Individual Decision-Making In Complex Environments

Abstract

Today’s interconnected operating environment is presenting complex problems which are placing considerable stress and pressures on military decision-makers. The concepts within the emerging field of Complex Adaptive Systems science offer significant potential as a superior method for addressing these complex problems. Using an analysis of the applicability of CAS theory to contemporary military problems and research undertaken by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, this article proposes a number of start-points for Army to prepare and train its leaders to account for the complex problems of today’s operating environment.

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There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.¹

The challenge for the Army is to ensure that individual skills and team decision making processes are developed and adapted to maximise our ability to make effective complex decisions.²

Complexity in warfare is not new. However, contemporary warfighters find themselves in an operating environment connected like never before, to an extent where previously localised complexity can rapidly and powerfully affect events on the other side of the globe. Further, both the quantity of information available and the speed of its transfer are placing increasing stress on our natural human capacity to effectively deal with problems. Several studies³ have identified that the heuristics used to guide decisions in our much less complex evolutionary past are no longer adequate in the faster and more inter-connected contemporary environment.⁴

This article will argue that the current paradigms of military thought are not optimal for the complex system that is today’s operating environment. In response to this shortfall, this article will propose that the field of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) science offers new ways for Army decision-makers to develop an understanding of, and respond to, complex problems. To achieve this, the article commences with a discussion of the history of CAS theory and the key concepts pertinent to today’s operating environment, followed by an assessment of their military relevance, highlighting the applicability of CAS theory to contemporary military problems. The final section of the article will propose a number of potential start points for the adoption of CAS thought within Army.

CAS Theory and Today's Operating Environment

Contemporary debate on today’s operating environment uses a myriad of terms such as Rittel and Webber’s ‘wicked problems’⁵ or Paparone and Reid’s reference to ‘volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity’.⁶ While commentators have difficulty reaching consensus on exactly how to label the contemporary operating environment, few fail to note its complexity. While complexity in warfare is nothing new, ‘globalisation and the spread of information and communications technology have led to a greater interconnectivity and increased interdependence over much shorter time scales’.⁷ In other words, things are happening faster, and the activities of seemingly distant actors are now having a more rapid and often more significant impact. By means of example, it would have been inconceivable a generation ago that the release of Innocence of Muslims in the United States could have sparked protests around the world with such rapidity.

While commentators have difficulty reaching consensus on exactly how to label the contemporary operating environment, few fail to note its complexity.

The Western world’s struggle to cope with complex problems has exacerbated the learning and predictive failures that have always been present in both military and civilian organisations. In response, the Santa Fe Institute was established in 1984 and utilised the field of complex systems science, devoted to the study of CAS, to develop new methods for understanding and addressing complex problems.⁸

In order to contextualise the military relevance of CAS thinking, it is necessary to examine some fundamental CAS concepts. In the broadest sense, CAS are living systems⁹ consisting of multiple actors, or agents, which can ‘learn from experience’.¹⁰ A system is said to be complex when its agents are all inter-related, think for themselves and act according to their own agendas; their union creates a whole that is distinct from the sum of its individual parts. A system’s complexity is said to increase in line with the number, diversity and interaction of its constituent agents.

It is important to note that often it is the relationships between agents, rather than the actual agents themselves, that proves the critical factor. The characteristics of a CAS are therefore as ‘much a function of the quality of connections as the quality of individual members’.¹¹ For example, simply characterising an agent within the Afghanistan ‘CAS’ as ‘an insurgent’ might be missing the point; a more important consideration might be the nature of his relationships or interaction with other agents in the system, all of which have a significant impact on shaping his agenda.

None of this discussion is particularly profound; indeed many might argue that this is simply an overly scientific way of explaining phenomena that warfighting practitioners have long known. However, our continued inability to apply these lessons serves as indication that Western militaries still don’t ‘get it’. Therefore, using CAS theory as a lens to view complex problems may provide an alternative means of addressing the constituent problems.

CAS theory explains that, due to the network of interdependencies, the problem under consideration cannot be successfully treated by dividing it into subproblems that can be handled separately. However, early attempts at addressing the drug problem in Afghanistan did just that; separate task groups dedicated their efforts to poppy eradication with unintended consequences for other elements fighting the insurgency.

