Warrior Entrepreneurs: Fostering U.S. Marine Corps Maneuver

Warfare Philosophy

by

Lieutenant Colonel Mark R. Reid United States Marine Corps

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Under the Direction of: Colonel Stephen K. Van Riper

United States Army War College Class of 2017

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14. ABSTRACT

Technological innovation occurs more rapidly, more frequently, and more diffusely today than ever – a

reality many of our adversaries have seized upon. Despite evidence that unique human attributes (e.g.,

creativity, synthesis, empathy) drive success in a more automated world, the DoD still favors technological

breakthroughs over human development to maintain competitive advantage. Rather than trying to outpace

technological innovations, this paper suggests the Marine Corps focus on cultural changes that fill its ranks

with entrepreneurial-minded individuals. Interestingly, the Corps codified several military entrepreneurship

concepts in 1989 through its “maneuver warfare” doctrine. This paper summarizes potential characteristics

and inputs to military entrepreneurship. It analyzes challenges to instituting entrepreneurial culture through

the Corps’ struggle to fully adopt maneuver warfare doctrine. And it recommends several pathways to

fostering entrepreneurial spirit from senior leader engagement to recruiting, to re-imagining our

professional military schools.

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Innovation, Culture, Organizational Change

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Warrior Entrepreneurs: Fostering U.S. Marine Corps Maneuver Warfare Philosophy

(5,801 words)

Abstract

Technological innovation occurs more rapidly, more frequently, and more diffusely today

than ever – a reality many of our adversaries have seized upon. Despite evidence that

unique human attributes (e.g., creativity, synthesis, empathy) drive success in a more

automated world, the DoD still favors technological breakthroughs over human

development to maintain competitive advantage. Rather than trying to outpace

technological innovations, this paper suggests the Marine Corps focus on cultural

changes that fill its ranks with entrepreneurial-minded individuals. Interestingly, the

Corps codified several military entrepreneurship concepts in 1989 through its “maneuver

warfare” doctrine. This paper summarizes potential characteristics and inputs to military

entrepreneurship. It analyzes challenges to instituting entrepreneurial culture through

the Corps’ struggle to fully adopt maneuver warfare doctrine. And it recommends

several pathways to fostering entrepreneurial spirit from senior leader engagement to

recruiting, to re-imagining our professional military schools.

Warrior Entrepreneurs: Fostering U.S. Marine Corps Maneuver Warfare Philosophy

We have a military that is not a very adaptive institution. It always talks about readiness. Well, that’s an Industrial Era term. You need to be more adaptive to problems than you need to be ready for problems. Yet, [military leaders] still talk about readiness every damn day.

—Thomas Ricks1

The demand for transformation is greater today than ever. Momentous

disruptions occur when technology profoundly alters culture. Such events used to

happen about once a century, which allowed society to adjust at a more gradual pace.

But today, at least five disruptions will emerge in the current 100-year period that we

expect to affect cultural adaptation in ways reminiscent of the upheavals preceding

World War I.2

For institutions traditionally dedicated to establishing order, such as the military,

the present rate of change is vexing. But, the ubiquity of these disruptions is impossible

to ignore or avoid. Moreover, to those who embrace uncertainty, such as entrepreneurs,

disruptions offer great opportunities for revolutionary achievements. For these reasons,

the Marine Corps in this era of accelerated change can and must adapt not just

technologically or even organizationally, but culturally, and soon.

In recent decades, the Marine Corps worked mostly around the edges of true

institutional change, following the American military-industrial tactic of bolting things on

and deferring hard decisions, especially regarding people and culture. To prepare the

Corps for a more dynamic future, some Marine leaders are satisfied with simply

integrating new technology, adding or modifying training, and reorganizing forces. Many

would call it reckless to tamper with the Corps’ unique culture, given its role in the

institution’s many triumphs. And most are simply struggling to keep pace with high

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optempo, discipline issues, and other impacts on daily operations.3 As a result, we have

spent little time consciously focused on how our culture will sustain us in the future.

With the current state of affairs, the Marine Corps should become the United

States Armed Forces’ preeminent “incubator” for military entrepreneurs – an institution

that promotes, supports, and connects individuals who: (1) demonstrate “kaizen” – a

persistent drive to change oneself, people, things, and situations for the better; (2) see

the world in terms of interrelated ecosystems; (3) tolerate high levels of uncertainty; and

(4) intrepidly shape the future through rational speculation to create, reimagine, and

apply resources.

Historically, the Marine Corps relied on small groups of radical thinkers who

overcame fierce institutional opposition to bring their ideas to fruition. Today, in an

organization that has become more bureaucratic than entrepreneurial, those individuals

have become harder to find.4 Our entrepreneur deficit is especially troublesome

because studies reveal that technological dominance is less a determinant of military

victory than previously believed and that unique human capabilities – such as empathy,

creativity, and synthesis – drive success in a more automated world.5 Clearly, we need

more than pockets of radical thinkers, we need a Corps full of entrepreneurs.

Further complicating matters is a self-delusion among many Americans regarding

military performance in recent decades. Most notably, though civilian leaders bear

responsibility for poor strategic decisions, proclamations of the “finest military in the

world” overlook the part we played in America’s failure to realize national policy

objectives.6 Similarly, Marine Corps doctrine cautions that, “We cannot rightly expect

our subordinates to exercise boldness and initiative in the field when they are

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accustomed to being oversupervised in garrison”; yet, one struggles to recall when a

sergeant at home station independently took his squad of Marines to the range for live

fire training. 7

The 2016 Marine Corps Operating Concept (MOC) acknowledges the growing

importance of cognitive capabilities, and there is much about Marine culture that we can

and should preserve.8 However, the MOC does not acknowledge that: (1) while the

Marine Corps proclaims maneuver warfare is its governing doctrine, we inconsistently or

incompletely practice its tenets and (2) at present, we are not culturally adapting fast

enough to keep pace with the rate of change.

We must face these challenges directly. Marine Corps success depends neither

on technology nor training and equipping Marines to execute orders. Instead, it will rely

on institutional improvements to create ecosystems that build and engage every

Marine’s adaptability, interoperability, and personal contribution to mission

accomplishment. For these reasons, the Marine Corps should quickly seize the

opportunity to not only encourage innovation wherever it might blossom in the

organization, but to make cultural reforms that nurture entrepreneurial thinking and

behavior throughout the institution.

