Tag Archives: Innovation

Wanted: Innovative Failures

 

Oh, thanks... because a normal spoon is SO much harder to use.
Oh, thanks… because a normal spoon is SO much harder to use.

Here at CIMSEC, we’ve featured a number of posts on the nature of innovation recently, mostly focused on ongoing initiatives such as the CRIC. I’d like to take a breather for a few days and take a retrospective look at a critical piece of innovation – failure. And so, CIMSEC brings you Dead Ends Week, starting 24 March.

Dead ends can include ship designs, new technologies, tactics or even something so mundane as an administrative process in the maritime domain. If the initial attempts didn’t go anywhere, it’s fair game. The only exception is aviation – there are simply so many aerospace examples, only a couple of truly unique initiatives can be included, or this will turn monotonous very quickly.

Please, submit your contributions!

A good thought process as you pick topics would be to (very roughly) classify the dead end, discuss why it failed, and explain what lessons came of it. Variation is welcome.

Some ideas for different types of dead ends:

–         Nullified by some extrinsic change (such as new developments in buggy whips failing to gain a foothold in the automotive era)

–         Lost to a rival system (the classic VHS vs. Beta contest)

–         Simply didn’t work as advertised (probably the most fun, and self-explanatory)

–         Ingenious, but with no real application (i.e. WTF?)

Let the parade of failures begin!

 Matt McLaughlin is a Navy Reserve lieutenant and strategic communications consultant who grew up on a cul-de-sac, which isn’t quite a dead end but is pretty close. His opinions do not represent the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense or his employer.

Sea Control 17 – Rob Young Pelton plus Federal News Radio

seacontrolemblemJames Bridger interviews adventurer extraordinaire, Rob Young Pelton, about his upcoming crowd-funded journey to find Jospeh Kony and further updates on the situation in Africa. Jim and Rob discuss civil wars, and piracy amongst others.

The episode finishes with an interview done on Federal News Radio, 1500AM, for their series “In Depth with Francis Rose.” Sean McCalley interviews our NEXTWAR Director, Matt Hipple, about his thoughts on what to watch in the coming year. They discuss Africa, China, drones, and informal military innovation/networks.

Please enjoy Sea Control 17: Rob Young Pelton plus Federal News Radio (Dowload).

And remember… we are available on Itunes and Stitcher Stream Radio! Tell a friend, leave a comment, and rate 5 stars!

Fortune Favors the Bold

unnamedHow risk can be good, and why we need more of it

Fortis fortuna adiuuat.  So wrote the 2nd-century B.C. playwright Terence of the Athenian general Phormio who, facing a numerically far superior Peleponnesian fleet, tricked them into self-defeat through an unusual, highly risky corralling tactic.  Once the enemy fleet’s oars were hopelessly tangled, Phormio seized the advantage, rushed in, and won the battle.

Fortune favors the bold.

More recent naval history agrees.  Stephen Decatur’s gamble of a sneak attack on the captured USS Philadelphia in the early 1800s was termed “the most bold and daring act of the Age” by no less than Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson – an officer who knew something of bold and daring naval acts, having triumphed at Trafalgar with highly unconventional tactics of his own.

In World War II, Admiral Nimitz rushed barely patched-up ships to the Battle of Midway in a chancy yet ultimately successful move that defeated a numerically-superior Japanese force, thus turning the tide in the Pacific theater.

It’s clear risk can be good.

However, in the half-century since our country was last seriously challenged in combat at sea, our military has developed what Tim Kane in The Atlantic terms a “zero-defect mentality.”  This relentless insistence on flawless performance induces upwardly-mobile leaders to cling to safe, middle-of-the-road blandness, shunning risk.

Today’s enemies are bold and daring, often blatantly unconstrained by the rules of engagement, red tape and resource constraints that entangle us.  If we do not seize the initiative early and often, they will win.

Our Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen continue to innovate, defying convention to defeat our foes.  Yet our military has become so confused about risk that a successfully innovative leader is more often punished or pushed out than promoted, while paradoxically, thrill-seekers get cheered for dangerous demonstrations of “confidence.”

We must dramatically change our approach to risk.  Instead of implying all risk is bad, we must carefully educate our corps on the difference between good and bad risk.  Then, as leaders, we must encourage innovation and good risk while eradicating bad risk and recklessness.

The first objection to bold, innovative leadership stems from this zero-defect mentality we’ve cultivated.  Won’t risky actions cause mishaps, resulting in casualties and property damage?

The obvious answer is yes, sometimes: sometimes risks fail, and sometimes lives and property suffer.  Admiral Nimitz, when an ensign, ran his ship aground.  Admiral Nelson’s career was littered with failures, including the stinging defeat that took his right arm and many lives.