The situation cannot be successfully addressed at only one scale, and due to the effect of external influences decision-makers cannot afford to focus only on events inside some arbitrary boundary. ‘Scales’ and ‘boundaries’ are CAS concepts related to the natural tendency to want to neatly frame any problem we are trying to address. However, complex problems don’t work in this manner as any action can have unintended consequences, often outside the boundary or scale of the CAS that we think we are dealing with. This idea is central to chaos theory’s famous ‘Butterfly Effect’, or the military concept of the ‘Strategic Corporal’ where the actions of one individual agent at the tactical scale can dramatically alter events at the more distant strategic and political scales.

This idea is central to chaos theory’s famous ‘Butterfly Effect’, or the military concept of the ‘Strategic Corporal’ ...

Linear extrapolation of current conditions can lead to serious errors. In his seminal work The Black Swan,¹² Nassim Nicholas Taleb illustrates this point by warning us to ‘learn from the turkey’. As Christmas approaches, the turkey receives more and more food, such that—through linear extrapolation—the turkey goes to sleep on Christmas Eve with high expectations for the next day. The shock that the turkey receives on the chopping block on Christmas morning is not dissimilar to the shock that military decision-makers often receive when their linear extrapolations come crashing down due to an unintended consequence.

Many, perhaps most, of the important aspects of the problem are hidden.¹³ Based solely on the situations perceived at the start of planning, there is a strong tendency to use military planning tools to predict the outcomes of an interaction with a CAS. However, this is futile if many of the important aspects of the problem are hidden, and that any interaction with the CAS will cause it to change unpredictably. Therefore the focus of planners should shift from solving problems through the construction of a rigid course of action based on predictions of the future to monitoring what is actually happening in order to react accordingly. A CAS must therefore be approached at a holistic level. Rather than attempting to over-simplify the complex, planners must embrace the fact that ‘messiness is key’.¹⁴ Rather than trying to examine agents individually, the network should be viewed as a unified whole.¹⁵ Thus, pattern recognition is critical to understanding CAS.

This concept is graphically represented in Figure 1.1 as an image mosaic, where thousands of tiny images (in a CAS sense, agents or components) make up the bigger picture of the Mona Lisa. The decision-maker needs to address the individual agents in order to influence the overall system, yet this is impossible to achieve without changing the construct of the system as a whole. Moreover, unlike an image mosaic, the agents within a CAS are not static, but constantly interacting. Thus, decision-makers are faced with the competing requirements to maintain sight of the overall pattern while simultaneously addressing its constituent nodes.

When considering a CAS in the real world, it is likely that boundaries will have to be drawn, however, (somewhat paradoxically) one must remain cognisant of the fact that actions outside these boundaries can have a profound effect on the system. A CAS does not require a central decision-making body to impose order onto the system, and indeed any attempt to ‘globally control the overall pattern’ is likely to ‘inhibit the local adaptation to challenges’¹⁶ and result in the emergence of powerful informal hierarchies.¹⁷ The net result is that one cannot ‘order’ a CAS to change. To operate optimally, a CAS therefore requires some kind of centralised decision-making body that can manage patterns and coordinate action, but not necessarily engage directly in the system.¹⁹

To operate optimally, a CAS therefore requires some kind of centralised decision-making body that can manage patterns and coordinate action ...

Figure 1.1. A CAS and its constituent agents¹⁸

This requires a commander and headquarters staff to remain at a level where they can keep their eyes on the ‘big picture’ (the Mona Lisa), while coordinating subordinate elements to interact with the tiny images to achieve a desired end-state. In real life, it is unlikely for the ‘big picture’ to end up looking exactly like the Mona Lisa, rather mission success might be considered achieved if the finished product looks somewhat like a seated lady.

The basic CAS concepts provide military practitioners an alternative viewpoint through which contemporary problems might better be understood. Given the unpredictability of outcomes within a CAS, it is almost certain that any intervention approach will require constant modification (by the headquarters responsible for the ‘big picture’) as the system interacts and adapts. Applied to today’s operating environment, CAS theory provides a lens through which military decision-makers might change focus from trying to know the world to making sense of the world.²⁰

What the Military Can Learn From CAS Theory

The ability to adapt is probably most useful to any military organization and most characteristic of successful ones, for with it, it is possible to overcome both learning and predictive failures.