In the following sections, we consider the conditions calling for more

entrepreneurial Marines. We will then discuss potential characteristics and inputs to

Marine Corps entrepreneurship. Next, we will study challenges to instituting

entrepreneurial culture in the Corps, through its struggle to fully adopt maneuver

warfare theory. Last, we offer recommendations on how to accelerate the Marine Corps’

transformation into America’s leading incubator for military entrepreneurs.

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Why More Entrepreneurial Marines?

Civilization is entering a new era that rewards creativity and mental agility ahead

of simply applying knowledge and processes, which automation is quickly overtaking.9

Your already-outdated iPhone 6 has the computing power to guide 120 million Apollo-

era spacecraft to the moon, and it has been twenty years since a computer beat the

best chess player in the world.10 Consequently, meaningful contribution is becoming

more about employing unique human abilities such as synthesis, judgment, and

engaging organic and artificial networks to collaborate.

Although change is a common feature of human history, the velocity of change in

recent times is momentous. Figure 1 shows the exponential rate of technological

change over the past 300 years.

Figure 1. Exponential Rate of Change11

The acceleration of technological progress since 1950 poses a challenge for any

organization operating in a competitive environment. This struggle is especially acute

within the Department of Defense (DoD), which has been criticized for its institutional

lethargy and rigid managerial culture.12 Notorious for Napoleonic-era staffs and using

1970s-era floppy disks to support its nuclear arsenal, the DoD shows signs of what risk

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analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls “fragility” by failing to position itself better to absorb

shocks, such as the socio-political disruptions, “gray zone” conflict, and climate change

impacts happening today.13 Various observers suggest the military has not adapted

culturally to technological advances, since senior leaders have instead become more

enabled micromanagers.14 Our failure to adapt produces disjointed operational and

strategic results while retarding our warfighters’ potential contributions.

Another significant consequence of accelerating change is the different abilities

required to prosper in the new era. In what we will refer to as the “Augmented Era”, it is

clear that the role of automation is disrupting the ways we live, work, play, and fight.15

Figure 2 illustrates shifting talent requirements associated with technological conditions

by era.

Figure 2. Shift to the Augmented Era16

As the above illustration reflects, physical strength’s significance diminished over

millennia as cognitive abilities became more determinative. That trend continues today

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as abstract thinking (empathy, creativity, synthesis, etc.) overtakes objective thinking

(logic, analysis, etc.) as the driver for success.17

In the Augmented Era, automation will likely address anything that can be

reduced to an algorithm and information will become almost universally accessible,

enabling ever faster operations.18 Consequently, team members who must reach back

to a “decision maker” for confirmation or direction will likely be overwhelmed by events,

as will leaders who fail to support, enable, and intervene only in rare cases. Units such

as Task Force 714 (the joint interagency task force that captured Saddam Hussein in

2003) prove that technology can enable smaller, faster, more lethal units, if leaders act

almost exclusively in an enabling role to maximize opportunities technology provides.19

The centralized control preferred by the U.S. military is especially problematic

because our adversaries seek asymmetric advantage by employing dispersion,

networks, and more unconventional strategies. The National Intelligence Council and

the Joint Staff identify the problem and its cure to be small, agile, distributed human

networks.20 But American advantage in this environment will rely on the unique

individual capabilities inherent to the human networks we develop and employ. Those

team-oriented individuals must be ecologically thinking, comfortable with uncertainty,

intrepid, and speculative – who we conceive in this paper to be military entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurial Spectrum

There is no universally accepted definition of entrepreneurship. “Entrepreneur”

was coined in the early 1700s to describe economic risk-takers – a descriptor that

remains popular today.21 Presently, interpretations of entrepreneurial behavior extend

beyond economics into social, environmental, and other realms. Entrepreneurs are

often portrayed as mavericks or extreme risk takers, and, occasionally, as exceptional

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risk-avoiders. Economist Joseph Schumpeter considered entrepreneurs essential to

society for disrupting equilibrium, thereby spurring development.22 Regardless, most

experts agree that entrepreneurship requires some degree of creativity, initiative, and

risk-awareness – criteria that equally applies to the military.

The terms “entrepreneurship”, “innovation”, and “creativity” are related but not

synonymous. “Imagination is envisioning things that don’t exist,” observes Stanford

professor Tina Seelig. “Creativity is applying imagination to address a challenge.

Innovation is applying creativity to generate unique solutions. And entrepreneurship is

applying innovations, scaling the ideas, by inspiring others’ imagination”.23

In addition, military entrepreneurial culture must embody a spirit of kaizen –

Japanese for “continuous improvement”.24 It is neither simple adaptation nor change for

change’s sake, but an inclination to constantly seek opportunities and a willingness to

make incremental changes to improve oneself, people, things, and situations. Through

the lens of kaizen, the entrepreneur perpetually analyzes the status quo to sustain

current conditions, improve them, or find ways to apply learnings to other contexts.

Applied to all elements of entrepreneurship, kaizen combines curiosity, determination,

and optimism towards improving every situation.

Entrepreneurship is not one specific condition but actually exists among the

upper realms of a spectrum reflecting varying degrees of outlook, uncertainty tolerance,

foresight, and engagement, as illustrated in Figure 3.

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Figure 3. Entrepreneurial Spectrum

An entrepreneurial outlook is ecological. This means sensing environments in

terms of interdependencies and ecosystems (i.e., dynamic relationships between

multiple items) rather than linear causalities, which are often more difficult to accurately

detect.25 Central to ecological outlook is the role of productive competition, which

recognizes that the best results emerge from vibrant competition, but stops short of the

point where the enterprise, the network, or the environment would be worse off.

Uncertainty lies at the far end of a scale with observable and known risk at its

opposite.26 The potential for catastrophe in armed conflict makes warfighters

instinctively alert to controlling risk. However, risk is inherently subjective and thus

uncertainty is more typical than we tend to recognize.27 Using the Cynefin (kun-EV-in)

Framework (Figure 4), we explore the merits of uncertainty tolerance more closely.

