an automobile in a factory students are picked up at the beginning and then molded from civilian to well-rounded Airmen with training as an Air Traffic Controller. The process is set up so that each instructor is trained in one section of the course so that they are specialists in that area, just as in the automobile factory in the Lordstown case analysis where one person was an expert in windshield wipers, another in seat installation so too is the case at the schoolhouse (Morgan, 1989, p. 56). Unfortunately, just as in an automobile factory, production numbers become a topic with those in managerial positions. Management wants to see how many students can be pushed through in a certain amount of time. More students, means more classes open up, and more classes means the requirement of more instructors. In addition, just like with any other organization, the more product that is put out into the market the more money that comes in for the company. This holds true for the Air Traffic Control Technical school as well. The more students that are put into the operational Air Force, the better management looks on paper, which means more funding for the school. It shows a high production in training and a need for increase in funds. However, in recent years, the school house has been victim of the "do more with less" mentality, meaning that while more students are able to be pushed through, there is a larger student to instructor ratio. Just as with automobile production this decreases quality because students do not receive as much instruction time with their instructors since they are now restricted in their time. This problems stems from a managerial hierarchy dictating instruction without being familiar with the operations.
Airmen Without Control As Weik (1987) suggests "Communication tends to be one-way or top-down, since managerial instructions dictate what subordinates do. Managers place greater emphasis on setting direction and defining the limits to action than on feedback and negotiation" (as cited in Courtright, Fairhurst, & Rogers, 1989, p. 774). This quotation is the very essence of the operation of the military's rank structure. Commanders and supervisors dictate policy and that is then handed down through the ranks until it reaches the lowest ranking Airman, which in the case of the school house is the student. Much of the curriculum is created by teams of individuals who have received input from Chief Master Sergeants, the highest rank in the Air Force's enlisted rank structure, who are out in the operational career field. These individuals at one time had been actively working Air Traffic Control, but as their rank increased, their time in an active controlling position decreased. Which means they now manage from an office, instead of operationally. This distance from working active air traffic, often relays outdated and unnecessary training items into the curriculum. Very little input is given by the instructors who actually teach the material that is being put into the curriculum, they are simply expected to teach it as is written. "Managers have to be accountable to the formal objectives while often grappling with the complex individual responses of themselves and the staff they are managing. The fact that these individual responses are often not even acknowledged makes the job of managing change very difficult" (Stanley, 2007, Lessons from Literature, para. 6). Instructors as a whole are often without voices in the school house. While it is understood when first entering the military where the enlisted stand in the military hierarchy, there are still certain aspects in which it is necessary to involve those who are handling certain procedures on a daily basis. It is unfortunate that there are very few
Changing the Mechanism "The challenge to productivity management, and the buying public's perception of quality products or service, is the notion of continuous improvement. Before continuous improvement can be permanently institutionalized, additional common ground must be found between the imposed value system of management and the intrinsic value system of employees" (Whitty 1996, The best pathway to continuous improvement, para. 1). The solution to help instructors start taking back some of the control in their situation is to start insisting that they are able to provide input to the curriculum. While the input of subordinates has greatly improved since the Air Force's inception, it is still those who hold the highest rank which make the ultimate decision. Jenkins (2005) approaches this idea by stating "He or she is one who has the fundamental belief in people (teams) to accept responsibility for getting the work done, along with the ability (skills) to be totally responsive to the team by demonstrating the flexibility to change leadership styles in order to meet the team's changing needs. To paraphrase Ken Blanchard, the most effective coach or leader is one who can provide for the team what it cannot provide for itself" (Leadership, para. 4). Military leadership has the responsibility to listen to the needs of their subordinates but also to fulfill the obligations that are dictated by the mission. The practice of taking subordinates suggestions over numbers production has fallen to the wayside. An example of this is student performance. As explained in the above paragraphs, instructors are in contact with their students eight hours a day, five days a week. They know their strengths and they know their weaknesses. When a student fails a performance check, the instructor makes recommendations based on the student's overall performance throughout the section in which they are teaching. Especially in a career field as difficult as Air Traffic Control this part of the process is vital as instructors can gauge whether a student would flourish or fail in the operational side. These recommendations are sent through the chain of command all the way up to the commander who meets with the student. As with all decisions in the military, the decision to either wash the student back for another try at that section or to have the student retrain into a different career field rests with them. All too frequently, the decision to give the student another try is made, even if it means sending a lesser quality product into the career field. This decision making process tends to turn the mechanistic organization into that one looking into the lens of politics. Chaudhry's (2011) research has shown that: "The evidence of politics in an organization can be seen when people have difference of opinion / interest, influence each other and have special interests; sometimes it is beneficial for an organization and sometimes not. Interest can be personal, task related and organizational. But the fact remains the same that politics does exist in an organization in the form of social influence when one individual or a party has some sort of power, special interest or different opinion, which are the trait of a political system (Literature Review, para. 2).
In order to allow better quality of students into the field, it is vital that the commander take the instructor recommendations to a higher value than is currently in place. However, this is just one area that can be remedied in order to create a better quality controller and Airman. For the quality to go up, the system which is in place needs to be reevaluated. The constant stream of Airmen, while efficient in producing future controllers, can also become dehumanizing in nature. To change this, instructors would need to take on dual roles as both instructor and mentor. Instilling military discipline is certainly important to ensure the student fits their role in the military, however to not show the Airman how to fulfill that role negates any training that is accomplished while there. "The literature suggests that mentorship is the relationship existing between a mentor and his/her "protégé" where the former, via sharing his/her experiences, acts as a guide to the newcomer in the organization" (Kakabadse, Louchart, & Kakabadse, 2006, Definition, para. 2). The writers describe the position that the instructor fulfills. Acting as a mentor for these brand new Airmen as someone they want to emulate creates a more humanized approach to the training as opposed to treating them as another product that needs to be measured based on a checklist. In addition to developing a mentorship approach to instruction, the organization of the school needs to change as well. Since the Air Traffic Control school is organized around learning, it would be fitting for it to become a learning organization. DeCenzo and Robbins (2010) describe it saying that: A learning organization has the capacity to continuously adapt and change because all member take an active role in identifying and resolving work-related issues. In a learning organization, employees practice knowledge and willingly apply that knowledge in making decisions or performing that work (p. 199).
Collaborating on the curriculum and taking inputs from everyone involved in the training process, both in the career field and at the school house can create more well-rounded Airmen. The key element to ensure that this is implemented is leadership. It is vital to the success of a learning organization for leadership to support and encourage a collaborative environment for the creation of the shared mission. Without strong leadership supporting their Airmen from the lowest to highest ranking, this type of organization would be unsuccessful. (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2010). In the end, the main objective is to produce an Airmen out of the Air Traffic Control technical school that can perform both in the career field and in the Air Force as a whole. To so effectively, it is apparent that consistency in training, collaborative efforts, mentorship, and leadership support are vital components which will ensure the success of the program. Without making changes the school will continue to produce Airmen that are consistently mediocre in quality and essentially be just another Airman off the assembly line.

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