- Eliot Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes²¹

Sense-making versus decision-making. Civilian organisations have embraced elements of CAS science through complexity leadership theory. This theory states that for organisations to be effective within a CAS they must:

...shift the theoretical grounding of leadership away from a focus on individual leaders’ one-way interpersonal influence toward viewing organisational actors enacting leadership through dynamic, multidirectional interaction that fosters effective sense-making about emerging events.²²

Despite these developments in the civilian world, military models continue to pursue one-way interpersonal influence through a chain of command. By pursuing this method, military decision-makers fail to establish effective sense-making and the ability to adapt to emerging events.

Every complex problem is unique. Even though two complex problems may look similar, ‘one can never be certain that the particulars of a problem do not override its commonalities with other problems already dealt with’.²³ In this respect, it is important to guard against methodism, the ‘unthinking application of a sequence of actions we have once learned’.²⁴ Given the high levels of uncertainty present when dealing with a complex problem, military planners often look to find similarities with a previously ‘solved’ problem and, adding a liberal dose of methodism convince themselves that the solution to that problem will also fit their current dilemma.²⁵

... military planners often look to find similarities with a previously ‘solved’ problem ...

A recent article by the civilian company Icosystem details how the mental framework of military decision-makers responsible for allocating resources and prioritising needs is entirely defined by their previous experience of a growing budget and dramatically fewer constraints than today.²⁶ As a result, the prevailing decision heuristics (the subconscious cognitive mechanisms by which humans make decisions) in use today are those which proved successful in a very different environment and under very different constraints. Worse, heuristics tend to focus a decision-maker’s attention on the ‘stuff’ that is easiest to comprehend; what’s ‘available’ at the time the decision needs to be made; the last thing he or she may have been working on; in other words, the ‘cognitively obvious’.²⁷

Ordered, linear approaches are not adequate. When viewed with an understanding of CAS theory, modern military thought is disturbingly linear. ADF doctrine prescribes ordered approaches to problem solving rather than adaptive ones. All too often military experts strive for a failsafe design that attempts to cater for every possible outcome through a series of linear cause-and-effect sequences (‘Actions On’ are a perfect example of this).²⁸ Unfortunately, the world does not tend to operate in a linear fashion. CAS theory embraces this nonlinearity by teaching decision-makers that linear extrapolation of current conditions can lead to serious errors.

In an attempt to simplify the complex, military planning methods seem intent on removing friction. In military planning, removal of friction allows for the problem to be demonstrably ‘solved’. Yet, as Alex Ryan of the US Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies notes, ‘friction is roughly those factors that differentiate between real war and war on paper’.²⁹ Thus, when applied in the real world, these neat ‘solutions’ commonly fail. Again, messiness is key and the decision-maker must have established effective sense-making to adapt to emerging events.

The linearity inherent in military thought can be viewed as existing in both the horizontal and vertical planes. Horizontal linearity manifests itself in a perennial attempt to predict the future. Many professionals seem to believe that uncertainty is a threat and its admission a sign of weakness. This results in employment of planning models too heavily reliant on predictability.³⁰ By accepting the central CAS tenet that prediction is impossible, planners can ‘give up 100% predictability and control’³¹ and instead focus on pattern recognition, thus allowing ‘the path forward to reveal itself’.³²

This has relevance in the application of operational decision-making processes. The US Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP), for example, can result in ‘myopic decision-making’ through the comparison of ‘a single course of action against potentially factitious standards, thus fuelling low-risk, single-loop learning while “discouraging more frame-breaking innovations and change”.’³³ Likewise, Lieutenant Colonel Chris Smith notes that application of the Australian Joint Military Appreciation Process (JMAP) can also display reductive characteristics. Smith argues the execution of the JMAP is ‘biased to favour convergent thinking, which follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one correct solution.’³⁴ Compounding these shortcomings, processes such as the MDMP, JMAP and Britain’s Six-Step Operational Estimate are all centred on analysis of a clearly-defined political or military-strategic end-state. If recent operations teach anything, it is that this end-state is unlikely to be clear, if provided at all.³⁵

Horizontal linearity is also apparent in the tendency for military planners to exhibit what CAS theorist Dietrich Dorner refers to as ‘ballistic behaviour’.’³⁶ This could also be described as a ‘fire and forget’ attitude, and refers to an assumption that the conditions in existence at the start of an interaction with a CAS will remain consistent throughout. However, as previously discussed, within a CAS every interaction alters the context in an unpredictable fashion, yet formal military planning still retains a ‘reliance on forecasting and... (a) clear understanding of cause-effect relationships.’³⁷

... within a CAS every interaction alters the context in an unpredictable fashion ...