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Figure 4. Cynefin Framework28

When working in Simple or Complicated Domains, risk can be calculated, and

solutions developed by applying already available knowledge (Simple) or by bringing in

experts (Complicated). In the Complex and especially in the Chaotic Domains,

relationships between cause and effect are only known in hindsight (Complex) or not at

all (Chaotic), thereby obscuring one’s ability to detect risk and thus creating

uncertainty.29 Only by engagement can one begin to eliminate unacceptable options and

identify where hazards and opportunities exist.

Significant is the boundary between the Simple and Chaotic Domains, known as

the “complacency zone”. It is often represented as a cliff, where overconfidence from

past successes, oversimplification, or belief of invulnerability to future failures leads to a

crisis.30 Bureaucracies are especially vulnerable to this jeopardy caused by dogmatic

adherence to standard operating procedures, planning processes, or similar frameworks

attempting to simplify problems.

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The “sense-analyze-respond” methodology favored among senior headquarters

must shift to helping operators apply “probe-sense-respond” or “act-sense-respond”

approaches in the field. This adaptation requires greater uncertainty tolerance

throughout the organization because it involves interacting with the environment well

before understanding it.

On a positive note, the Chaotic Domain is not necessarily negative nor a

condition we should reflexively seek to stabilize. In fact, to invent or innovate, we must

intentionally enter the Chaotic Domain. It stands to reason that if the emerging

environment will be dominated by continuous change, we should be the drivers of that

change.

Accordingly, “intrepid” foresight assumes, “To the extent that we can control the

future, we do not need to predict it”.31 As demonstrated in President Kennedy’s 1962

speech on America’s future in space, entrepreneurs strive to shape the future rather

than try to anticipate it.32 Using “safe-to-fail” experiments, entrepreneurs engage novel

situations in a manner that allows unproductive ideas to dissipate while harvesting

information to develop more productive results.33 This continuous and deliberate

process creates options that increase the likelihood of success, based on a clear vision

of the desired end state. Ultimately, the engagement becomes speculative, as the

entrepreneur conducts bolder (yet still rational) experiments to achieve more decisive

results.34

Inputs to Entrepreneurship

Considering the elements of our entrepreneurial spectrum described above,

certain individual and leadership characteristics for entrepreneurship emerge. Professor

and Civil Affairs Officer, Miemie Winn Byrd collated forty years of research on the

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anatomy of innovative organizations and identified traits important to creative

performance. Professor Byrd’s traits apply as “individual” and “leadership/

organizational” inputs to our entrepreneurial spectrum (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Inputs to Entrepreneurship35

An entrepreneurial climate arises from simple conditions: attracting people with

the desired individual and leadership inputs and motivating them to contribute to the

enterprise. In fact, applying this formula is quite difficult. Of the military services, the

Marine Corps is arguably the most entrepreneurial,36 yet we struggle to introduce and

sustain cultural innovation at the institutional level. In studying the Corps’ resistance to

one of its most significant cultural innovations, the introduction of maneuver warfare

philosophy, we gain a perspective on the challenges ahead when trying to institute

entrepreneurial culture in the Marine Corps.

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The Challenges of Instituting Entrepreneurial Culture in the U.S. Marine Corps

Entrepreneurship and the Marine Corps’ maneuver warfare philosophy are

complementary, but the Corps has not fully assimilated maneuver warfare’s tenets.

Introduced in 1989 in Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP) 1, Warfighting,

maneuver warfare “seeks to shatter the enemy's cohesion through a variety of rapid,

focused, and unexpected actions which create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating

situation with which the enemy cannot cope”.37 Perhaps misnamed because its focus is

actually psychological dominance, note the entrepreneurial characteristics of maneuver

warfare philosophy described in MCDP 1:

Besides traits such as endurance and courage that all warfare demands, maneuver warfare puts a premium on certain particular human skills and traits. It requires the temperament to cope with uncertainty. It requires flexibility of mind to deal with fluid and disorderly situations. It requires a certain independence of mind, a willingness to act with initiative and boldness, an exploitive mindset that takes full advantage of every opportunity, and the moral courage to accept responsibility for this type of behavior. It is important that this last set of traits be guided by self-discipline and loyalty to the objectives of seniors. Finally, maneuver warfare requires the ability to think above our own level and to act at our level in a way that is in consonance with the requirements of the larger situation.38

MCDP 1 reads as if it was conceived today to address our emerging geostrategic

environment. Warfighting was then-Commandant General Al Gray’s equivalent of

Kennedy’s moon speech. But Kennedy’s vision was realized within a decade; so, nearly

thirty years hence, why is the Corps so slow to fully embrace maneuver warfare?

One answer: maneuver warfare diverges from firepower-attrition theory, the

doctrine responsible for victory in two World Wars that made the United States a global

hegemon.39 Attrition warfare seeks to inflict continuous losses of enemy personnel and

materiel until capitulation. Given America’s material wealth, resources, and geostrategic

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location, attrition warfare remains an integral part of the “American way of war”.40

Understandably, a strategy contributing to U.S. supremacy for over seven decades

develops status quo defenders. However, cracks emerged as early as the 1950s when

our adversaries sought vulnerabilities in our conventional approach to warfighting.

Today, as irregular networks of empowered individuals, contested norms, and persistent

disorder begin to dominate our security environment, the defects in firepower-attrition

warfare are even harder to ignore – or should be.

Meanwhile, the Goldwater-Nichols Act (GCA), public indifference to military

effectiveness, and our own bureaucratic inertia continue to reinforce a culture heavily

invested in practices more indicative of firepower-attrition than maneuver warfare.