But, over time, intelligent innovation saves lives and prevents injuries.  This is evident not only in large-scale operations like Decatur’s raid, accomplished without a single casualty, but in more localized innovations like the Holley stick.  Essentially a long stick using simple means like a hook to catch IEDs, this simple yet highly effective tool, invented recently by a Marine in Afghanistan, prevents serious casualties every day.

“If we are too risk-averse to adapt, then in the long run, we make ourselves more vulnerable,” says Marine Corps Capt. Jerome Lademan, a member of the Chief of Naval Operations Rapid Innovation Cell (CRIC).  “The enemy won’t wait on us to develop better weapons, systems or tactics.”

But surely, risk wastes money.  As budgets shrink, can military services afford to take risks?

The better question is, how can they afford not to?  In the long run, innovative processes and products save the military significant quantities of money. 

Six years ago, Navy Lt. Rollie Wicks, innovation cell member and a Chief Network Scientist at the Under Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, urged the Navy to replace its towering stacks of hard-copy maps, charts and targeting imagery aboard ship with equivalent online resources.  Sailors were so overburdened and short on storage space, they often threw out new materials as soon as they arrived.  Yet, the tradition-bound Navy was highly reluctant to risk relinquishing these trusted paper copies.  Wicks ultimately won, and the resulting electronic Geospatial Product Library now saves the military millions of dollars and thousands of personnel hours annually.

“Now is the time to quit throwing funds at bad ideas and the wrong people,” Wicks says.  “The military needs to identify the ‘risk takers,’ surround them with the right mentors, and fund them to innovate.”

A final, frequent, objection to risky action is that it defies convention. The military, papered over in piles of checklists, often worries innovation is nothing but insubordination.  So, why promote it?  Won’t risky behavior undermine the military’s good order and discipline?

It is true that even such an impressively successful leader as Nelson was often tarred by his superiors as insubordinate.  In the Battle of Copenhagen, trusting his tactics, Nelson famously disregarded a command signal to retreat, claiming he never saw it…after intentionally putting the telescope to his blind eye.  Nelson prevailed, in the decision and in the battle.

Innovative military leaders probably will never leave their superiors completely at ease.

But by educating our forces on the different types of risk, we can keep leaders from fearing their subordinates’ potentially unpredictable actions.  Instead, leaders can trust their subordinates will confidently seize the initiative, acting boldly on a solid basis of experience and skill learned from their elders, and employing a keen intuition honed by repeated front-line faceoffs with their foes.

They will know and trust that fortune favors the bold.

Too often, we define “calculated risk” as simply avoiding risk.  Common military risk-assessment tools use numerical scales that suggest high risk is always bad, and low risk always good, often leading to a “green-washing” of all situations as low risk.  Then, without proper understanding of risk, reckless behavior tends to proliferate while innovation is discouraged.

We must reverse this debilitating trend if we intend to outwit, outmaneuver and ultimately conquer our many 21st-century opposing maritime forces.  Instead of reducing risk to a simplistic equation of numbers or, worse, a series of stoplight colors, we need to educate our troops on the important difference between good and bad risk.  Then, we must relentlessly encourage innovation while working tirelessly to eliminate recklessness.

It is time to replace “risk reduction” with “risk promotion.”

As Navy Petty Officer First Class Jeff Anderson, CRIC member and Electronics Technician on the USS Independence, points out, “Wars require the risk takers in charge, not the risk-averse.”

In other words, fortis fortuna adiuuat.

 

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Heather Bacon-Shone is a member of the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations Rapid Innovation Cell (CRIC).  The CRIC, hosted by the Naval Warfare Development Command, is composed of hand-picked junior officers and mid-grade enlisted personnel and civilians who partner in innovation with leaders in business, industry, and the military in order to solve tomorrow’s naval problems today.

The views expressed herein are those of the author and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the U.S. Coast Guard or U.S. Navy.

Rejoinder to “Ears Open, Mouth Shut”

CRICJon’s recent blog seriously, and rightfully questions the semantics of innovation.   He obviously has spent a good deal of time thinking about what the Navy is trying to do well beyond what is merely signified by the word ‘innovation.’  

 
Buzzwords have plagued the Navy, every organization, and even society for probably as long as language has existed.  It’s easy to throw out a single word or phrase that summarizes a vast concept such as ‘innovation’ does–certainly there are wealthy authors who’ve made their living doing just that.  As, I am fairly certain that a significant portion of the issue we grapple with today is the language that is regularly found concerning this subject, I will refrain from using the word ‘innovation’ henceforth, neither any other overly used catch phrase to denote what the the current generations of the Navy have embarked upon in the last few years.  
 