Vertical linearity refers to the belief that hierarchical military structures are an effective means of commanding and controlling a CAS. Ryan notes, ‘efforts to fully centralise military operations and to exert complete control by a single decisionmaker are inconsistent with the intrinsically complex and distributed nature of war’.³⁸ Attempts to establish practical control over CAS are futile and the best that can be hoped for is to damp undesirable behaviours and reinforce desirable ones in order to sustain the system in an equilibrium band that is, if not acceptable, at least recognisable.³⁹ Therefore although military decision-makers will have the ability to remove some of the agents influencing the CAS, they cannot order a CAS to change.

Understanding is central. Dorner’s experiments use a series of microworlds involving decision-making in complex situations to indicate that most participants achieved early successes, but when confronted with unintended consequences their performance deteriorated. The end result for an overwhelming majority of participants (~90%) was catastrophic or chronic failure.⁴⁰ Dorner demonstrated that those participants who allowed themselves to develop a level of system understanding prior to acting were consistently more successful in dealing with complex problems.⁴¹

A significant finding of Dorner’s experiments was that the strongest predictor of which players would be in the successful minority was their level of ambiguity tolerance. Critically, these players reflected on their actions and thinking and were therefore able to learn. Moreover, the detailed decision-making behaviours of the unsuccessful majority reproduced various cognitive traps. Examples include linear extrapolation of processes which are in fact not linear, oversteering in the presence of long delays between cause and effect, over-generalisation, and paying too much attention to immediate local problems instead of trying to see the ‘bigger’ picture. A very significant factor in poor performance was the well-documented confirmation bias,⁴² which Dorner found was taken to the extreme of perceptual defence⁴³ by the poorly-performing majority.

As a result, when faced with a complex problem, decision-makers had poor situation understanding, were likely to treat symptoms rather than causal factors, were susceptible to methodism,⁴⁴ and violently oscillated between over-planning and major impulsive decisions. But the most significant failure was meta-cognitive: a lack of self-reflection and acceptance of responsibility. These behaviours amount to an almost inescapable ‘logic of failure’ and provide valuable lessons for military decision-makers when confronted with complex problems.

... the most significant failure was meta-cognitive: a lack of self-reflection and acceptance of responsibility.

A Response Option - The Adaptive Stance

In Dorner’s experiments the successful minority demonstrated decision-making behaviours that were able to counter their evolutionary heritage of biases, heuristics and cognitive predispositions by adopting an adaptive approach.⁴⁵ The Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) has attempted to operationalise and synthesise adaptation / CAS concepts, and Dorner’s work on decision-making.⁴⁶ This work, in support of an Army Science and Technology Support Request, has led to the Adaptive Stance—an intellectual stance that creates a particular pattern of decisionmaking in complex situations. 

Initial research has demonstrated that cultivating an Adaptive Stance offers a more effective methodological framework for managing, creating, shaping and interacting with complex systems and situations.⁴⁷ At an individual level, the Adaptive Stance embodies the military ideals of initiative, flexibility, resilience, integrity, mental toughness, cool-headedness, and objectivity. It is also a stance that requires some autonomy as it would be difficult to practise in an organisation that demanded conformity and used prescriptive command. Such an organisation would be incapable of utilising the vast learning and adaptive potential of its members.⁴⁸ As such, the Adaptive Stance is entirely compatible with, and arguably a necessary component of, Mission Command.

The Adaptive Stance is built within a framework of a number of key personal qualities:

Ambiguity tolerance. There are no simple solutions to complex problems, and attempts to remove ambiguity from a situation can be very dangerous.⁴⁹ Every effort must therefore be made to resist the urge to over-simplify the complex. Again, one must accept that messiness and sense-making are key.