Despite the benefits of a joint force derived from the GCA, productive competition

among the services – and with it, greater adaptiveness – has suffered. Former

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Michelle Flournoy complains, “This consensus-

driven process…takes more time, undermining the Department’s agility and ability to

respond to fast-moving events, let alone get ahead of them”.41

Additionally, the American people’s superficial interest in their Armed Forces

deprives the military of rigorous public scrutiny that stimulates positive change. The

“reverent but disengaged attitude” of many Americans and potential for being branded

unpatriotic mutes criticism of military shortcomings in securing national objectives while

focusing attention on peripheral concerns.42 Hence, the DoD is catechized for gender

integration, sexual assaults, and suicides – all important issues – but otherwise

unchecked on how well it performs its core national security mission.43

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The military also has its own biases when self-reflecting. “We have a military

that’s very good at fighting battles. It’s not very good at winning wars and it doesn’t think

that’s its job anymore,” notes Tom Ricks.44 “Historians have argued that because

militaries study the last war, they do badly in the next. The historical record indicates

that such a picture is largely wrong,” adds Williamson Murray. “For the most part,

military institutions rarely study the last war, and even when they do, they have a

tendency to examine only what agrees with their inclinations, preconceived notions, and

prejudices”.45

Dr. Murray’s observations capture a common tendency among bureaucracies,

including the U.S. military, to become more mechanical, and to mindlessly perpetuate

the bureaucracy, also known as bureaucratic inertia.46 Perhaps the most pervasive

indicator of bureaucratic inertia in the Marine Corps today is the increased emphasis on

the measurable. Failing to heed the warning in the phrase, “lies, damn lies, and

statistics”, the DoD has fixated on data, such as number aircraft available, vehicle

egress training completion rates, and percent decrease in suicide ideations.47

Unsurprisingly, Marines tend to perceive activities like personnel management, training

and education, and innovation as quantifiable and thus controllable parts of the machine

instead of vital elements in a dynamic ecosystem. The Corps’ apparent faith in formulaic

approaches to risk management instead of on greater human interaction, moral

courage, and even “gut feeling” is concerning for an institution whose historical success

derives from practicing the art more often than the science of war.

Not all is lost, but the Marine Corps needs more of the characteristics essential to

maneuver warfare. “Adaptability, whether in the biological or commercial realm, requires

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experimentation—and experiments are more likely to go wrong than right—a scary

reality for those charged with excising inefficiencies,” laments management expert Gary

Hamel. “Unfettered controlism cripples organizational vitality,” he adds. “Engagement is

also negatively correlated with control. Shrink an individual’s scope of authority, and you

shrink their incentive to dream, imagine and contribute”.48 In short, when an organization

skews towards efficiency and bureaucracy, adaptability and innovativeness suffer.

Hamel’s comments echo a growing chorus of criticism in the military against

leaders’ failure to remove second-rate performers, controlling instead of commanding,

and otherwise promoting a climate where the greater career risk is not mediocre

performance, but making a mistake.49 Even the Ellis Group – the Marine Corps’ own

think tank – criticized its service in this regard:

The Marine Corps, as an organization is less strategically fit in the sense that institutional factors interfere with many of our philosophy’s tenets. Maneuver warfare is an ideal that we have yet to reach. This is not just a complaint but also an explication of a risk…Marine leaders who cannot lead in accordance with maneuver warfare, who persist in using authoritative and overly supervisory styles of command, are a threat to the institution as a whole.50

Without question, control is important like accountability, discipline, alignment, and

performance. But as long as Marine leaders see command and control and freedom as

mutually exclusive, the Corps will struggle to embrace maneuver warfare philosophy.

Marines pride ourselves on innovation, and we should lead the effort to establish

an ideological construct that ensures our nation’s security into the future. “Today’s

overbearing atmosphere of military standardization certainly makes resourceful

improvisations…far more difficult,” wrote Lieutenant General Krulak in 1984. “But, one

way or another, the Marines are going to have to keep the pioneering spirit alive

because it is very near to the heart of what the Corps is all about”.51

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Incubating Entrepreneurial Spirit

Assuming it is in the Corps’ best interests to become a more ecologically-minded,

uncertainty-tolerant, intrepid, and speculative force, the question becomes, do we have

the time to fiddle at the margins before America calls for Marines in the next great

crisis? Not likely, but worse, history shows we should know better. Adam Sweidan

coined the term “Black Elephants” to describe epic, patently obvious problems that we

refuse to see, despite the threat of catastrophic consequences if left unaddressed.52

The Marine Corps’ bureaucratic inertia and failure to operationalize the special

trust and confidence inherent to maneuver warfare is a Black Elephant. We must stop

taking cues from the officialdoms of the Army, Navy and Defense Departments who

acknowledge the need for dramatic change but apparently lack the will or the means to

take decisive action. We must evoke the entrepreneurial spirit that inspired earlier

Marines to establish our advance naval base seizure mission in the late 19th century, to

break from the 1930s consensus that amphibious landings were impossible, and to

introduce maneuver warfare doctrine in the late 1980s.53 Like them, we must

fundamentally change how the Corps does business, which means disrupting the status

quo while continually asking two critical questions: (1) Are we accomplishing our

mission? (2) Are we keeping our honor clean? In sum, the opportunity to become the

preeminent incubator for military entrepreneurs rests upon how the Marine Corps

reorients towards, builds, employs, and sustains entrepreneurial spirit.

Reorienting Towards Entrepreneurial Thinking

Fostering entrepreneurial spirit in the Marine Corps begins with our generals and

their sergeants major admitting personal failures or, better, how they “got away with it”.

Arguably, our senior leaders are old entrepreneurs. As younger Marines, they applied a

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kaizen mindset, took risks, failed, and persisted when others did not, which helped their

units, their Marines, and them to excel. But in our love for success stories, we often skip

the more instructive conversations on doubts and fears, setbacks, and protectors (or

“godparents”) that were instrumental to our senior leaders’ success. We need greater

transparency of all the factors – good and bad – to achieving eminence. Seeing our

senior leaders not only admit personal failure, but enjoy talking about it as a natural part

of being a Marine would be an impressive signal to the Corps to engage in the

intellectual honesty inherent to entrepreneurship.

Demystifying failure would also modify our typical reactions to mistakes.

Instructive is the story of then-Captain Krulak running aground an amphibious tractor

prototype during a 1940 demonstration for Atlantic Fleet commander, Admiral King.

Krulak’s boss, then-Brigadier General H.M. “Howling Mad” Smith, never reprimanded

Krulak for his failed attempt to impress the admiral, despite the upbraiding Smith

received for Krulak’s error.54 Seventy years later one can only guess why, but surely

General Smith realized that stifling entrepreneurial spirit was a greater risk to the Corps

than ensuring the next demonstration went flawlessly. Recalling our history and

honoring the two key questions: mission accomplishment and keeping our honor clean,

we must apply greater moral courage to protect our well-intentioned mavericks when

they make mistakes.

