Why transformation of defence is incredibly challenging?
Maybe it is the nature of the military as a rigid organisation destined to sustain its cohesion in a lethal environment. Perhaps it is because military planners specialise in destroying adversary organisations' functionality. Let's have a closer look at the usual failures and their causes.
Military planners use methods of strategic analysis, scenario planning, capability planning, operational analysis, systems design, and, recently, enterprise architecture to understand better the situation of their Armed Forces and threat environment. Based on the study, they define realistic roadmaps to transform defence enterprises to gain an advantage, catch up with an existent adversary advantage or gain cost-savings. Unfortunately, even well-planned transformations have failed to achieve the intended end-states. These failures may have been caused by: (Mattila, 2020)
- Shortcomings of over-ambitious operational analyses (Russia 2009 – 2018, NATO 2000s),
- Challenges in defining core competencies, processes, and business of the defence enterprise (UK 1990s, 2000s),
- Challenges to define what needs to be changed in the defence enterprise to gain the required capabilities (some Gulf Countries),
- Inability to transform because of long dependencies of supply chains (US defence industry until recently, European defence industry currently),
- Failure to see that human behaviour, systems technology, and asset structure define a network of value creation (Finland 1997, 2008, 2015),
- Misunderstandings of the political agenda or surprisingly fast-changing threat environment (e.g., Sweden 1990-2000).
Do we have better ways to understand the defence transformation?
We can have alternative viewpoints from sociology, business management, and digital transformation approaches.
Kurt Lewin (Lewin, 1947) created a classical organisational change model based on field theory, group dynamics and action research. According to his paradigm, transformation must first unfreeze the existing social structure, move the components, and refreeze the structure again, like a social structure is a block of ice that you melt, move the water, and then refreeze water back to the ice in the target. The approach has been tried and found still valid from the social aspect. (Cummings, Bridgman, & Brown, 2015)
There are many managerial frameworks to mitigate common mistakes in transformations. One of the most referred is the 8-stage methodology created by John Kotter (Kotter, 2024) to avoid the most common errors in transformation. The eight steps are: 1. Create a sense of urgency, 2. Build a guiding coalition, 3. Form a strategic vision, 4. Enlist a volunteer army, 5. Enable action and remove barriers, 6. Generate short-term wins, 7. Sustain acceleration, 8. Institute change. Kotter's steps align with Lewin's paradigm and are varied in many applications offered by consulting companies. (Boston Consulting Group, 2024) (McKinsey, 2016) On the other hand, the Prince 2 Program Management Guide warns about the low predictability of the outcomes of organisational changes, implementing unproven technology, and changing societal values and behaviours. (Axelos, 2011)
For the past 30 years, defence organisations have been trying to gain new (Sweden Nätverkbaserad Försvaret 1990s, USDOD JADC2 2020s) or enable more from existing capabilities (NATO Network Enabled Capabilities 2000s, Finland 2008) through digital transformation. A successful digital transformation ("a process of developing organisational and technology-based capabilities that allow an enterprise to improve its value creation to sustain a competitive advantage continuously") (Lamarre, Smaje, & Zemmel, 2023) requires firstly, digitisation of information and, secondly, digitalisation of processes as illustrated in Figure 1. A successful digital transformation establishes a foundation for military affairs towards operational model options of the 4th industrial revolution like a digital factory, product and platform model, or enterprise-wide agility model. Unfortunately, there are several thresholds on the transformation journey:
- The inability to manage function performance prevents total gain from performance-driven transformation.
- Military traditions, Service boundaries, and the Command structure of Military Affairs prevent the gain from capability-driven transformation.
- Diplomatic, Information, Military and Economics (DIME) stovepipes of national defence thinking prevent gain from 4th industrial defence-driven transformation.
Figure 1: Four stages of Digitally enabled Military Affairs
So, how does this help military transformations?
Well, let me try to simplify the approach in Figure 2 as follows:
1.Define your strategic posture against your potential adversary. Will your upper ground be that:
a. in Pathfinder, you push Services to experiment and deploy the latest emerging technology and give an impression of all domain dominance (USDOD) or
b. in Operational, you are training your forces to work like a Prussian machine (Russian Red Army, Poland), or
c. in Evolutionary, you confident you can address all new capabilities or threats your adversary can throw at you with your flexible and evolutionary forces (most Western European militaries)?
The strategic posture is where your politicians and social resources may dictate both the target and available paths to you.
2. Define your process development opportunities and limitations for each core function, i.e., Force utilisation, generation, deployment/projection, sustainment, and support. You may try to:
a. unify currently distributed functions (e.g., combined arms) or
b. replicate your own or borrowed best practices through your enterprise (e.g., finance, facilities, human resources, or other management functions) or
c. coordinate diversified forces against the shared adversary (e.g., Joint Operations).
3. Consider your Forces' ability to take steps on the digital transformation road (Figure 1).
a. After choosing the length of the journey within your risk appetite, prepare to invest at least two dollars on training and behavioural transfer per every dollar spent on digital technology.
b. Recognise that you cannot source digital transformation from outside but invest in and build in-house competencies.
4. Define why you need to change. Is it to:
a. improve cost-efficiency in times of diminishing budgets or
b. potential threats from adversaries or
c. just implement a transformation dictated by politicians.
Either way, the military should compete against adversary and future threats, not gain more savings than other public sector enterprises or implement change faster than other governmental institutes. National defence is the purpose of the military existence.
5. Consider the width of your leap towards the future.
a. Suppose your target seems to be within the current cultural boundaries. In that case, Kotter's change management approach may be feasible.
b. However, suppose your target requires a cultural transfer. In that case, you must invest more time and effort in cultural change (address the low expectation of a shift in societal behaviour).
6. Divide your transformation portfolio into three folders: unfreeze, move, and refreeze. As Lewin has proven, the social structure will be one of the most significant challenges in transformation.
a. Unfreeze: Break the current higher organisation and launch the journey of smaller functional units or teams towards the target structure. Establish the target organisation's reward, promotion, compensation, and welfare decision to turn off current power structures.
b. Move: Along the road, have sufficient training for new behaviour.
• If possible, provide trusted fellows to guide hands-on the new ways.• Offer opportunities for unit-level innovations to create a feeling of ownership.• Use mission command but establish boundaries and clear performance expectations for the move phase.
c. Refreeze: It would be better to have a higher target organisation with a clear mission and well-trained personnel before receiving teams and force elements from the current structure. Keep the target structure higher commanders in their positions and accountable long enough to stabilise the new behaviour and ways to create value.
Figure 2: A simple transformation framework
References
Axelos. (2011). Managing successful programs. The Stationery Office.
Boston Consulting Group. (2024). Six Leadership Priorities to Transform Defense Agencies. Retrieved from BCG: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/six-priorities-for-leaders-launching-a-defense-transformation
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T., & Brown, K. (2015). Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Sage Journals, Vol 60, Issue 1.
Kotter, J. (2024, May 24). The 8 Steps for Leading Change. Retrieved from Kotter: https://www.kotterinc.com/methodology/8-steps/
Lamarre, E., Smaje, K., & Zemmel, R. (2023). Rewired: The McKinsey guide to outcompeting in the age of digital and artificial intelligence. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept method and reality in social science, social equilibria and social change. Sage Journals. doi:10.1177/001872674700100103
Mattila, J. K. (2020). Targeting a moving organization. Helsinki: Aalto University.
McKinsey. (2016). Transformation with a capital T. McKinsey & Company: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/rts/our-insights/transformation-with-a-capital-t
