Commentary: A leadership question: 'Does the end justify the means?'

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Niccolo Machiavelli wrote that "the ends justify the means."

Although Machiavelli supported this philosophy for the purpose of stabilizing and improving governments, it has come to mean any action, no matter how unethical or immoral, can be justified for the purpose of any reasonable or needed outcome.

As director of Contracting, our contracting officers face this question almost daily when planning and executing important mission requirements at Hill Air Force Base and around the world. Contracting officers have to maintain a strong balance between supporting the needs of the war-fighter and fulfilling our fiduciary responsibilities to Congress through laws and the American taxpayers. So to quickly answer the question, PK's philosophy is the ends and means have to be "congruent." In other words, the procurement process (the means) is equally important as our support (the ends) to the war-fighter.

Don't get me wrong, contracting officers take the role of supporting the war-fighter very seriously. We prove this day in and day out with our contingency contracting role in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as our support at home. But recently, some contracting officers have fallen to the pressure of "undue influence" and have used poor judgment in undermining the procurement process and making improper contract awards all in the name of war-fighter support. Recently, I completed an Air Force directed review of a contracting squadron and found the Machiavellian principles alive and well. Squadron personnel purchased whatever the customer asked for. Now on the surface you may think that is the way it should be. Unfortunately this "support" often violated many U.S. statutes and wasted precious Air Force dollars.

To be a warranted contracting officer is an awesome responsibility. We have developed stringent criteria to include formalized testing before an individual can award government contracts. Along with this responsibility is a tremendous amount of accountability because at the end of the day a contracting officer's signature obligates government funds. All our contracts are subject to audit, protest, Inspector General review and congressional inquiries. The entire procurement process is under scrutiny from start to finish making the "means" equivalent or sometimes more important than the "ends."

So why is "Does the ends justify the means" a leadership question? Because it takes leadership support and top-cover from AF senior procurement leaders to protect our warranted contracting officers from undue pressure and ensure there is integrity in the procurement system. We are fortunate here at Hill AFB because senior leadership gets it from Maj. Gen. Close on down. We take every step of the procurement process very seriously. In fact, at Hill we have instituted an Independent Review Team for all major source selections to protect the integrity of the process. This process has also helped us better prevent protests from contractors and is the template for AF implementation.

Thomas Payne once wrote, "Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous conscientiousness of honor ..." I am proud to say our contracting officers provide world class war-fighter support while aggressively abiding by Payne's principles.

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