Self-reflection through ever-present consideration of the questions: ‘How would I know if I was wrong about this?’ and ‘How much would it matter?’ This characteristic encapsulates an ‘ingrained habit of thoughtful self-reflection about the effectiveness of one’s beliefs, actions and decisions’.⁵⁰ It echoes the requirement to treat one’s own ideas dispassionately, helps to combat confirmation bias, and primes the practitioner to be constantly on the lookout for ‘Question Four’ moments.⁵¹

Decriminalisation of being wrong, openness to learning and supporting others’ learning. If one accepts that it is virtually impossible to predict the outcomes of an interaction with a CAS, and the process of adaptation entails elements of trial and error, then it becomes completely naive to expect ‘fail-safe business plans with defined outcomes’.⁵² Toleration of failure is an ‘essential aspect of experimental understanding’⁵³ and as such, the Adaptive Stance demands the acceptance and acknowledgement of mistakes in order to facilitate learning and, ultimately, adaptation. Importantly, this should also extend to ‘near-misses’,⁵⁴ which are too often hidden in fear of persecution. Instead, these should be thought of as ‘free experiments’, carrying ‘potentially valuable information about tolerances and robustness of procedures, and failure modes of...systems’.⁵⁵

The Adaptive Stance appreciates that it is much more important for personnel to be prepared to be wrong⁵⁶ than to feel that they always have to be right (which would require them to either be risk-averse or in denial). This ensures an organisation is open to learning by making it permissible for personnel to acknowledge mistakes or being proven incorrect.⁵⁷ This can be enhanced through an environment that supports learning,  as initial research by DSTO has demonstrated that coaching in the Adaptive Stance has led to more effective decision-making.⁵⁸

These qualities and behaviours significantly increase the quantity and quality of learning by leveraging the opportunities inherent in every action and decision. Adopting the Adaptive Stance provides decision-makers with a mindset better suited to recognising the CAS in which they are operating. However, to fully embrace the potential offered by the Adaptive Stance, Army needs to undertake a mindset shift in the way it trains and prepares leaders.

... to fully embrace the potential offered by the Adaptive Stance, Army needs to undertake a mindset shift in the way it trains and prepares leaders.

Developing an Adaptive Stance Within Army

Developments in Training

Schools train us never to admit that we do not know the answer, and most organisations reinforce the lesson by rewarding people who excel in advocating their views, not inquiring into complex issues... that very process blocks out any new understandings which might threaten us. The consequence is skilled incompetence.⁵⁹

The traditional paradigm for training perceives certain determinable linear cause-and-effect relationships—linking specific scripted activities with ‘required’ training objectives that must be met for a unit to be deemed deployable.⁶⁰ The synthesis of complex ideas and treating the mind as a pattern matching system (priming it with a deep and broad personal exploration of war and warfare) sit uneasily with competency-based learning models.⁶¹

In order for a training regime to fully develop the decision-making of junior leaders to operate within a CAS, it must recognise and prepare for the inherent presence of ambiguity. Preparing junior leaders to operate effectively in such an environment will only be achieved through realistic training that employs a free-thinking opposing force, with real-world capabilities and strategies.⁶² Training must establish a framework that is based upon open, dynamic, emergent relationships that are too complex to be absolutely known. This will require leaders to adopt sensemaking in tandem with adaptive decision-making rather than decision-making focused on over-simplifying the problem.

Current approaches to training reinforce the ordered, linear approaches to problem solving which are not adequate when faced with a complex situation. Individual courses and unit training should increase the number of scenarios where decision-makers are confronted by a complex situation where they are forced to make a large number of decisions in a stressed environment. In addition, war games, tactical decision games and free-play field exercises must constitute the bulk of the curriculum in courses and be enhanced through the ability to undertake training post H-hour so the decision-maker can reflect on their actions when faced with unintended consequences. Approaches that constantly challenge personnel— mentally and morally as well as physically—by taking them out of their ‘comfort zone’ will enhance the Adaptive Stance qualities of Army decision-makers.

The stressed training environment must tolerate failure. Army excels at winning the exercise battles that they design and run themselves, but rarely do these translate neatly into real life operations. More importantly, ‘winning’ in these scenarios may actually be counter-productive in the long term, serving to reinforce organisational confirmation bias concerning current practices. Instead, to develop an Adaptive Stance, Army must decriminalise failure in training by creating unfamiliar and complex environments that not only challenge an individual’s decision-making but encourage decision-makers to learn from failures to achieve success. This is where simulation comes to the fore.

