Why you need to plan the execution

Image by Defence Images via Flickr

The Government is undertaking a Strategic Defence Review that will inevitably change the role, shape and capability of our Armed Forces in a way that has not been done for several decades. It promised to be a root and branch review, driven in part by a need to cut costs and a need to reduce the endemic waste that has permeated the Ministry of Defence for many years.

Illogically though the Secretary of State for Defence has announced that Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirupp, the Chief of the Defence Staff, will leave his post in the Autumn, after the review has been made. Whilst this may seem a “nice” way of removing the head man, it is a weak option at a time of such critical change. Plans need to be implemented by those who make them, it is extremely challenging – unnecessarily so – for someone to adopt somebody else’s plans and deliver them successfully.

Whilst Liam Fox is right to remove Sir Jock, his delay in doing so is a sign of misunderstanding of the need to plan, deliver and be accountable. An opportunity has been missed.