The Mess Is the Method

Last week, I read By Water Beneath the Walls: The Rise of the Navy SEALs by Benjamin Milligan. The book asks the question: Why was it the Navy that built an enduring commando unit, rather than the Army or Marines? 

It’s worth noting that the tactics of guerrilla warfare and direct action weren’t new concepts when the SEALs were founded. Milligan writes, “Within months of the Plymouth Rock landing, even the Pilgrims had adopted the skulking raids of their native allies and enemies.” And in the Revolutionary War, American troops “leaned on raiders throughout the conflict to tie down the British wherever they could.” Moreover, at various points, each of the military services recognized the value of creating these small units to undertake specialized missions. However, these units were usually misused or repurposed from their original missions once the larger force got control of them. 

For example, the US Army Rangers were created during WWII, modeled after British commando units. However, the Rangers’ unique role was gradually diminished because Army commanders, instead of developing new strategies to leverage their capabilities, tried to fold the Rangers into their preexisting approaches. Milligan writes, “Preoccupied with the readiness of his front-line soldiers, [Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army] George Marshall had created the Rangers not to perfect the art of Churchill’s coastal raids, but to serve his infantry: first, by gaining battlefield experience that could be transferred to the rest of his troops; second, by handing them off to infantry commanders who committed the Rangers to missions with impossible odds and then either blamed them for their failures or diminished their uniqueness by using them no differently than the regular infantry.” 

There’s a powerful lesson in that example: innovation is often only as useful as our mindsets allow. Having a shiny new power tool may mean little if we use it in exactly the same ways we did when only old tools were available. It’s like getting a Ferrari and thinking only, “Great—my trips to the grocery store will be faster.”

We often talk about how hard change is on people in organizations, but it’s usually the leaders who push change on others. However, the story of the SEALs shows just how much the difficulty of innovation comes from the fact that change is also hard for leaders.

Consider this description of one of the Navy leaders critical to the development of the SEALs: “‘As abrasive as a file’ and celebrated by his sailors for his legendary profanity, [Rear Admiral Richmond] Turner’s every trait seemed to indicate a manic personality—a gaunt frame that looked almost ‘loose-jointed’; an addiction to whatever bottle he was holding; and a faithful monogamy to every chain-smoked cigarette that touched his lips, right ‘down to [its] last soggy half-inch.’” 

Given that personality, it’s probably not surprising that Turner also had little problem disturbing traditional organizational boundaries, such as deferring to the Army on land-based operations. “Handed a plan by an [Army] general, Turner had examined it for several moments, then declared, ‘It stinks. Whose is it?’ ‘It’s mine,’ replied the general. ‘It still stinks.’”

It’s easy to say about characters like Turner, “they’re not a good fit” or “they don’t get along well with others,” but these are the kinds of mavericks that drive forward change, even though it’s uncomfortable for other leaders.  

Even the Green Berets almost couldn’t have their eponymous headgear—specifically chosen because unit leaders wanted to look different—because a more senior leader did not like the fact that they stood out from others. “In 1956, angry after his headquarters had been raided and three of the four tires stolen from his personal jeep, Fort Bragg commandant General Paul Adams [...] went on to forbid the wearing of the beret as an offense of court-martial proportions. When a beret with a general’s stars had been good-humoredly placed on his head during a briefing, he had ‘snatched it off,’ thrown it across the room, and stomped out.’” 

The beret was officially approved only after President Kennedy admired it during an official review. “‘Those are nice,’ the president said casually, still smiling, pointing the sunglasses in his hand to [Colonel Bill] Yarborough’s cover. ‘How do you like the green beret?’” When Yarborough told him the beret was unauthorized, the president said, “It is now.” It took a president to override the organizational instinct for conformity.

So how did the Navy succeed in creating a land-based commando force that clearly exceeded the Navy's official charter, and then make it stick?

According to Marine and researcher Bing West, the challenging conditions of the Vietnam War created a situation in which few leaders wanted to be fully responsible for the SEALs’ activities deep in the jungle, which meant “the Navy’s leaders had allowed the SEALs more latitude than they had their other units.” With that freedom and their existing values for adaptation, they were able to figure out how to fight effectively. “[W]hen the tactics of patrol and ambush had proved unproductive, 'nobody not a SEAL,' meaning no blue-water superior officer, had ordered them to try something else—they had just done it.”

The result was that the SEAL units “produced a steady supply” of successes, creating enough organizational legitimacy to continue and expand.

Put another way, there was no one to interfere with the test-and-learn process necessary for the SEALs’ success. There was no one to cite the early failures as a reason to conclude, “This will never work.” And there was no one trying to control the innovation process or insisting that innovators dress and behave like everyone else.  

The lesson isn’t complicated, but it runs against many leaders’ instincts. You can’t control innovation—and putting people in charge of it who have a high need for control is a near-certain way to snuff it out. That’s because innovation is usually messy, and the people best positioned to drive it are usually disturbers of the peace, rather than those who submit to the control of others. For these reasons, the work of creating the conditions for innovation to occur needs to begin in leaders’ minds, with tolerance for the seeming messiness of the process and the people involved.