Historically, the CRIC and CRIC[x] aren’t radically different from what has ever been done. Sailors tend to not give enough credit to the methods the Navy has utilized time and time again to improve its war fighting abilities.  As long ago as 1833, these words were spoken: 

 

We, the Officers of the Navy and Marine Corps, in order to promote the diffusion of useful knowledge,- to foster a spirit of harmony and a community of interest in the service, and to cement the links which unite us as professional brethren, have formed ourselves into a Society, to be denominated “The United States Naval Lyceum.”

 
An ad hoc organization, not too dissimilar to what’s being done with CIMSEC today, of interested and like-minded maritime professionals compelled to advance professional knowledge and competence.  Indeed, the Lyceum is the predecessor to the United States Naval Institute.  
 
Perhaps it’s that the human condition is predicated upon being ashore, that causes Sailors to almost innately seek out the otherwise alien knowledge of how to live, flight, and secure victory at sea.   Anything being done by those wearing the uniform today is only derivative of what has been done before us.  Each generation of sailor merely has a unique combination of geopolitical realities, emerging technologies, social temperament to hash through in finding a way forward for their Navy.  
 
Our deckplates have been a consistent hub of building upon professional knowledge, the doings of Sims in developing a better way to shoot.  With Nimitz and company in developing underway replenishment, Moffett and Curtis developing naval aviation.  TheTurtle, the Hunley, the unique build of the original Six Frigates.  How the United States Navy has done business has been anything but business as usual, as defined by other maritime powers.  We are not unique, today is not different from yesterday.  It’s probably a safe assumption that Sims would chuckle to himself were he privy to today’s Navy, as it would be familiar to him. 
 
What the Navy is today, is a mere continuation of what Sailors have always been.  The internet, and this vaunted information age has not changed the substance of the Navy or its Sailors.  Rather, what has changed – what is unique in our ‘realities, technologies, and temperament’ – is how we communicate the ideas sailors pursue in bettering and distinguishing the Navy from other maritime powers.  Quite simply, communication is the genesis of substance.  One person, one ship, one command with a better way of doing something isn’t of much use to the Navy–one person, or one ship will not win a war.  In other words, being “selfish” is only the first step. While surely the first step is where bettering our services begins, enabling others to follow that lead is vital.  Indeed, that was the entire reason for being with the Naval Lyceum, as it is the purpose for the Lyceum’s progeny The US Naval Institute, as it is also the purpose with the CNO’s Innovation Cell ‘to promote the diffusion of useful knowledge’ to the wider Fleet.  
 
More over, communication isn’t done with by shutting one’s mouth.  Communication is an exchange, a conversation. Both one’s mouth and ears must be open in order to communicate.   Despite the promises of the internet to rapidly change the world, cultures still change at a generational pace.  The senior levels of the Navy telling its sailors that change is beneficial and wanted, is a previous generation enabling the subsequent generation of leaders to adopt a methodology they, so late in their careers, can only slightly grasp at.  What is being promulgated by the Navy in their campaign is only something we’ve always in significant ways done.  It has never had to be forced, nor is it being forced now.  
 
Rather, the opportunity to act upon a good idea is being expanded.  The road blocks to communicate up the chain of command and across the Navy are being removed.  Starting with Sims having to personally write Roosevelt. We now approach a reality where mid-level support for maturing an idea is provided, ensuring critical thinking, and that something from the mouth of a petty officer sounds useful to an admiral’s ears.  
 
What is certainly not being forced is how the CRIC is going about its business, or even what its business will become.  Each member has their own discreet project that is decided upon by the CRIC member alone.  The method utilized in pursuing that project is mentored and advice is offered, but all leg work is done by the member their self.  What’s more is that any money for that project is found by the member promoting their project to entities that may want to literally buy-in to their proposal.  
 
For the CRIC, the goals are actually rather modest.  In terms of 3D printing, there is little hyperbole in simply seeking to work through such mundane notions of how divisions aboard ship could share a single 3D printer, or how shore infrastructure must support a unique capability like 3D printing.  Such an effort is building a little, and testing a lot; with hopefully placing the Navy at the ready for when 3D printing truly matures.  
 
The CRIC is not an end in and of itself.  Indeed, regional and local meet-ups sponsored CIMSEC and conferences like West are crucial to the success of the CRIC, and on a more granular level to every Sailor which wishes to help improve their Navy.  The hope for the maturation of CRIC and CRIC[x] is a construct through which ideas can move and find the right Sailor, in the right place, at the right time so that they, and the Navy can do the best with ‘what they have, where they are.’