Military Review English Edition July-August 2014 | Page 50

Much of our time as military professionals is taken
up with our jobs. Nonetheless, some of us seek ways to
look beyond today’s activities and toward understanding the true nature of war. We look for ways to develop
ourselves so we can play our part in meeting the needs
of our Nation. Mechanisms such as the Militärische
Gesellschaft and the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum
provide an outlet for such self-development. At the
same time, they tie us closer to networks of people who
can help us along the path of development, helping us
improve our profession and ourselves.

Overcoming the Antibody Response
to Innovation
In 1902, a young U.S. Naval officer serving in the
Far East came across a British technique for providing
continuously aimed naval gunfire onboard a rolling ship
deck.12 His name was Lt. William Sims. Before this, U.S.
naval gunners would wait for the sea to readjust the elevation of the guns, and they would time the firing of the
guns as well as they could. Recognizing the importance
of a continuous-fire capability, Sims learned all he
could about the British technique. He sent the findings
back to the Navy leadership, ultimately providing 13
written reports as he gradually refined his technique.
After his final report, the Bureau of Ordnance responded with a terse message saying that it had shown conclusively that his techniques were unworkable. Not to
be deterred, Sims persisted, eventually sending a letter
to President Theodore Roosevelt. Fortunately for Lt.
Sims, Roosevelt was a naval enthusiast and was actively
seeking ways to promote U.S. sea power abroad. Saving
the impetuous Lt. Sims from almost certain court
martial at the hands of the Navy, President Roosevelt
demanded an objective test of the Navy’s long-range
gunnery skills. In short order the test revealed the necessity of adopting Lt. Sims’ technique, and the young
officer was appointed the “inspector of target practice”
for the Naval Gunnery School. Through a shrewd use
of competition during training, over several years Lt.
Sims instituted the practice of “continuous aim firing” throughout the U.S. Navy—which no doubt had
a tremendous influence on its ability to confront the
German Navy in the North Atlantic at the start of
World War I.
Lieutenants corresponding directly with their
commander in chief about service-related problems
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certainly would not represent a desirable method of
institutional reform. Nonetheless, the example of Lt.
Sims demonstrates that our best ideas often are found
at the lowest echelons of the organization, where
junior professionals see the consequences of inefficiency on a daily basis. The bureaucracy, despite the best
intentions of well-meaning people, often will react to
these disruptive innovations with a sort of “antibody
response” because the innovations naturally threaten the specialization and efficiencies that make that
bureaucracy stable and successful. The solution then
is not letters to the President but peripheral networks
such as the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum where ideas
can be developed, refined, critiqued—and sometimes
discarded—until the very best thinking emerges in a
competitive marketplace of ideas. Sufficiently incubated, proposals arising in this way can then inform
programmatic decisions within the institution.
Unlike Silicon Valley, where the marketplace would
provide developmental support for innovative startups, no similar support exists for military innovation.
To continue to thrive in a complex world, the military needs to retain dedicated professionals who can
promote change from within the organization. The
Defense Entrepreneurs Forum seeks to be one of many
forums committed to this effort. Created, funded, and
run completely by junior officers outside their official
duties, this organization aims to support its members’
desires to innovate within their areas of expertise, not
to network for access to government contracts or advocate for parochial interests within the DOD budget.
For example, some of the solutions from the weekend
in Chicago included the development of a suicide
prevention application, a social media assessment tool
for professional military education, and an innovative
approach to certifying military nurses in patient care.
While not all of these ideas ma 䁉