Army excels at winning the exercise battles that they design and run themselves, but rarely do these translate neatly into real life operations.

The development of ‘cognitive gyms’ at training centres and within the Brigade Simulation Centres offers a controlled and reduced risk medium to enhance decision-making when faced with a complex problem. Just as a traditional gymnasium is used regularly to develop physical conditioning, a cognitive gym would see decisionmakers developing the ‘particular decision making behaviours (and) meta-cognitive tools’ that have been identified as being ‘more effective in complex environments.’⁶³ These gyms would use real-time strategy gaming to expose personnel to complex problems. The Australian Army can leverage from the work of other nations; the US Army has developed the Adaptive Leadership Model, which enhances adaptability through a rapid decision-making process utilising an experiential learning model facilitated through scenario based learning.⁶⁴ Further developments in the US Army include Advanced Situational Awareness Training to enhance decision-making skills in junior commanders.

The development of cognitive gyms would also remove some of the difficulties associated with replicating complex problems in the classroom. The success of these cognitive gyms would be enhanced by mentoring and coaching decision-makers to diminish biases and support the development of the personal qualities of the Adaptive Stance. Critical to success is ensuring staff at training institutions have the experience and capacity to enable a training framework that facilitates the Adaptive Stance.

Develop Emotional Intelligence

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

- Aristotle

A critical enabler to developing an Adaptive Stance is equipping commanders with the tools to undertake self-reflection and avoid being channelled by biases. Renowned psychologist Dan Goleman’s theory—that a person can have first class training, an incisive mind, and an endless supply of good ideas, but still not make a great leader if they do not possess emotional intelligence—has utility in developing an Adaptive Stance.⁶⁵ The Army spends an exceptional amount of time emphasising the importance of leader-to-follower relationships, teamwork, esprit de corps and organisational climate.⁶⁶ However, it dedicates little time to facilitating the development of its leaders’ emotional intelligence.

Given that those who need the most help usually have blind spots, the diagnosis from multiple view points provided by 360 degree feedback can serve as an excellent first step in developing emotional intelligence.⁶⁷ As human beings and as leaders we need to understand how the complex network of our motives, values, desires, behaviours and principles drive and shape our decisions. Unlike the US Army, which has implemented the multi-source assessment and feedback (MSAF) program, the Australian Army has been slow to adopt feedback mechanisms outside the annual report. A US battalion commander demonstrates the utility of the MSAF program by stating:

as for the 360 degree survey, I must admit that at first I was sceptical ... However, it was fantastic. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I found the survey extremely useful for me personally and also an extremely useful tool for my leadership.⁶⁸

The Centre for Army Leadership has launched the MSAF program as a confidential and focused online assessment tool to promote self-awareness for individual leader development in today’s complex operational environment.

Developments in Planning Methodologies

Linearity in the current training framework has also had a profound impact on contemporary Professional Military Education (PME), doctrine and formal planning methodologies. CAS theory highlights the futility of this type of thinking, yet it appears to be predominant within PME. Chris Smith provides an alternative (Figure 1.2) to the existing convergent planning approach. This divergent approach espoused in the Australian Army’s capstone document Adaptive Campaigning – Future Land Operating Concept accepts that the single correct solution does not exist and decision-makers should aim for an acceptable ‘least worst’.⁶⁹

The Military Appreciation Process is burdened by linear procedures that do not reflect natural cognitive processes and therefore does not support adaptation or complex problem solving.⁷⁰ Army officers Robert Calhoun and Brendan Hayward offer a solution that is based on a systemic (rather than analytic) approach, focusing on interactions and feedback mechanisms rather than concentrating on agents to develop insights on where to apply leverage within a security and stabilisation operation.⁷¹ Therefore, the art of applying the MAP is more important than the procedure itself. This reinforces the requirement for staff and mentors to possess the experience and capacity to enable a training framework that facilitates the Adaptive Stance.

