THE ARMY’S INNOVATION DILEMMA
Abdul Subhani | 03.11.24
The Army’s Innovation Dilemma
When Clayton Christensen first published The Innovator’s Dilemma in 1997, he almost perfectly forecast today’s dynamic across the United States Department of Defense. His central warning—that private incumbents who fail to embrace disruption will seriously risk their positions of market leadership—now rings especially true for our most trusted national institutions. For example, the United States Army employs 1.2 million people and executes a budget that reached $178 billion in fiscal year 2023. It operates at a depth and breadth of verticals that no Fortune 500 could imagine—and its idiosyncratic culture predates the birth of our nation. And as we now face a new round of transformation, it wanders directly into the path of Christensen’s warning.
So what is the urgency for an Army that has talked about reorganizing and modernizing since the end of the Cold War brought the peace dividend? Simple—it is the uniqueness of today’s moment in time. Never before have we endured such unpredictable budgets and funding due to abysmally partisan politics at an unprecedented strategic crossroads while technology changes faster than our systems and processes can accommodate. Make no mistake—the situation is dire and each day we are charged with global leadership in an unforeseen crisis. The need to innovate and maximize the responsiveness of our Army is now. We can’t control the external dynamics but we can begin to identify the behavioral and structural challenges preventing us from innovating from within.
At the heart of Christensen’s findings was an observation that good companies unsuspectingly err by continuing to refine their businesses around customer needs while failing to recognize larger market disruptions until losing market share and confronting obsolescence. Obviously, the Army doesn’t have customers, per se. Much has been written about the effect of a lack of market forces in the public sector. However, it’s worthwhile to map the customer-like effect of certain Army-specific stakeholders. As an incredibly hierarchical and byzantine organization, those with the power to mandate change do not necessarily have the power to execute it. Consequently, even the esteemed leadership team of Secretary Christine Wormuth and General Randy George must still rely on those around them to articulate their guidance and monitor the necessary steps to evolution. Unfortunately, those who spend the most time with Army leaders are largely some of the least well-situated to recognize disruptive opportunities or soldier needs. Our leaders are left with “customer” insights from either a misaligned military industrial complex or aloof bureaucrats who are far removed from both ground truth and advances in technology. This is why the Army finds itself in such a dire place today—struggling to balance generational recruiting issues with an inability to modernize at a pace that keeps up with the modern economy. The institution has embraced a system that has effectively insulated its leaders from ground truth and, moreover from the ability to drive enterprise change—even when it’s sorely needed.
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-armys-innovation-dilemma/
