This article originally appeared on Medium and was republished with the author’s permission. You can read it in its original form here.
By Anne Gibbon
Design thinking is beloved by many, and is more than a flash in the long list of new management tools. Why? Because it’s embodied learning. In recruiting your body, emotions, and rational brain to explore problems with others, we get to better solutions than pondering them alone in a cubicle. But for messy problems and large bureaucracies, design thinking alone isn’t sufficient. Systems dynamics appears to be the discipline of choice, but up to this point, the theoretical underpinnings have been developed to the exclusivity of embodied exercises.
This is my story of learning to facilitate design thinking as an embodied experience, rather than an intellectual exercise, and to begin to include systems thinking into the work. I have faith that the small prototypes will eventually snowball and make a greater impact than well written policy think pieces alone.
I confess, I put bandaids over my piercings. I never should have done that, I should have just taken them out — but the piercings are more me than the uniform these days.
Thirteen months after finishing ten years of service in the Navy, and days after finishing a fellowship at Stanford’s Design School, I put my foot down and really stretched my rebel wings. I got a very small nose piercing and three studs in one ear, most people don’t even notice them. But to me they are freedom. My problem: I still had to show up at Navy Reserve drill weekends with a proper uniform on. Too bad I never did ‘uniform inspection’ very well. One weekend someone complained about my pink nail polish and the gold ball earrings that were 2mm too big; I think she would have fallen out of her chair if she had discovered the band aids weren’t covering scratches.
The author leads a workshop at the Silicon Valley Innovation Academy in July 2015
For the last two years of running design thinking workshops for various ranks and departments of the military, I have done the equivalent of putting band aids on piercings. We used Post-It notes and sharpies, but I usually left the improv at home. And the effect was an often neutered process. I led the groups through exercises and talked about modes of thinking — deductive, abductive, and inductive — as a way to make the creative, messy work more palatable to people who spent lives in frameworks so narrowly defined that playing at charades with their colleagues would have represented an existential crisis.
November 2013, our d.school fellows group hard at work
Design thinking has been the bright shiny magic wand that somehow hasn’t lost its luster. HBR gave it some east coast gravitas by featuring the process on the cover of their September issue. Popular in many management and product design circles, design thinking continues to spread. The White House just published a post about the use of Human Centered Design (HCD) by the USDA and the Office of Personnel Management’s Innovation Lab to improve the National School Lunch Program. My parents are still confused that I make a living writing on post its, but I feel lucky to be one of the many professionals using this process and adapting it for the real world. Fred Collopy, a professor of design and innovation at Case Western University has spent a career immersed in the theories of decision science, systems thinking, and design. He makes the point that design thinking has been so successful as a practical tool to effect change in organizations precisely because practitioners engage with it first by doing — not by thinking through the associated theories. Fred makes the point that systems thinking failed to spread widely as a management tool, not because it isn’t applicable, but because the discipline didn’t make the leap from theory to embodied exercises. The arcane details of the theories were and are hotly debated by a few, with the result being that the practical exercise of the main concepts are lost to the rest.
In large part, design thinking has avoided this trap because some of the most successful schools teaching the process are schools of practice, not ivory towers of thought. While I personally love dissecting the minutiaeof different modes of thinking, the advances in neuroscience that allow us to explore augmented sensing, and the role that the autonomic nervous system plays in reaching creative insight, I reserve that for my fellow design practitioners. I’ve learned that when I’m leading a workshop, my job is to be the chief risk taker for the group, the leader in vulnerability. Their job is to embody each step in the process, and by fully immersing themselves, stumble into surprising reframes, 1000 ideas for a solution, and a few brilliant, wobbly prototypes.
While Fred’s article describes design thinking more as an evolution to systems thinking, I see them as complementary disciplines. Systems dynamics is worth plumbing intellectually, but for the purpose of emerging on the other side with methods and exercises that can be used as tools in the world, similar to the 5 step design thinking process from Stanford’s dschool. The complex theories associated with systems thinking and systems dynamics have at their root a set of ideas very similar to design thinking — engaging a broad set of stakeholders, using scenarios to explore them, reframing problems, and iterating. I want to explore what they might do together, with both disciplines having a rich underpinning of theory and accessible, embodied exercises.
