culture matters

Our #1 National Security Threat?

Quick, what do you think is our top national security threat?

A nation like the People’s Republic of China?

A tactic like terror?

What if it were a culture?

Not an external culture … but an internal one?

What if it were something in our control to change?

Today in the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services there was a hearing on the Department of Defense’s management challenges and opportunities. We are all busy people and not everyone has time to watch all of it, so as a friend did for me earlier, let me just pull a bit for you.

At the 0:34:30 point, the national treasure that is Senator Reed (D-RI) called as a guest Dr. Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist with years working with and trying to understand the US Military.

In his prepared statement, he leads strong and clear;

“DOD’s culture is a threat to national security.”

He did not stutter. He did not hedge. He made a strong argument. Go to the timestamp I gave you above so you can get the full detail, but he outlines with clinical precision three, what I will call, cultural personality disorders that create the national security threat that is the DOD’s culture.

1. Lack of Psychological Safety: junior personnel say something different behind the backs of senior leaders than they say in front of them. They lack the freedom to take risk without fear of punishment.
2. Cognitive Entrenchment: the inability to consider anything that was not the way things have always been done before.
3. Organizational Unique Bias: ideas, concepts, and methods that are successful elsewhere will never work in DOD.

Again, listen to his extended remarks. At a time when we need innovative thought, daring, and the creative friction that comes from contrasting solutions addressing challenges to our nation’s security, what do the three items above accomplish in support of that goal? Who do they protect? Who do they punish?

More importantly, what type of person does that kind of culture attract and promote, versus the kind of person that culture repels and rejects?

Which type of person best serves our nation?

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