Concurrently, we must engage the Marine Corps’ most influential cohorts on

entrepreneurs: colonels and gunnery sergeants. Some refer to colonels as the

“Senators” of the Corps for their relative seniority and considerable power, and gunnery

sergeants (“Gunnies”) as the “Mama Bears” of their units. Marines of both ranks help

18

set and implement command agendas, they allow (or restrict) access to decision

makers, and they can bring resources to bear through their large formal and informal

networks.55 Colonels and Gunnies will not likely initiate the changes our Corps needs,

but they wield substantial influence over entrepreneurial spirit within their units.

With this in mind, the Marine Corps should specifically assess colonel and

gunnery sergeant candidates’ contribution to entrepreneurship in promotion boards.

Fitness reports should include a performance anchored rating scale (PARS) descriptor

that includes phrases such as, “Views all Marines as leaders, innovators, and change

agents,” as well as, “Recognizes that innovation is the number one competency of the

future by creating environments for entrepreneurs to flourish”.56 The existing fitness

report challenges Marines to innovate and to develop subordinates, whereas this

change motivates all Marines from sergeant through lieutenant colonel to encourage

and protect entrepreneurs. Promotion boards should weigh this new performance

measure heavily when selecting the “best qualified” colonels and gunnery sergeants,

given their pivotal role in enabling entrepreneurs.

Another cohort sorely needing review is the Marine Corps’ civilian employees,

who exemplify a paradox Steven Kerr captured in his 1975 article “On the Folly of

Rewarding A While Hoping for B”.57 Seeking to create stability and efficiency within an

organization with active duty turnover every 2-3 years, we inadvertently incentivized

maintaining the status quo over innovation and agility. Absent productive competition

such as in private industry, protected by numerous regulations, and often handled with

kid gloves by military leaders who contemplate becoming civilian employees after

retirement, there is little motivation to disrupt our civilian workforce.58 Therefore, General

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Schedule (GS) employees in supervisory roles should receive an evaluation rubric

similar to the previously-described PARS and should recompete for their positions every

four years. No one in the Corps, uniformed or civilian, is “owed” a career – we must

restore our legacy of earning one’s reputation every day through constant improvement.

Building Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Consistent with getting our house in order, the Corps should increase

interactions between Marines and our American society. In the years preceding World

War II, Commandant General Thomas Holcomb sent Marines to perform at community

fairs and air shows to expand awareness and interest in the Corps. Entrepreneur that

he was, he incorporated training into the Marines’ public events, thus cultivating positive

relations, saving money, and enhancing proficiency.59 Today this might include: granting

a communications Marine permissive temporary additional duty shadowing employees

at the telecommunications data center near his hometown; sending an engineer platoon

to an under-resourced school district to conduct vertical construction training while

building a playground; or sending recently redeployed junior officers and staff

noncommissioned officers on a month-long speaking tour at university departments and

businesses with interests in the region from which the Marines deployed.

Additionally, we should expand interactions such as senior fellowships with

private institutions and include more junior officers and staff noncommissioned officers.

These exchanges could be a few weeks or months in conjunction with a permanent

change of assignment or station. Also, we must remove the stigma of the sabbatical

program and consider making it a requirement for junior field grade officers and senior

enlisted Marines, as well as sergeants and junior officers in certain military occupational

specialties such as communications, intelligence, and even administration. Seeing the

20

Marine Corps as a part of the American ecosystem instead of as a separate and distinct

culture gives our Marines access to a wealth of innovative ideas, helps the Corps recruit

the type of entrepreneurial minds we need, and enables civilians to actualize their

“Support the troops” ribbons and slogans more productively.

Correspondingly, current recruiting and entry-level training practices already

attract and develop candidates possessing many of the individual and leadership inputs

illustrated earlier, but more can be done. We have not capitalized on the increased

survivability and technological enhancements of our warfighters. American casualties in

recent conflicts are a fraction of those from Vietnam and earlier, while optics, computer,

and satellite technology enable individual Marines more than ever before.60 Meanwhile,

greater longevity among professional athletes, and developments such as the Iron Man-

like Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) signal the diminishing relevance of

physical youthfulness to military capability.61 Yet, despite these trends, we pursue high

school-aged recruits with their still-adolescent brains.62 These findings should compel

the Corps to recruit older, more mentally mature individuals for service.

Additionally, new research suggests that emotional quotient (“EQ” – self-

awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills) and curiosity quotient

(“CQ” – inquisitiveness, desire to explore and learn), are equal or better determinants of

success today than intelligence quotient (IQ).63 EQ and CQ should weigh heavily in our

recruiting and integration practices to bring the more entrepreneurially-minded into our

Corps. Understandably, this demographic shift raises other manpower concerns like

compensation, family support, and career length, but if we wish to remain an “elite”

force, the Corps will find a way. We should likewise prepare to meet the expectations

21

which these higher IQ, EQ, and CQ Marines will have of their leaders to produce

environments conducive to entrepreneurship.

Regarding more formal approaches to preparing Marines, the Corps must revise

its current emphasis on training (skills development) in favor of education (conceptual

understanding). Compared to education, training is typically more easily standardized,

readily applied to large groups, and directly measurable, especially regarding resultant

performance. Unfortunately, the rapid pace of change accelerates the depreciation rate

of many skills traditionally taught at our formal schools. Worse, it creates a generation of

Marines conditioned to look to the institution for “the” answer instead of finding it

themselves. Today and into the future, a Marine who is not constantly learning new

skills and deepening understanding will quickly fall into obsolescence. Since new

contexts are continuously emerging and we cannot reliably predict what new skills our

Marines will need in the future, we must energize Marines to perpetually acquire new

skills, concepts, and principles, especially problem finding and solving competencies,

while continuously striving to interact with their environments.