Commanders can utilise the MAP for a CAS problem if they focus on the nonlinearity of feedback mechanisms, implying a requirement for the continuous monitoring of measures of effectiveness in order to adapt operations.⁷² Instead of problem-centric thinking, decision-makers need to be encouraged to consider appreciating the complex system holistically—seeking patterns and emergence; the art of sense-making rather than decision-making. Decision-makers can ‘demonstrate mastery of the arts of strategy and military planning by adapting frameworks and models to situations, not by forcing a situation to fit a model’.⁷³

Figure 1.2. Linear and Non-Linear Approaches to Military Problems.⁷⁴

Foster a Culture of Disproval

This might ostensibly appear to be a hallmark of a negative mindset and will be difficult to foster without a shift in the current military mindset. However, as unintended consequences arise from important hidden aspects of the CAS, it is important to identify the earliest possible evidence to suggest a conjecture may be wrong studies conducted on ‘high reliability organisations’ support this concept, demonstrating that these organisations consistently display a ‘preoccupation with failure’.⁷⁵ Such thinking also underpins the Adaptive Stance principle of adopting an openness to learning and, in particular, consideration of the question ‘How would I know if I was wrong about this?’

Organisational diversity within and outside the ADF offers a medium to foster a culture of disproval. Incorporation of participants from ‘an assortment of disciplines, professions and occupations’⁷⁶ ensures ‘multiple realities’⁷⁷ within a system, and can assist in overcoming groupthink. If needed, changes should be made to regular patterns of interaction to actively facilitate this, such as expanding attendance at planning groups, crossfunction planning or increasing external-to-unit participation in exercises.

Although introduced agents may include other military or government personnel, consideration should also be given to increasing diversity of gender, race, religion and educational background. Indeed, potentially the most advantageous inclusion might be individuals representative of an enemy—in the terrorist case, ‘middle-class, good lateral thinkers’ or, as knowledge management thinker Dave Snowden colourfully puts it, ‘people like me, who aren’t military, but who are devious bastards’.⁷⁸ Such cross-cultural placements will only work if leaders create an environment where minority participants are ‘safe to float a different perspective and have it taken seriously’.⁷⁹

... potentially the most advantageous inclusion might be individuals representative of an enemy ...

The Adaptive Stance requires a training environment which appreciates that it is much more important for decision-makers to admit error so as to be open to learning than to feel that they always have to be right. Army needs to foster an environment that supports the learning of others and avoids a scapegoat culture. Rupert Hoskin, in ‘Reflections on Command’, demonstrates the climate required to develop an Adaptive Stance:

If  issues arise during a subordinate’s execution of a task, then the commander should ask himself where he failed: poor command climate, poorly expressed intent, insufficient attention to the backbrief, failure to allocate appropriate resources, or incorrect choice to employ mission command with an ill-suited subordinate. Only after doing so, should he then consider what went wrong at the lower level.⁸⁰

Develop Understanding

Given that CAS theory emphasises the requirement for continued understanding, organisations require a means of describing and sharing an internal model. The ultimate purpose of this model should not be seen as decision-making, but sense-making—the creation of shared meaning within the organisation.⁸¹ It therefore needs to reflect multiple perspectives and scales, and leverage the diversity of individuals’ views.⁸² Naturally, not all of these views are going to be in accord, and many of them may be contradictory. As such, the internal model is going to be messy, but every effort needs to be made to resist the temptation to over-simplify or over-generalise. Decision-makers need the kind of organisational intelligence that allows them to hold competing thoughts concurrently and remain sufficiently emotionally detached to identify patterns that emerge from the mess.

How then can the decision-maker develop their understanding? The most obvious method is through simple meetings. Regular cross-briefs with an appropriate range of agents within the organisation can be used to formally update the decision-maker so they have visibility of the thousands of tiny images (in a CAS sense, agents or components) that make up the organisation’s bigger picture. Critical to this approach is using a recorded format and employing non-rebuttal techniques to ensure that minority, or less powerfully presented, perspectives are not lost. While admittedly rudimentary, this technique would at least provide a start-point for facilitation of organisational adaptation, and could be incorporated at little cost into the standard briefing schedule already in existence in most units. Existing corporate tools, such as Mess Mapping,⁸³ may be appropriate vehicles to facilitate this approach.

