Wars of Ideas
I work for someone who often talks about “disruptive technology” and how hard it is to keep it alive. He believes that not only is the project we are building disruptive in the context of the technology world but also in the company itself. One definition of disruptive technology is found at the old standby, Wikipedia “A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is a technological innovation that improves a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by being lower priced or designed for a different set of consumers.”
The term came to my mind in a completely different context, though, when I was reading an article [at DefenseTech] about the U.S. Army and the developing – and struggling – doctrine of hybrid war. I was already familiar with the somewhat different concept of asymmetric warfare, in which a very weak opponent (such as Al Qaeda in Iraq) uses guerrilla or terrorist tactics to go after a much more powerful foe (such as the United States) [See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_warfare for more on asymmetric warfare]. But the term hybrid war was new to me.
According to the article, hybrid war is fought against (surprise!) hybrid enemies who “come equipped with high-end, precision guided weapons, yet fight in distributed networks of small units and cells more akin to guerrillas.” This put me in mind of the Afghani Mujahideen of the 1980s, who used U.S. supplied stinger missiles against the invading Soviets. This kind of warfare is not fought with the traditional tank columns and carrier groups but can still do terrible damage. It is made possible both by modern weaponry and by the cleverness and determination of small group leaders.
There are thoughtful leaders in the military who understand that this change in the nature of the enemy is not just a serious threat to people those enemies target. It requires deep changes in military procurement, tactics and training. Hopefully, it is starting to sound like maybe I wasn’t completely off base relating the concepts of hybrid war to the market-oriented definition of disruptive innovation (another term for disruptive technology and a little closer to where I think I’m going with this).
The article mentions the disillusion of an Army officer who went through extensive training that seemed geared more toward World War 2 weapons and tactics than anything currently likely in the 21st century. The old saying goes that armies train to fight the last war, but WW2 came before Korea and Vietnam, not to mention Iraq (1 and 2) and Afghanistan. To be fair, battles of vast amounts of technology (tanks, planes, artillery) were considered a serious issue during the Cold War because that was also the way Soviet forces were organized. But the Soviet Union doesn’t even exist anymore, so what’s the point?
Now, zigging (rather than zagging) back to the business world, one of the characteristics of disruptive technology is that it serves a need other than that of the traditional dominant customers. It includes not just new products like the iPhone but new methods of dealing with customers such as, when it was new, was exemplified by FedEx. And, as my boss has pointed out, this kind of change can be fragile. The old guard came up through the ranks serving the dominant customers and thinks that, in so doing, it has learned what is needed for success.
Buggy whip makers didn’t abandon their product because they saw it had become obsolete. It’s a fair bet that not one switched to making carburetors. They hung on until bankruptcy or until they were too old to do business anymore and there were no successors in sight. They did what had always worked. That’s what people do, in businesses or armies.
This is not a small problem. Think about the civilizations that have come and gone, enduring for centuries or even millenia, with only very small technological or social change. Egypt and China, for example, remained more or less stable (barring the occasional civil war) for thousands of years before finally being brought down by external forces. Without those external forces they might have lasted indefinitely.
We think of our time as being one of enormous, high speed change but is it really? How many companies are out there doing as the Army does, fighting battles of the past with outdated tools, while better disruptive alternatives fight to be heard? How many outdated assumptions (wars are fought with tanks because that’s what the other side uses) are holding us back?
Or to put another twist on things, how many hybrid enemies have our institutions failed to recognize? When put that way, the problem seems even more urgent, doesn’t it?
Sorry. I don’t have any answers just now. It’s going to take some thinking.
LinkedIn
Technorati Favorites