For those unfamiliar with Edgewing, we are a joint venture, established in June to create a new combat aircraft for Italy, Japan and the UK under the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP).
As a company we are unique, in that we are both a tri-national joint venture and the aircraft’s design authority. We will be fully responsible for the aircraft’s design and development, from engineering to airworthiness and certification.
To achieve this, we are being empowered by our three national industries to be a strong, decision-making prime with the freedom to act in the best interest of the programme. It is the first time in history that this industrial model has been tried.
The new approach is designed to enable us to surmount major challenges, on schedule and budget, to produce a system that has never been built before.
But it also comes with an inherent challenge. How do we move forward harmoniously, but without losing the diversity that gives us strength? I think part of the answer, as in many aspects of business, lies in culture.
Standing on the shoulders of giants
“Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
At this point in the programme, we are growing rapidly as we ready ourselves to be able to deliver against the first GCAP contract later this year. Most of our people are being seconded from the lead national defence companies in the UK, Italy and Japan, with our shareholders being BAE Systems, Leonardo and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Corporation (JAEIC).
Each company has a well-established culture, its own processes and persona, and indeed, enormous commercial success in the market. Being equipped from the start with such a strong pool of experience and talent is of great benefit to our new enterprise. But it also means risking cultural clash between three different, yet equally valid, perspectives. We therefore acknowledged early that to make Edgewing work we would need to create a new way of working.
I am encouraged to see that those who have chosen to join Edgewing arrive with open minds about this new way. In fact, our people are excited by the opportunity to apply lessons learned from previous projects and contribute their lived experience to an exciting new culture. We are drawing on the strengths of our founding partner companies and our national cultures, yet taking the opportunity, with a blank slate and blue skies before us, to make a step change rather than something more incremental.
Three Countries, Three Companies, Three Cultures. A Fourth Way.
Informally, we are referring to the establishment of a new Edgewing culture as the ‘fourth way’. Not Italian, not British, not Japanese. Not a forced amalgamation of our three national industry partners. Instead, based on shared values that can help drive our decision making as we take off.
To define these values, we consulted widely across our international partner organisations. We were conscious that we weren’t just welcoming people from three companies, but three countries, each with a distinct culture.
Through a series of workshops and listening sessions, we shaped our vision and mission, ultimately identifying five core values that we felt represented the ambition of our project, defining who we want to be at our best. These are:
Vision: Advance the global defence ecosystem to protect our futures.
Mission: United, we pioneer a superior and connected next-generation air combat system.
Values: 🤝Set Trust at the Heart; 🌍Bring our Best as One; 🚀Drive What’s Next; 🧭Dare to Go Beyond; 🌱Leave a Mark that Matters.
I hope these speak for themselves, and there will be more opportunity in future to get into detail on what each one means in the context of our programme. Suffice to say for now that, together, they speak to the modern, transformative spirit of Edgewing and lay a blueprint for achieving our ambitious programme objectives.
Living our Values
Everyone at Edgewing has a role to play in embedding these values into the foundations of our new enterprise.
Part of each new Edgewing employee’s on-boarding process is full day workshop focused on our five values, delivered by our excellent People team. Taking a full day in anyone’s calendar is a substantial ask, however I believe the space it creates for fully engaging with our values makes it worthwhile.
What is clear from the workshops we have conducted to-date is that there is wide recognition of our common humanity: we have more in common than divides us because we come from three countries, or three companies. The personal stories people tell about their motivations to work on the programme, work that directly contributes to the protection of their families and nations, are always inspiring.
As for my part, in my own capacity as CEO, I will be making sure that my own decisions, my own interactions, are fully in line with our values. I want my leadership team to see me demonstrating these values daily so that they become real lived experience, rather than an academic exercise. I am confident that they will then model the same behaviours for their own teams.
By embodying our new culture at every level of our organisation, I am positive that we can deliver on our promises to our three nations.