I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University. William F. Buckley.
The US Defense Department has a very strange approach to how it generates innovation. It, in stark contrast to the commercial world, thinks that innovation in warfare can only occur through the work of PhDs. To wit: People with these titles get the highest rates of pay afforded DoD consultants and almost all projects that attempt innovation or new thought require a PhD on the leadership team. As a result of this prominence, DoD affiliated PhDs have grown like mushrooms: in addition to the plethora of PhDs firmly entrenched within the military education system and the thousands of PhDs at the pointy end of defense contractor blood funnels, there are generously funded relationships with thousands of PhDs rented by hundreds of universities and colleges.
Really?
To those of us in the commercial world, this situation is completely hilarious. Not only are entrepreneurs and innovators with PhDs are extremely rare, they are often hired into innovative firms at compensation rates much lower than those with proven track records of commercial performance or innovation. In short, in the real world, ability trumps the title every time. I suspect the reason why this occurs in the commercial world is that in most cases within innovative companies, you don't have the luxury of failure over the short to medium term. The checks don't keep rolling in even if you are slow, wrong, or rigid.
The other reason, and this explains the innovation gap, is that most commercial innovation requires an ability to: synthesize strands of complex analysis that span multiple fields of endeavor, plow through ambiguous or messy data in real-time without pause, and flexibly respond to rapidly changing events. In short, everything a PhD is trained NOT to do, at risk of professional suicide.
The Innovation Gap
It's is important to point out, after my diatribe above, that much of what could be termed military innovation is an intensely intellectual exercise. It requires sharp minds. However, the point is that it never has nor will ever be found in an ivory tower. This type of intellectual product is produced by entrepreneurial minds that breathe synthesis and exhale flexibility.
This inevitably yields the following: given that the DoD is, for all intents and purposes, and ivory tower when it comes to military innovation, all new and innovative military thought will occur outside of it. While this deficit of innovation can be papered over during times of plenty with an endless supply of financing, it won't last once those dollars slow to a trickle (and they will). It also won't survive a true opponent armed with the right innovation, which is occurring.
Recent Comments