Over a period of about seven months this year, I consulted (civilian role, not reservist) for the Pacific Fleet. I worked for a staff function in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and got the best of both worlds — the camaraderie that is a unique joy known to those who have served, and the luxury of wearing hot pink jeans to work. I learned a lot about myself as a designer and a facilitator. At the end of those months, I wrote a long report on how design thinking and systems dynamics might serve the vision of the Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Swift. The staff that hired me didn’t ask for any insights on systems dynamics, but I gave it to them anyways.
Natural Resources in the South China Sea, Courtesy CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative http://amti.csis.org/atlas/
The Pacific Fleet needs uniformed practitioners of design thinking and systems dynamics who understand the theoretical nuances and who can also lead the embodiment of the exercises. They need this because the messy military problem they concern themselves with — maritime security — can’t be silo’ed into the pieces that only relate to the military, leaving other aspects to diplomats and environmentalists. Maritime security in our era is about rapidly declining natural resources, extreme climate events, rising levels of violence at sea, but more importantly, these different forces affecting maritime security are so interconnected that they require intense collaboration with unexpected partners. I fear that if we frame the problem of maritime security as an issue between great powers best left to great navies, we will miss the dynamics influencing the global system that supports human flourishing — our food, our climate, and many people’s freedom. (Did you know about the extent of slavery at sea?)
Global Fishing Watch, the prototype from Google, Oceana and SkyTruth to use open source satellite data to identify illegal fishing.
I don’t have a suggestion for how to frame the problem of human flourishing and maritime security in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. I have my own opinions, but I would rather they be challenged and iterated on through a process that mixes systems and design thinking. How should the Pacific Fleet approach the challenge of understanding and leveraging the system of maritime security in Indo-Asia? Instead of policy, I suggest behaviors I think Admiral Swift would want to observe as patterns in his Fleet.
Encouraged collaboration — Leaders emerge from the crowd, assume the role of creative facilitator, and ensure collaboration when it’s needed.
Innovation at sea — Sailors innovating ‘just in time’ on deployment lead to non-traditional employment of fielded capability.
Using patterns — Sailors provide context, not single data points. Leaders guide the mastery of knowledge and foment the curiosity to identify and exploit patterns of action.
Decentralized Execution — Leaders prepare subordinates to be decision-makers, challenging them to gain insights on context and patterns.
The crowd organizes itself — Communities of interest will proliferate, building networks between the silos of the operational, maintenance, and R&D force.
The crowd learns together — The Fleet leads the debate of war fighting instructions and populates a shared electronic repository of FAQ’s and how-to resources.
My contract ended with the Pacific Fleet at the end of July, and in keeping with my commitment to spread my wings, I’m leaving for New Zealand to work and play with food and agriculture technology and innovation ecosystems. But first, my own embodied prototype of decentralized execution. On October 26 and 27, a couple friends, a senior officer at the Department of State and a PhD futurist, and I will co-facilitate a design workshop in San Francisco on maritime security. We’re inviting a wildly diverse group of participants and we’re going to test new methods for embodied systems thinking. There’s no contract guaranteeing pay and no senior leader who has promised to take the prototypes from the workshop and shepherd them to execution.
Which means there are no rules on this adventure. We’ll publish the exercises mixing systems dynamics and design thinking, and we’ll share the prototypes — hopefully you’ll test them. Please get in touch if you’re interested in more detail.
This article originally appeared on the CDA Institute and was republished with permission. You can find the article in its original form here.
CDA Institute guest contributor Ken Hansen, a research fellow at Dalhousie’s CFPS, comments on the necessity of logistics in light of the decommissioning of HMCS Protecteur and HMCS Preserver.
The loss of at-sea replenishment capability has dropped the Royal Canadian Navy’s (RCN) standing from a blue-water, global force projection navy to an offshore territorial defence organization. The major fire in HMCSProtecteur and the severe rust-out problems in HMCSPreserver have resulted in the decommissioning of both ships and a logistical crisis that requires corrective action. Some signs for optimism have arisen recently in two contracts with the Spanish and Chilean navies for the use of two of their replenishment ships for a period of 40 days each. The total cost is rumoured to be approximately $160MCAD.
Forty days of sea time will allow each coastal formation to run an exercise involving replenishment at sea training and perhaps a tactical scenario for task group readiness. By doing this, Canadian sailors will get a chance to preserve complex and perishable skills that are vitally important in modern naval operations.
