STAVANGER, Norway – Brigadier General Raymond L. Adams, NATO Joint Warfare Centre’s (JWC) Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff, held his first all-hands call on October 2, 2024.
Brigadier General Adams, who arrived on July 4th, introduced himself and shared some of his career highlights, thoughts on leadership, personal values and vision with the JWC staff.
Highlighting NATO as the strongest defensive alliance in the history of the world, Brigadier General Adams reflected on the JWC’s role in supporting the next generation of warfighting through its unique training, exercise, and warfare development mission.
“Great changes have occurred in the geopolitical climate and as reflected in the words of the former Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, ‘as the world changes, NATO will continue to change.’ As the JWC team, our role is crucial in ensuring NATO’s readiness and warfare advantage. Today the Alliance is 32 nations-strong representing one billion people. It is a very challenging and exciting time to serve for this great Alliance here at the JWC,” Brigadier General Adams said.
Brigadier General Adams then spoke about the NATO 2030 ambition and the three Alliance priorities of Mark Rutte, who took office as NATO Secretary General on October 1: (1) keep NATO strong against all threats, (2) step up the support for Ukraine, (3) strengthen partnerships.
“The JWC is invested and committed to NATO 2030. The vehicle for this is the JWC 2030 Transformation Programme. It will identify, define, and implement change initiatives, which enable us to fully support ACT’s warfare development agenda and ACO’s operational readiness and deterrence posture.”
Brigadier General Raymond L. Adams
Based on the NATO 2030 ambition, which focuses on making NATO even stronger, the JWC has embarked upon its own transformation journey, led by the JWC Programme Office.
In an effort to drive this ambitious transformation effort and implement various change initiatives within the organization, including people, processes and infrastructure, the arrival of Brigadier General Adams has renewed focus on the “JWC 2030 Transformation Programme”.
The purpose of the programme is quite straightforward: to ensure that the JWC remains fit for the future to serve NATO as the strategic bridge between Allied Command Operations (ACO) and Allied Command Transformation (ACT) – a dual mission which enables converting new concepts to outputs that lead to readiness and warfare advantage for NATO.
“The JWC is invested and committed to NATO 2030. The vehicle for this is the JWC 2030 Transformation Programme,” Brigadier General Adams said.
“It will identify, define, and implement change initiatives, which enable us to fully support ACT’s warfare development agenda and ACO’s operational readiness and deterrence posture.”
Brigadier General Adams then highlighted culture as a vital element of the JWC’s 2030 Transformation Programme. He explained that the JWC’s new initiative, “Organizational Values Assessment (OVA)”, focuses on both culture and people, whilst supporting the JWC’s continuous improvement as part of its overarching 2030 Transformation Programme.
“This programme element will help us better understand our internal values, behaviours, and perceptions, all of which are critical to our success,” Brigadier General Adams said, emphasizing his role as a change agent during this process as the JWC moves forward.
Brigadier General Adams underlined that OVA would set the right foundation for JWC’s short-, medium- and long-term transformation, and help ensure a team-oriented mission success.
“Why are we doing all this? Because we need to ensure that the JWC remains resilient, forward-thinking and ready for the future. We are at a critical moment in the history of NATO and this is our collective effort to make the JWC an even better place to work, to grow, and to excel. Thank you for your work and I am very proud to serve alongside you.”