Lectures and tests should rapidly evolve into more adaptive scenario-based/

experiential team exercises that: (1) place individuals and groups in uncertain

environments and force them to address surprise, (2) encourage members to scrutinize

and challenge their contextual presumptions, (3) emphasize the criticality of information

sharing, (4) reinforce an understanding that problem solving is a shared responsibility

not just the leadership’s purview, and (5) help members appreciate that leader roles

change based on the situation.64 Honoring our Core Values and applying speculative

engagement will be encouraged with emphasis on “failing fast” to quickly identify what

22

does not work as the team progresses towards what works while always keeping our

honor clean.65 The Socratic Method would dominate intellectually honest interactions

between faculty/exercise leaders and students as both parties gain deeper

understanding of ethics, world views, thought processes, relationships, and context

rather than arriving at the perfect solution.

Employing Entrepreneurial-minded Marines

Operationally, greater emphasis on entrepreneurship will require a style of

leadership that is dramatically more enabling than directive. To dominate the Al Qaeda

in Iraq (AQI) network, General Stanley McChrystal reversed the traditional leadership

model, where subordinates fed information to leaders who used it to issue commands.

Instead, Joint Interagency Task Force leaders fed information to their subordinates who,

“armed with context, understanding, and connectivity, could take their own

entrepreneurial, empowered initiative”.66 While the highly successful leadership model

McChrystal used to defeat AQI might appear revolutionary, MCDP 1 captured it thirty

years earlier when it noted, “Advanced information technology especially can tempt us

to try to maintain precise, positive control over subordinates, which is incompatible with

the Marine Corps philosophy of command”.67 Thus, the more technologically advanced

we become, the more critical moral courage and self-discipline becomes to enabling our

entrepreneurial Marines.

Sustaining Entrepreneurial Thinking

Taking another page from history, the Marine Corps should engage our

educational institutions to play a greater role stimulating entrepreneurship. In the years

preceding World War II, the most promising officers taught at the Naval War College,

and the Marine Corps Schools suspended classes for four months so faculty members

23

and students could write the Tentative Manual for Landing Operations, one of the

seminal contributions to our amphibious success in World War II.68 Both institutions

were known for intellectual honesty and rigorous war games, whereas today we focus

more on meeting specific learning objectives towards joint credit.69

Henceforth, our professional military education institutions should become the

Corps’ innovation engines. Re-designated as “Warfighting Laboratories”, students would

attend for six weeks to a year to focus on individual and team projects aimed towards

improving the defense establishment from the small unit to the DoD writ large.

Attendees would be mentored by hand-picked faculty members who model the

previously mentioned inputs to entrepreneurship. Marines throughout the Corps could

submit projects to our Warfighting Labs and connect via Wikipedia-like social media

pages to apply lessons learned from the work done at the Labs. Former faculty

members would return to billets that enable maximum access to other Marines who can

benefit from the faculty member’s experience.

Conclusion

Critics might say the entrepreneurial approaches described here are expensive

and arguably unproven, thus risky. Perhaps so, but lest we not forget the austerity of the

1930s and 40s, when the purchase of three 81mm mortars constituted a weapons

modernization program, but also when the Corps was perhaps its most innovative.70

Moreover, our current Industrial Age model is not only expensive but it has been proven

not to work, possibly all the way back to 1950 and noticeably in the emerging

operational environment.71 So, how severe must the military catastrophe be until we

stop fiddling with metrics and rhetoric and make substantive changes?

24

Military entrepreneurship offers a path to supercharge the Marine Corps’

innovation engine to make our institution as antifragile as possible in an increasingly

disordered environment. Moreover, the foundation was laid over thirty years ago in the

seminal publication, Warfighting. Now is the time to fully embrace maneuver warfare

philosophy. Lieutenant General Krulak presciently informs us:

In the most profound sense . . . the future of the Corps lies within itself, because, however large or small its problems are, nobody else is going to find solutions to them. It has been that way for over 200 years and it is that way today. It is a challenge that will demand the very best of a Corps that has been sharpened on challenge for all of its colorful life.72

Admittedly, the term “entrepreneur” carries too much baggage, especially given

the considerable resentments between military and civilian society. So ideally, for the

purposes of this paper, a neologism might have been derived to describe

entrepreneurial traits and conditions while shedding the emotional consequences

associated with the existing language. That being said, now that we have explored what

it means to be an entrepreneur, what it takes to enable entrepreneurial spirit, and how

closely entrepreneurship resembles the Marine Corps’ maneuver warfare philosophy, it

is this author’s earnest hope that someday soon the neologism for “military

entrepreneur” is quite simply, “U.S. Marine”.

Endnotes

1 David Rothkopf et al., “’We Fail Better’ Should Not Be the Motto of the U.S. Military,” Foreign Policy, podcast audio, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/19/the-e-r-we-fail-better-should-not-be-the-motto-of-the-u-s-military/ (accessed February 2, 2017).

2 Williamson Murray, “Looking at Two Distinct Periods of Military Innovation: 1872 – 1914 and 1920 – 1939,” lecture, US Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting, Quantico, VA, October 2002, 24.

3 Jeff Schogol, “Top Marine's 2017 To-Do List: Better PT, Fixing Aviation and Cracking Down on 'General Jackassery’,” Marine Corps Times Online, February 7, 2017,

25

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/articles/commandant-lays-out-priorities (accessed March 13, 2017).

4 Charles L. Armstrong, “Where is Pete Ellis?” Marine Corps Gazette 90, no. 11 (November 2006): 62-64.

5 Sandra I. Erwin, “More Than Technology is needed to Win Wars,” National Defense Online, June 2004, http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2004/June/Pages/More_Than3540.aspx (accessed March 2, 2017); Daniel H. Pink, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005), 2.

6 Peter R. Mansoor, “Why Can’t America Win Its Wars?” March 10, 2016, http://www.hoover.org/research/why-cant-america-win-its-wars (accessed March 10, 2017).

7 Headquarters Marine Corps, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1, Warfighting (Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 1997), 81.

8 Headquarters Marine Corps, The Marine Corps Operating Concept: How an Expeditionary Force Operates in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 2016), 8.

9 Heather McGowan, “Education and Accelerated Change: The Imperative for Design Learning,” September 22, 2016, LinkedIn post, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/education-accelerated-change-imperative-design-learning-mcgowan (accessed February 24, 2017).

10 Tibi Piuiu, “Your Smartphone is Millions of Times More Powerful than All of NASA’s Combined Computing in 1969,” ZME Science, October 13, 2015, http://www.zmescience.com/research/technology/smartphone-power-compared-to-apollo-432/ (accessed March 3, 2017).