More comprehensive techniques are also feasible. Social networking tools may provide an ideal method for decision-makers to maintain a big-picture view of the existing informal networks within a CAS. Sites such as Facebook or Twitter can be viewed as internal models of the various social in-groups, or CAS, that they represent—the inputs from the various agents within each thematic system are messy, but over time patterns emerge. The process of trendspotting by monitoring social network sites, already in wide use,⁸⁴ essentially amounts to pattern recognition within the messy internal model of a target system. Likewise, augmented reality applications such as Layar,⁸⁵ which overlays geospatial data and user-provided third-party information onto a mobile handset’s video view in real-time, could also be used as a conceptual template for internal model representation. This type of platform would be particularly appropriate in an operational setting and the impermanent nature of this format allows an image of the problem and solution to gradually and concurrently emerge, thereby facilitating the decision-maker’s overall understanding.

Social networking tools may provide an ideal method for decision-makers to maintain a big-picture view of the existing informal networks within a CAS.

These proposed first steps should be seen as just that. They are certainly not presented as inviolable rules to be rigidly adhered to, nor are they suggested to guarantee success. Indeed, in many ways, where the process starts is immaterial; the critical point is that introduction of the Adaptive Stance should, in itself, be an adaptive process. The ultimate endstate is therefore a self-fulfilling prophesy: the Adaptive Stance should be implemented in a manner consistent with the Adaptive Stance.

Conclusion

This article has argued that current military models of decision-making are not optimised to tackle the complex problems of today’s operating environment. Linear, Newtonian approaches are still being used in an attempt to make sense of the decidedly nonlinear CAS into which troops are thrust. DSTO research into decisionmaking and CAS-based thought has led to the development of the Adaptive Stance to counter complex problems. However, realising the potential of this research demands a fundamental philosophical change within Army.

The CAS theory discussed in this article identifies that implementing such a change will not be easy. The same negative feedback that accounts for the resilience of military organisations can also prevent them from rapidly embracing change, even that which promises significant system improvement. Fortunately, CAS theory also offers solutions. By acknowledging that change cannot be directly imposed onto a CAS and that self-organised, informal networks are constantly active, military decision-makers can seek to identify and manipulate the real levers of change within their organisations. By creating an environment that accepts the fact that messiness is key, military decision-making can stop trying to over-simplify the complex and instead concentrate on pattern recognition. Effort expended in the impossible task of trying to predict what is going to happen can be channelled into understanding, and providing the most appropriate response to what is actually happening.

In order to empower the individuals in an organisation to adopt this approach through the Adaptive Stance it is necessary for senior leaders to lead by example, ‘thus demonstrating that the organisation really does value adaptation and learning for tomorrow rather that the importance of achieving a perfect score for today’.⁸⁶

Endnotes

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1     ‘The Divine Afflatus’, New York Evening Mail, 16 November 1917.

2     Adaptive Campaigning: Future Land Operating Concept, Department of Defence, Canberra, p. 37.

3     Examples of these studies are captured in Norman Dixon, On The Psychology of Military Incompetence, Random House, 1991; William P Bottom, ‘Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment’, The Academy of Management Review, October 2004; and Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

4     Anne-Marie Grisogono and Vanja Radenovic, ‘The Adaptive Stance – Steps towards teaching more effective complex decision-making’ in Hiroki Sayama, Ali A Minai, Dan Braha and Yaneer Bar-Yam (eds), Unifying Themes In Complex Systems: Volume VIII, Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Complex Systems, New England Complex Systems Institute Book Series, NECSI Knowledge Press, p. 714 <http://necsi.edu/events/iccs2011/papers/177.pdf&gt; accessed 6 May 2012.

5     Horst WJ Rittel and Melvin M Webber, ‘Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning’, Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, 1973, p. 160.

6     Christopher R Paparone and George E Reed, ‘The Reflective Military Practitioner: How Military Professionals Think in Action’, Military Review, Vol. 88, No. 2, 2008, p. 66.

7     Alex Ryan, ‘Military Applications of Complex Systems’ in Dov M Gabbay, Cliff Hooker, Paul Thagard, John Collier and John Woods (eds), Philosophy of Complex Systems (unpublished), Elsever, Amsterdam, p. 1.

8     Alex Ryan, ‘The Foundation for an Adaptive Approach: Insights from the Science of Complex Systems’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. VI, No. 3, 2009, p. 70.

9     Ibid., p. 71.