“I don’t know what we mean when we say we’re ‘pursuing AI.’ Do you?”
“We don’t change to accommodate new technologies, anyway … We just shove them into our current paradigm.”
“I don’t even understand what we’re supposed to be doing right now!”
Twenty officers are seated around a table, mired in the discomfort of an “adaptive leadership” workshop. This framework, developed by Ronald Heifetz and colleagues at the Harvard Kennedy School, is designed to help organizations make progress on complex, collective challenges, known as “adaptive” challenges. Unlike “technical” problems, which can be solved with existing know-how, adaptive challenges demand learning and change — adaptation — from the stakeholders themselves.
Digital transformation presents an adaptive challenge for the Department of Defense. As long as the Department of Defense relies on painless, “technical” fixes — what Steve Blank calls “innovation theater” — America will become increasingly vulnerable to exploitation by foreign adversaries, costing both dollars and lives. To make progress on the challenge of digital transformation — and to maintain technological superiority — the Department of Defense should reexamine and reshape its deeply held values, habits, beliefs, and norms.
The officers in the workshop are an excellent example of a group wrestling with adaptation. As in many groups, they begin by looking outwards. One says, “It’s the ‘frozen middle’ that prevents us from doing anything digital,” while another adds, “Our higher-ups can’t agree on what they want, anyway. … What are we supposed to do?” The instructor nudges them: “It seems the group is shifting responsibility to anywhere but here. What makes it difficult to look inward?”
Next, the officers drift away from the challenge. They share stories of previous successes, appraise the instructor’s credentials, and joke about the workshop itself. Again, the instructor intervenes: “I notice we’re avoiding uncertainty. Can we stay longer in the nebulous space of ‘digital transformation’? Or will we escape the moment it’s not clear how to proceed?”
Begrudgingly, they return to digital transformation, but after a few minutes, they ask the instructor for help: “Are you going to chime in here, or …?” The instructor responds, “You’re depending on an authority — someone in charge — to solve a problem that can only be addressed collectively — by all of you.”
At this point, the room burns with frustration. But the officers can’t be blamed. Their moves to avoid adaptive work — diverting attention away from the issue and shifting responsibility for it elsewhere — are typical for groups confronting a difficult reality.
More specifically, in what Heifetz terms the “classic failure,” groups attempt to resolve adaptive challenges via “technical fixes”: painless attempts that apply existing know-how, rather than working with stakeholders to change how they operate.
Hiring someone, firing someone, increasing the budget, expanding the timeline, creating a committee, restructuring the org, building a new tool, pushing a new policy: These are all technical fixes, which, while not inherently harmful, are easier than — and can distract from — the internal work of reevaluating values, habits, beliefs, and norms.
Even now, the Department of Defense is attempting to address digital transformation through technical means. The Department of Defense has created the Joint AI Center, partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and established the position of Chief Digital and AI Officer. These steps are not without benefit: The Joint AI Center has developed AI ethics principles and a new acquisitions process; MIT has produced valuable research and educational content; and the Chief Digital and AI Officer provides an opportunity to integrate across various technological functions. But these actions are not enough. In fact, they’re not even the most challenging steps.
