If America wants a secure future, its defense and security agencies need to start playing the long game by making innovation a functional part of their identities, and training a cadre of innovation leaders to spark ideas today and tomorrow. Examples of this can be found both domestically and abroad, but the U.S. is lagging, setting us up for failures that don’t have to happen.
I had a conversation recently with N2K’s Brian Karpf on the Cyberwire Podcast about my thoughts on technology adoption and change in the DoD. We examined the ongoing challenge of agencies mired in old ways of thinking, and discussed ways to build a solid educational foundation for rising generations who will know how and when to break the rules in order to achieve mission acceleration. That means the ability to articulate a real problem, and then find solutions that can be delivered with the speed and efficiencies necessary to match the accelerating pace of technology.
Innovation as core competency
Innovation is a popular buzzword, but it can’t be achieved without a careful commitment to weaving its thread throughout the entire fabric of an organization. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is the first and only government agency to date that has developed an innovation doctrine in addition to making innovation a core function of its organization. Despite operating within severely constrained boundaries in airports, TSA has become a shining example for the innovation process.
Training is a vital component of that success. Through training, TSA is breeding people internally who have the confidence to play by a different set of rules, while still understanding the rules that inform the organization as a whole. This gives staff across the organization the experience to move into positions where they can implement change. That includes people who may not be seen as traditional innovators, but who play a vital role in how TSA functions, such as the finance department, the IT team, and the contract people.
These are the roles that turn the gears in an organization, which can make or break an idea. When TSA’s core innovators want to start building something new and potentially fragile, they can reach out to people across the organization who understand the mission and the rules, and who can help them achieve rapid success. The result for the TSA has been fast adoption of new technologies and capabilities, bringing increased speed and efficiency to its transportation security processes.
This is different from other governmental organizations that have not made this kind of investment. As a result, they don’t have a large pool of trained people to draw on, and their services will not be able to raise up the next generation of innovators who will eventually take leadership positions. When those leaders in innovation leave, the organization has to start shopping for somebody new to backfill those roles.
Beyond the agency: training next generations
This concept is why we developed the Hacking 4 Defense® course, which gives students real, hands-on experience. Students learn to do discovery around a problem and potential solutions, and then find pathways to deliver those solutions to ongoing challenges within the Defense sector. They leave the course with a sense of competence, and it gives them a pattern that they’ll stick with for the rest of their lives no matter what field they choose. From a problem-solving standpoint, the U.S. government has yet to internalize a professional military or civilian education system that does that, except those that are involved with H4D.
In the UK, on the other hand, Hacking for the Ministry of Defense (H4MOD) is taught, in addition to universities, at their Defence Academy at a joint Service level. Senior military officers on the Advanced Command and Staff Course at the UK Defence are eligible to take H4MoD as a part of a MSc in Defense Innovation offered by King’s College London. Officers who take the course then enter higher level staff positions, bringing that knowledge, experience of applying the methodology and wider industry and academic networks with them to enact greater change and innovation. The UK is investing in training innovators at every level.
I often say we don’t have a technology or innovation problem in the U.S., we have a sociology problem. If you don’t develop a society that teaches, embraces and learns new rules, and then gives people the opportunity to get experience applying those rules in different circumstances, you will never build the bench of people needed for the long term. Not only is that detrimental to the nation’s security, you're constantly going to be fishing for people to take the job. You can’t scale that way.
In the past decade, America’s new tech hasn’t fundamentally changed anything. Instead, we’ve put bubblegum and duct tape over the same old problems. Whether it’s national security, defense tech, or cyber security, America’s agencies have to find a better, long-term strategy for people to gain experience.
