Uniting a global multi-company team to build the F-35 fighter jet

Executive overview

Leading a large team drawn from competing companies, multiple military services, and nine nations is not a coordination problem — it's a culture problem. Tom Burbage, General Manager of the F-35 program, built a shared identity from scratch when competitors had to become collaborators almost overnight.

The central move was replacing company loyalty with program loyalty: everyone wore an "F-35 jersey," not a Lockheed or Northrop one. This identity shift was reinforced through structural choices — best-athlete hiring, shared behavioral norms, a common onboarding experience, and radical transparency with the customer.

When the team is bigger than any company in it, the program must become the culture.

The scale and nature of the complexity

• Three aircraft variants (Air Force, Marine Corps STOVL, Navy carrier) that had to feel identical from the cockpit
• Nine partner nations, each with their own defence ministry and parliamentary oversight
• Five major prime contractors — Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, plus legacy McDonnell Douglas and Boeing lines — many with competing programs still in production
• Headcount at Fort Worth went from 180 in October 2001 to 4,000 in October 2002; similar ramp-ups at partner companies
• The STOVL variant — stealthy, supersonic, vertical-landing — had never been attempted in aviation history

Replacing company identity with program identity

• Teams introduced themselves as "JSF" or "F-35" people, not by employer
• Partner company leaders explicitly told their staff: don't use your company name
• "Take off your company jersey, put on your F-35 jersey" became the operating norm
• A best-athlete principle overrode org-chart convention: the most qualified person got the role, regardless of company
• Chief test pilot for the X-35 was a BAE Systems pilot (Simon Hargraves), not a Lockheed Martin employee — rare for a prime contractor
• Northrop Grumman's Martin McLaughlin became air vehicle lead, a role almost always held by the prime — he described it as unexpected and deeply motivating
• Work share was apportioned roughly 70/30 (Lockheed/partners), but key leadership roles followed capability, not percentage

Onboarding at scale

• 120 people per week came through a purpose-built onboarding centre in Fort Worth; government program staff went through the same process
• Burbage personally addressed every incoming cohort — the first speaker, every time
• When he travelled, a deputy (Northrop or BAE) ran the session; all deputies were fully aligned on messaging
• The final day of onboarding brought in the new hire's future manager to introduce the actual work environment
• Explicit attention to acronyms: new hires were coached not to nod along but to actually understand the language
• Incoming employees were told: "Look at the person on your right and left — find out about them. You'll be surprised how qualified they are."
• A Wizards group — senior engineers who had built major fighters before — was stationed in an area nicknamed Hogwarts, acting as floor mentors with no direct reports
• 50% of hires were new college graduates (cost management); reverse mentoring paired them with older engineers who knew aircraft but not computers

Behavioral norms as a live operating tool

• ~10 F-35 behavioral norms were defined and posted on conference room walls at every site — Fort Worth, El Segundo, Salisbury (BAE), and Australia
• Every multi-site staff call opened with the norms chart; teams reported on how they were performing against them
• Norms were identical across locations and corporate cultures — a deliberate signal of one shared environment
• Conflict correction used a named ritual ("the woodshed") that depersonalised criticism: senior engineers addressed technical mistakes directly but constructively, under a shared label rather than personal confrontation
• Flare-ups happened; the norms gave teams a shared reference point to return to

Transparency with the customer as a design choice

• Government program staff were brought into leadership off-sites — not common in defence contracting
• Burbage rejected contractor insularity: "We're not going to do that. We're not going to tolerate that."
• Lieutenant General Mike Howe (Marine Corps Aviation) addressed an all-hands meeting during a difficult weight-target period; his speech about the USS America carrier and the future of Marine Corps aviation was a turning point
• The contractor and customer (Burbage and General Jack Hudson) built the org chart together, side by side, aligning every role across both organisations before the people existed to fill them

Shaping shared vision from the start

• Before the contract was awarded, Burbage ran an off-site exercise: teams designed a mock Fast Company magazine cover dated 10 years in the future
• Headlines were written for both failure and success scenarios — forcing the group to articulate what they were trying to achieve and what they feared
• A New York Times article about the exercise reached Fast Company's CEO; the magazine subsequently ran a major F-35 feature ("The $200 Billion Risk")
• The exercise was an appreciative inquiry into controlling the program's own destiny — sustaining long-term vision through years of daily pressure
• At the first post-award off-site, Burbage invited leaders from competing fighter programs (Eurofighter, Tornado, Harrier, F-18, F-15) to present what they wished they had done differently — the customer was present throughout

Org design for a program that didn't exist yet

• The team mapped an org chart for the organisation they would need two years later, then "turned the lights out" on unfilled roles until hiring caught up
• This gave early hires a clear picture of where the program was headed and what their role would eventually sit within
• Alignment between contractor and customer org charts removed ambiguity about reporting lines and avoided stray inputs from misaligned counterparts

Why senior leaders must show up personally

• Burbage's view: a senior position is itself a barrier to knowing what's actually happening — the leader is the only person who can break that barrier down
• Personal presence in onboarding signalled that the program had meaning beyond the day-to-day grind
• Multiple feedback channels (Breakfast with Management, a vitality team for questions) kept leadership accessible as the organisation scaled
• People working seven-day weeks and 14-hour days needed a clear "ultimate objective" to orient toward — not just task lists