From putting out fires to igniting transformation

When I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, my dad was a firefighter – the chief of our district. At home, we were taught to always be prepared. We ran through fire drills and other emergencies, constantly gaming out “what if.”

I didn’t follow in my dad’s professional footsteps. But over the past few years – through a pandemic, economic uncertainty, political events, concerns about climate security, shifts in the way we work – it has felt like our Communications team has been constantly putting out fires. The pace of change has been fast and unpredictable.

It's clear now that change is here to stay. The skills, the instincts, the sense of urgency that got us through the last few years are more important than ever. To thrive in this environment, businesses have to embrace change and transform themselves to achieve more efficiency, more value, less cost and less environmental impact.

At Lockheed Martin, we’re investing billions of dollars – our biggest internal investment to date – digitally transforming our business. We call it 1LMX, and it means we’re weaving a digital thread from the concept stage of a product or service through its entire lifecycle. We’re embracing digital engineering, reinventing processes, engineering for reliability, and turning data into a strategic asset for our customers. Every industry has a leader that’s embracing the digital world; in aerospace and defense, that company is Lockheed Martin.

In corporate affairs and communications, we have an important role to play in this era of transformation. It’s our job to help position our companies for success in a rapidly changing environment. We have to help our stakeholders not only understand what our companies are doing to transform, but how change serves our customers, our society and our planet.

While change can be daunting, transformation is inspiring. It’s an opportunity to create or strengthen bonds with our stakeholders. We have to take them along for the ride, show them how we’re transforming, and help them understand the many benefits change will bring.

One great story we can tell at Lockheed Martin is how digital transformation is helping to address a devastating problem, wildfires. Wildfire conditions are remarkably similar to battlefield conditions, where we have deep experience and expertise in command-and-control. Our technology can help firefighters gather data to make informed decisions, quickly. We’ve partnered with NVIDIA to create a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence lab to simulate a “digital twin” of a wildfire to predict its next move. It’s what we call in the national security world “actionable intelligence” for climate security.

I didn’t follow my father into firefighting. But I’m privileged to share the story of how our Lockheed Martin technology will potentially transform it – providing data and intelligence for firefighters to stay on top of evolving conditions on the ground and to make smart decisions on how to mobilize.

I tell our Lockheed Martin team: In this environment, we have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I’m always challenging our team to think about how we can be “even better if.” We’re asking what we can do to level up our value and contribution to the business. In this environment of rapid change, we can be “even better if” we step up as leaders in our companies’ transformation and drive stronger connections with our stakeholders.