A culture of innovation, empowerment and support

The mission of the ACMC is 'to support the development of national civil-military-police capabilities to prevent, prepare for and respond more effectively to conflicts and disasters overseas'. This has been the mission of the ACMC since formation and is written into the original cabinet minute establishing the centre.

A message from the Deputy Executive Director

"The mission of the ACMC is complemented by our vision, written in 2016 by our staff. This vision is 'to be Australia’s leading innovator in joining up civil-military–policing cooperation for international crisis management'.

We have a great team of people at the ACMC, with a wide range of backgrounds and experience across the board - diversity is our strength. We are known for our expertise in civil-military-police coordination, as well as being a 'can-do' organisation with the ability to develop effective and creative solutions for our stakeholders.

The ACMC has about 25 staff. This number can change given the flexibility of our workforce, and the demands of the work we are undertaking at any one time, but our staff strength usually sits somewhere near 25 people. This number is made up of Australian Public Service staff (usually numbering about 12), seconded personnel from other agencies (7) and contractor staff (6).

As a result of the diversity of our partner and contributing agencies and different employment arrangements, our staff have varying employment conditions and terms. However, in terms of day to day management and leadership where we can, we treat all of our staff the same, offer the same opportunities, and have the same expectations and standards for all.

The directorates have team-based Key Expected Results (KERs). This is because we cannot operate in silos here at the ACMC if we expect to be impactful or successful. Our principle ethos here is a team-based collaborative and cooperative culture, where patch protectionism and parochialism are not rewarded.

The ACMC is a learning organisation, and many of the issues we deal with are complex where there is no clear right path, direction or answer. We are all always learning are encouraged to be open to new ideas and different approaches, to debate and discuss ideas across the staff, and be creative in their work.

We are a small workforce that can have big impacts. In fact, the indigenous style “ripple” effect on our branding is there to symbolise that very strength – 'a small pebble can create many ripples'. However, we can only do this if we work well together, have “yes” as our first answer, are easy people to work with, and respect everybody equally".

Glenn Dunbier, Deputy Executive Director, The ACMC.

October 2018