Replenishment at sea involves all of the ship’s departments. Navigation, operations, deck, engineering, and supply must all understand the sequence of events intimately if all is to go as planned. While sailing a ship alongside another at 20 to40 metres distance is demanding in calm seas, at night and in rough weather is no place to be doing this for the first time. The most graphic example of what can go wrong occurred off the coast of South Africa on the night of 18 February 1982, when the South African navy’s replenishment ship SASTafelberg rammed and sank the frigate SASPresident Krugerafter the latter made the fatal mistake of turning in front of the bigger ship. Sixteen sailors were lost in this incident.
The South African accident occurred due to confusion in close-quarters manoeuvring during an anti-submarine exercise. Replenishment is a common activity in multi-ship exercises and is often scheduled to coincide with other tactical ‘challenges’ to raise the complexity of challenges facing commanders. I have had many first-hand experiences with these exercises and their hazards. On one occasion, north of Iceland, nearly four hours spent attempting to refuel in stormy winter conditions resulted in a mere 20 cubic meters of fuel transferred, much damage to the equipment, plus lots of frozen fingers and faces from the spray. We nearly lost one sailor overboard from the icy deck before the two captains conferred and agreed to call it off. Another occasion resulted in a side-swiping by our ship of the much larger oiler. We slid backward along her side, leaving a long smear of distinctive Canadian naval paint on her hull and eventually cleared her stern ignominiously. Everyone knew trying to extricate ourselves by going the other way was potentially fatal.
The history of replenishment at sea training is full of such near misses and embarrassing moments. The calamity that befell President Kruger is actually a rarity. More common are parted fueling hoses and span wires, fouled screws, plus minor dents and scratches. Such tough lessons become legend amongst seafarers and we learned vicariously from these mistakes.
In operations, failure during replenishment at sea takes on a more serious nature. Less well known are replenishment events from the Second World War. Canadian escorts frequently had to abandon their convoys despite the presence of attacking U-boats, owing to the difficulty of mastering the intricacies of refueling at sea. At one point in the war, the Admiralty forbade Canadian warships from refueling in eastbound convoys due to the amount of damage they were doing to scarce replenishment equipment. A related problem arose during the Cuban Missile Crisis when returning Canadian warships had to pass right through their assigned anti-submarine patrol stations and carry on to Halifax to refuel. They returned days later. The accompanying aircraft carrier simply did not carry enough fuel to sustain her ‘thirsty’ escorts. Analysis showed that the navy needed a minimum of three replenishment ships to sustain short-range escorts at a distance of only 250 to 500 nautical miles from base.
Today, the Government of Canada has a penchant for deploying the RCN worldwide. The fuel capacity of our current frigates (.1 tonne of fuel per tonne of displacement) equals historic pre-war lows. This has forced planners to assume replenishment is a given in fleet operations. That assumption is now false. Without replenishment ships, the navy’s status has fallen and precious seamanship skills are wasting away.
Contracting foreign naval replenishment ships for short-term training is a necessary expedient but it is only a stopgap measure. It may be that Chantier Davie will be able to produce an interim solution in short order, but if it goes longer than six months you can expect the RCN to re-contract with the Spanish and Chileans on a regular basis.
The cost of leasing replenishment at sea services must now be added to the construction costs of the two new ships being built at Seaspan plus the cost of the building the interim ship by Chantier Davie. It should have been obvious that delaying the replacements for Protecteur and Preserver would result in added expense and more complexity in operations. It is a sad but entirely predictable mess and there is no real end in sight.
The blame for all this has to lay with the naval leadership. Somehow, generations of Canadian admirals decided that logistics is less important than combat capability. The National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) is based on a one-for-one replacement plan of the Cold War Fleet, with the notable exception of the DeWolf-class arctic/offshore patrol ships. The logistical demands of this new security era are vastly greater than they were during the Cold War. The history of the RCN since 1989 has an abundant array of examples to prove this point.
I find it sad that the admirals care more about politics than they do about the history of their own service. A much more robust logistical capacity is needed immediately. They should remember this advice from American General Omar Bradley: “Amateurs talk tactics; professionals study logistics.”
Ken Hansen is an adjunct professor in graduate studies at Dalhousie University and a research fellow with the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies. He served for 33 years as a maritime surface warfare officer with the RCN. (Image courtesy of the Royal Canadian Navy.)
This article originally featured on Reuters and was republished with the author’s permission. Read it in its original form here.