11 McGowan, “Education and Accelerated Change.”

12 Rowan Scarborough, “Cutting Pentagon Bureaucracy, Improving Efficiency Proves Daunting,” The Washington Times Online, December 7, 2014, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/7/pentagon-bureaucracy-cut-to-improve-efficiency-pro/ (accessed February 23, 2017).

13 Dan Mangan, “US Military Uses 8-inch Floppy Disks to Coordinate Nuclear Force Operations,” CNBC, May 25, 2016, http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/25/us-military-uses-8-inch-floppy-disks-to-coordinate-nuclear-force-operations.html (accessed December 5, 2017); Taleb offers the following definitions: Fragile: vulnerable to irreparably breaking from environmental shocks. Robust: resilient, neither gaining nor suffering from shocks. Antifragile: benefits and grows from shocks, volatility, uncertainty, etc. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014), 5-8, 11-12; Colin Gray, Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy: Can the American Way of War Adapt? (Carlisle Barracks, PA: United States Army War College Press, March 2006), v-vii.

14 Leonard Wong and Stephen J. Gerras, Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession (Carlisle Barracks, PA: United States Army War College Press, February 2015); Peter W. Singer, “Tactical Generals: Leaders, Technology, and the Perils,” July 7, 2009, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/tactical-generals-leaders-technology-and-the-perils/

26

(accessed March 3, 2017); Peter J. Munson, “Middleweight Force? Relevant Force?” Marine Corps Gazette, blog entry posted January 11, 2012, https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/blog/2012/01/11/middleweight-force-relevant-force (accessed March 5, 2017).

15 McGowan, “Education and Accelerated Change.”

16 Ibid

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 Richard Schultz, Military Innovation in War: It Takes a Learning Organization – A Case Study of Task Force 714 in Iraq (MacDill Air Force Base, FL: The JSOU Pres, 2016), 17, 29-36.

20 The Joint Staff warns of an emerging security environment defined by “contested norms” and “persistent disorder”. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operating Environment 2035 (JOE 2035): The Joint Force in a Contested and Disordered World (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2016), 4; The National Intelligence Council sees “individual empowerment” and “diffusion of power” as two megatrends in the coming decades. National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds (Washington, DC: National Intelligence Agency, December 2012), ii-xii; General Martin Dempsey, concludes: “I think size and technology matter, but what matters more is the rate at which we innovate…Size matters, but the rate at which we can innovate, adapt, and respond to changes in the environment matters more…I don’t find the options to be that crisp in [conflicts with non-state actors], and therefore we have to be more thoughtful and more open to negotiating them, remembering that we have to have a moral compass.” R.D. Hooker, Jr. and Joseph J. Collins, “From the Chairman – An Interview with Martin E. Dempsey,” Joint Forces Quarterly 78, 3rd Quarter (July 1, 2015): 7.

21 Richard Cantillon, An Essay on Economic Theory, trans. Chantal Saucier, Mark Thornton, ed. (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010), 64.

22 Joseph A. Schumpeter, Markus C. Becker, and Thorbjørn Knudsen, "Development," Journal of Economic Literature 43, no. 1 (2005): 111.

23 Stephanie Vozza, “Three Ways to Reframe a Problem to Find an Innovative Solution,” September 8, 2015, https://www.fastcompany.com/3050265/hit-the-ground-running/three-ways-to-reframe-a-problem-to-find-innovative-solution (accessed March 14, 2017).

24 Kaizen Institute Consulting Group, “Definition of Kaizen,” May 24, 2016, YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjzycXupydU (accessed February 7, 2017).

25 Taleb, Antifragile, 56.

26 Paul Slovic, “Perception of Risk Posed by Extreme Events,” briefing document prepared for discussion at the conference “Risk Management Strategies in an Uncertain World,” Palisades, New York, April 12-13, 2002, 11, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/education/research/Research-Centres/ldc/research/Research-Areas/psychandcogproc/additional-info/Slovic-2002-perception-of-risk-posed-by-extreme-events.pdf (accessed March 14, 2017).

27

27 Slovic notes, “[Risk] does not exist ‘out there,’ independent of our minds and cultures,

waiting to be measured. Instead, risk is seen as a concept that human beings have invented to help them understand and cope with the dangers and uncertainties of life. Although these dangers are real, there is no such thing as ‘real risk’ or ‘objective risk.’” Ibid., 4.

28 Figure adapted from Dave Snowden, “The Cynefin Framework,” July 11, 2010, YouTube, video file, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7oz366X0-8 (accessed February 3, 2017).

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Saras D. Sarasvathy, What Makes Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial? (Charlottesville, VA: Darden Business Publishing, 2001), 6.

32 John F. Kennedy, “Nation’s Efforts in Space Exploration,” public speech, Rice University, Houston, TX, September 12, 1962.

33 Cognitive Edge, “Safe-to-fail Probes,” http://cognitive-edge.com/methods/safe-to-fail-probes/ (accessed March 1, 2017).

34 Of note, a distinguishing feature of speculation for military entrepreneurs is personal exposure to the consequences of their acts. In other words, the military entrepreneur has “skin in the game” as compared to those who make decisions with others people’s resources, such as money, physical wellbeing, et cetera.

35 Perhaps implied in Dr. Byrd’s “persistence” category, but worthy of emphasis is “self-discipline” in entrepreneurial pursuits, especially when operating in distributed, austere environments. Similarly, Byrd’s research does not identify commitment to core values as an input to entrepreneurship, but it is worthy of emphasis among Marines and especially among Marine leaders. Figure created by author with information adapted from Miemie Winn Byrd, The Anatomy of the Innovative Organization: A Case Study of Organizational Innovation within a Military Structure (Los Angeles: University of Southern California, February 24, 2012), 25, 36.

36 Gay Gaddis, “What the Marines Teach Us About Entrepreneurship,” Forbes, September 30, 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/gaygaddis/2015/09/30/marines-remind-us-of-how-important-it-is-to-commemorate-greatness/#54e5a2684b58 (accessed March 20, 2017); B.J. Armstrong, “The Answer to the Amphibious Prayer: Helicopters, the Marine Corps, and Defense Innovation,” War on the Rocks, December 17, 2014, https://warontherocks.com/2014/12/answer-to-amphibious-prayer-helicopters-marine-corps-and-defense-innovation/ (accessed February 22, 2017); Alyson Shontell, “Everything the Marines Taught Me About Entrepreneurship,” Business Insider, November 8, 2011, http://www.businessinsider.com/paige-craig-betterworks-career-2011-11 (accessed March 23, 2017).

