How to change the world

There is a pattern for organizational change that seemed to work for major changes in military doctrine, and can probably be extended elsewhere.

Note that many organizations, or society as a whole, might not be able to apply this. Society is more diffuse, with fewer sources of broadly accepted legitimacy. Also, for more flexible organizations, change can happen more quickly with hiring and firing, and may require more of a consensus.

With those caveats, let me begin.

I learned this about the American switch from a battleship-centered naval doctrine to a carrier-centered one, and use it as a case study to illustrate the points. The analysis is borrowed from the history mentioned in Knox and Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050.

Step 1: Create a vision consistent with the mission of the organization.

Someone's got to have an idea of how things could be different, and why. It has to be an idea, not necessarily novel, but perhaps novel in application, and different enough to substantially change things. That idea has to be wedded with a need, or mission, and is often triggered by changes in technology or society that transforms it from fantasy to possibility.

Case study: sometime around or after World War I, someone had the idea of taking the relatively new aircraft and making it an attack craft based on a ship. Aircraft could provide reconnaissance of the surrounding waters and launch attacks at greater range and less risk than ship-to-ship combat. This was, of course, probably prompted by the preliminary use of aircraft in a combat role during the end of World War I coupled with advances in explosives, making it more feasible for an aircraft to carry effective bombs.

Step 2: Find a patron.

Even the greatest idea needs to be recognized as great by someone who matters. Specifically, the ideal patron has high rank/influence within the existing hierarchy, but enough creativity/humility/wisdom to recognize a good idea that has the potential to supplant existing doctrine but will improve the organization's capacity to fulfill it's mission.

This must be stressed: it is usually someone who has unquestioned credentials within the existing hierarchy. It is very, very difficult to change an organization completely from without -- such events truly are revolutions, and often lead to the destruction of the organization.

Case study: There was one battleship admiral in the entire US Navy that recognized the potential of aircraft to change the structure of naval warfare. His was a distinctly minority view. But he embraced the proposed idea, and was willing to undertake effort and risk on its behalf.

Step 3: Disguise or rebrand the change to minimize institutional resistance.

Most good innovations are resisted by the existing power structure. Why is that? It could be because the leadership feels that all the good ideas have already been adopted. It could be that they feel their position is threatened by the changes. It could be they don't understand it. It's not always the case that stability and familiarity are preferred -- presumably, some of these leaders got there by contributing innovative ideas themselves -- and so the reasons for resistance are often more varied than is often appreciated.

Nevertheless, it exists, and has to be overcome. All good insurgencies resist the temptation to match strengths -- if the minority upstarts had power, they wouldn't be minority upstarts.

One of the best ways to do this is to tweak the packaging, and even the secondary substance, enough to make it palatable to the existing leadership. Sometimes this requires outright lying, or some sacrifice of capabilities or scope.

The goal is to trade away some of these things for getting the Thing built. Once it's built, it's easier to change the parameters or scope of it. But all the principled statements in the world won't help if the Thing isn't built.

Case study: Recognizing the resistance of the leadership, as well as the technological testing and development period required to make the vision a reality, the admiral pitched carrier-based aircraft as support for battleships, used primarily for recon. Given that this was a pre-radar era, even the battleship admirals recognized this value, and reluctantly supported a modest carrier program.

Step 4: Create an incentive structure and promotion path built around the new doctrine.

A funded project founded on a good idea is worthless if no one wants to participate. If something is new, it's often not well understood. Most individuals won't want to risk their career on something that could be a huge waste of time. Plus, like the older leadership, it's easier just to buy into the existing system. The path has already been blazed, and the results more predictable, if not always glamorous.

By creating an alternate promotion path, the leadership, led by the patron, provides more security and stability to the new project by building in some structure. It's a tangible commitment of resources and will. Equally important, it shows that someone has put enough energy into the vision to understand how it would work in practice -- the new roles, the new skills, the new platforms and technologies that would be integrated into operations.

The alternate promotion path is critical because the technologies or the processes are new, and require specialized training. But it's also important because young, flexible newcomers will become indoctrinated into a new system, and not beholden to ideas or powers of organizations past.

Creating insurgent cells within an organization is easier if the organization itself gives you money and resources to do so.

Case study: After more general training, officers and enlisted men could specialize in carrier operations by attending special schools and programs designed to train crews how to operate and fight from these new platforms.

Step 5: Train, promote, improve, and do your mission. Wait about 20 years.

Why 20 years? Why so long? Basically, it's about the fact that old people die and retire.

It's a pessimistic view of human nature, one that suggests we are, in general, not very flexible in our beliefs and capacities. But it may be accurate. Even if, ideologically, we can change, often our training and abilities can't change quickly enough, or effectively enough, for us to remain relevant in the new era. It seems a bit sad, but it's the story of human existence.

For large organizations, like the military, or society itself, attrition doesn't happen on a large enough basis for any strategy other than a demographic long game to be reliably effective. Smaller organizations with more flexible hiring and firing policies can change things more quickly, though that has to be balanced by the costs of losing "good" institutional memory.

Case study: It worked. As the officers and enlisted personnel received training and assignments, they gained experience, promotions, and passed their lessons on. Designers integrated newer technologies into carriers, making them progressively more modern. Strategists refined doctrines, often through the crucible of warfare. Instructors grew in number and quality, as did the recruits. By the time of Midway and Coral Sea, only the most die-hard traditionalist could ignore the fact that naval warfare had revolutionized into carrier-centered missions.

Step 6: Repeat.

No generation has a monopoly on good ideas. (Or bad ones.) Each generation is destined to become the stodgy, inflexible elders, tempering the least productive impulses of a younger generation that feels it knows better and isn't willing to wait for change. (Keeping with the theme: "We want eight and we won't wait!") Ideally, any organization large and significant enough is reinventing itself at some low level constantly. This doesn't mean changing the job of everyone frequently, though certain organizations staffed with particularly flexible and capable individuals can do just that. It means simultaneously recognizing the desire for humans to take years to become proficient in specific, complicated tasks and the reality of a changing world. This can be accomplished by training individuals well to do specific tasks, but making sure that at least some new individuals are being trained in newer doctrines and principles.

Case study: The modern US Navy is still heavily based on carriers, but is also developing new, smaller ships with the goal of littoral combat. In the future, rail guns might replace larger weapons platforms completely. Nuclear power extended both the range and the mission of carriers. Nuclear submarines provided strike capabilities less vulnerable to surface attack. And STOVL aircraft provide a capability that permits carrier redesigns and somewhat less dependence on the carrier as both starting and ending point of all flights.