By Peter Marino
A floating dock of the Indian navy is pictured at the naval base at Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, July 1, 2015. REUTERS/Sanjeev Miglani
The Indian Ocean may be the only ocean named for a country, but it’ s still heavily contested territory. Both China and India, who have major strategic interests there, are suspicious of each other. Their struggle for leadership in the “emerging world” will play out for decades and all around the globe, but today the Indian Ocean is Ground Zero.
The South China Sea is home to overlapping claims by China, the Philippines, and other countries in the region. And the Arctic Ocean, increasingly, has seen a build-up of U.S. and Russian troops, lured by the possibility of billions of barrels of untapped oil. The Indian Ocean is significant because of its strategically important sea lanes — particularly for India and China, two of the world’s largest importers.
China imports most of its oil by sea, and 80 percent of it crosses the Indian Ocean before it passes through the Straits of Malacca, on its way to the Chinese market. Beijing is very concerned about its dependency on a waterway it does not control, and is using diplomacy, both carrots and sticks, to ensure that it can continue to access the sea lanes. As part of this effort, Xi Jinping’s “maritime silk road” program will offer cheap Chinese financing to cash-strapped governments for trade and industrial infrastructure along such routes.
China is using hard power as well. Through China’s longstanding alliance with the Pakistani government, it has funded improvements at the deepwater port of Gwadar, Pakistan, where a state-owned Chinese company now has a 40-year management contract. That agreement allowed the port to host ships owned by the People’s Liberation Army Navy, giving the Chinese a permanent, or at least semi-permanent, presence in the region.
China’s participation, since 2012, in the international anti-piracy coalition that mans the Gulf of Aden has also allowed it to operate in the Western Indian Ocean, where it is reported to be conducting studies of the sea depth, presumably to aid future submarine patrol missions.
Delhi has been paying close attention, and is mobilizing its own diplomatic and hard-power tools to shore up its influence in its home region. Indian foreign aid, while not yet on the scale of Chinese state investment, is being spread liberally to countries near the Indian Ocean, especially to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. India’s proximity and cultural similarities give it some advantages over the Chinese efforts. Nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been notably active in this area, making the first trip by an Indian PM to Sri Lanka in 28 years as part of the push to improve bilateral relations.
Moreover, Delhi is aware of the gap between the strength of its own forces, and that of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, which has been modernizing for 20 years. India is opening up its checkbook for better equipment, including a multi-billion-euro deal for advanced Rafale fighter jets from France to replace its aging Russian Sukhois. And it is becoming less shy about the idea that it is countering China at sea. When U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter visited Delhi in June this year, he signed early paperwork establishing a collaboration to develop India’s next generation of aircraft carriers. Because China had recently launched its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, and was constructing two more, the motivation behind this proposed Indo-U.S. partnership was unmistakable.
Despite these conflicting interests, China and India could still have room to collaborate on several major global issues. As two of the world’s biggest importers of agricultural goods, minerals and energy, they share an interest in working with exporters to help smooth out price volatility in commodity cycles. And as countries that will be “great powers” while still relatively poor, they should work with each other to push through reforms at the United Nations, World Bank and other international groups that were set up by the rich world. Their shared interest in a peaceful and stable Southeast Asia should contribute to their joint participation in peaceful diplomacy there, too.
But for the moment, Delhi and Beijing are mostly in a mode of competition in the Indian Ocean, and the tendrils of their struggle extend even further, across the steppes of Central Asia, to the Western part of Africa, and into the Persian Gulf, as well. The Indian Ocean is the one major ocean not bounded by one of the existing great powers, which makes it the perfect locale in which the struggle for primacy in the “emerging world” can play out. What we are seeing now is only the beginning.
Peter Marino holds an MSc in Global Politics from The London School of Economics and is a graduate of Norwich University. He lived in Shanghai from 2003 to 2008 and served as head of China development for London-based Aurigon, Ltd. He founded and sold Quaternion, a political risk startup, and is currently establishing a new Think Tank for International Affairs aimed at promoting engagement with the “Millennial Generation.” He also produces Globalogues, a video blog with commentary on global politics and economics. The views expressed in this article are his own.
Professor Geoffrey Gresh, Associate Professor at the United States National Defense University, joins Matthew Merighi of Sea Control North America to talk about his new book Gulf Security and the U.S. Military: Regime Survival and the Politics of Basing (Stanford University Press). In this episode, Geoffrey and Matthew talk about the issues surrounding US basing in the Persian Gulf, the role of history in analyzing contemporary policy challenges, and the tensions in Gulf States’ domestic politics between managing internal and external security threats.