37 Headquarters Marine Corps, Warfighting, 73.

38 Ibid., 75-76.

39 William S Lind, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, no. 3 (March 1980): 55-56.

28

40 Gray, Irregular Enemies, 30.

41 Michèle A. Flournoy, “The Urgent Need for Defense Reform,” prepared for the Senate Armed Services Committee, 114th Cong., 1st sess., December 8, 2015, 2.

42 James Fallows, “The Tragedy of the American Military,” The Atlantic, January/ February 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/ (accessed January 12, 2017).

43 Ibid.

44 Rothkopf et al., “’We Fail Better’.”

45 Williamson Murray, “Transformation and Innovation: The Lessons of the 1920s and 1930s,” lecture, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers Lecture Series, Washington, DC, December 2002, 2.

46 HRZone, “What Is Bureaucratic Inertia?” http://www.hrzone.com/hr-glossary/what-is-bureaucratic-inertia (accessed March 20, 2017).

47 Department of Mathematics, “Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics,” July 19, 2012, https://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/lies.htm (accessed March 6, 2017).

48 Gary Hamel, “Bureaucracy Must Die,” Harvard Business Review, November 4, 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/11/bureaucracy-must-die (accessed January 2, 2017).

49 Brian McAllister Linn, “A Failure to Lead,” Wilsonian Quarterly, Fall 2012, http://wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/fall-2012-will-india-win/failure-to-lead/ (accessed December 17, 2016).

50 The Ellis Group, “21st Century Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 100, no. 11 (November 2016): 45-46.

51 Victor H. Krulak, First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 119.

52 Thomas L. Friedman, “Stampeding Black Elephants,” The New York Times Online, November 22, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/opinion/sunday/thomas-l-friedman-stampeding-black-elephants.html (accessed February 1, 2017).

53 Jack Shulimson, The Marine Corps’ Search for a Mission, 1880-1898 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993); Krulak, First to Fight, 72; Headquarters Marine Corps, MCDP 1, Foreword.

54 Interestingly, the amphibious tractor aided Marines in almost every major conflict since its introduction and Krulak became one of our most influential leaders, including his role in saving the Corps from assimilation into the Army and Navy and preserving civilian oversight of the military. Krulak, First to Fight, 103-104.

29

55 Peter T. Gaynor, “Where Have All the Colonels Gone?” Marine Corps Gazette 89, no. 30

(March 2005): 44-45; Wesley L. Fox, “Sergeant, Take Charge,” Marine Corps Gazette 73, no. 6 (June 1989): 41-43.

56 A more complete PARS might articulate the following: Views all Marines as leaders, innovators, and change agents. In the spirit of intellectual honesty, regularly gains new perspectives from peers and team members and likewise provides constructive input relative to others’ ideas and suggestions. Values creativity, productivity, and efficiency as the keys to development. Through personal example, fosters a spirit of creative collaboration, working in uncertainty, and questioning common practices in an effort to reinvent the routine. Recognizes that innovation is the number one competency of the future by creating environments for entrepreneurs to flourish. Adapted from Paul Falcone, “Sample Creativity and Innovation Phrases for Performance Appraisal,” October 8, 2014, http://playbook.amanet.org/sample-creativity-and-innovation-phrases-for-performance-appraisal/ (accessed January 23, 2017).

57 Steven Kerr, “On the Folly of Rewarding A While Hoping for B,” The Academy of Management Journal 18, no. 4 (December 1975): 769-783

58 Chris Edwards, “Bureaucratic Failure in the Federal Government,” September 1, 2015, https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/bureaucratic-failure (accessed January 8, 2017).

59 David J. Ulbrich, Preparing for Victory: Thomas Holcomb and the Making of the Modern Marine Corps, 1936-1943 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011) 46-47.

60 Defense Casualty Analysis System, https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/casualties.xhtml (accessed January 9, 2017); Marine Corps Systems Command, “Equipping our Marines,” http://www.marcorsyscom.marines.mil/Program-Offices/PM-IWS/PdMICE/PIS/ (accessed January 9, 2017).

61 Shira Springer, “Older Athletes Playing Longer, Pushing Boundaries,” Boston Globe Online, June 15, 2013, https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2013/06/15/older-athletes-are-playing-longer-pushing-boundaries/8dYSYEfrUfE3ImtV8t3dkM/story.html (accessed March 10, 2017); Rick Stella, “The Department of Defense Plans To Unveil Its Iron Man-style TALOS Suit in 2018,” Digital Trends, October 7, 2015, http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/us-military-readies-iron-man-style-suit-for-deployment/ (accessed March 10, 2017).

62 “At What Age Is the Brain Fully Developed?” Mental Health Daily, February 18, 2015, http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/02/18/at-what-age-is-the-brain-fully-developed/ (accessed March 10, 2017).

63 Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, “Curiosity Is as Important as Intelligence,” Harvard Business Review, August 27, 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/08/curiosity-is-as-important-as-intelligence (accessed March 11, 2017).

64 Adapted from Schultz, Military Innovation in War, 13-14.

65 David Brown, “Here’s what ‘Fail Fast’ Really Means,” Venture Beat, March 15, 2015, http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/15/heres-what-fail-fast-really-means/ (accessed January 20, 2017).

30

66 Stanley McChrystal et al., Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for an

Interconnected World (New York: Portfolio, 2015), 216.

67 Headquarters Marine Corps, Warfighting, 67.

68 Murray, “Transformation and Innovation,” 7; Ulbrich, Preparing for Victory, 37.

69 Murray, “Transformation and Innovation,” 8.

70 Krulak, First to Fight, 146.

71 William J. Astore, “Does America Really Have the Finest Military in the World?” Salon, January 6, 2011, http://www.salon.com/2011/01/06/american_military_finest/#comments (accessed March 20, 2017).

72 Krulak, First to Fight, 227.