Your post reminded me of Richard Farson's book, "Management of the Absurd." Farson's big ideas are: the opposite is likely true; hold your judgment and listen; act on what you see not what conventional wisdom tells you is there.
When I read your post, I recalled a section of the book where Farson describes how managers say they want "divergent" thinkers but what they really want is: "more of what they already have." I synthesized the ideas as: "managers don't want net new creativity, they want manageable creativity."
Knowing that you're a reader and a leader, you might find that book full of useful insights.
Thanks for the book recommendation, I've not heard of this one but am fascinated by the world's absurdities and the deep complexity of people, this looks right up my street so I've just bought a copy.
Excellent read. I can’t find the quote from a German General in WWII while discussing how they fought and what to expect from the different Allied Countries they faced. The Germans studied all the opposing countries manuals, but commented that the Americans don’t follow their own manuals and fight like hell so they’re the hardest to fight. Of course we are a very different army now, hell we’ve gone through a few giant changes since then, but I can’t help but feel like we lost something when we got so regimented and compliant. Francis Merion or Pappy Boyington wouldn’t make O-3 in today’s military, hell neither would Patton.
Very interesting discussion and great article Austin. I did 2 years in Afghan and 2 in Iraq. I think I’m lots of ways those wars are tougher on the guys because we take casualties and can’t get into a decent gunfight unless you break some rules. That’s frustrating for the young guys.
Thank you so much for your comment. I really appreciate the kind words! And thank you for serving! For all of our faults, the Army does amazing things and we will be ready for whatever comes next.
Great insights. So much of what you wrote rings so truly clear. As a, now retired, former leader in a less lethal profession (wildland fire), I wish I had been more self aware of my divergent thinker instincts, conscious of how to utilize them, and in a more covert manner. It would have a) circumvented many internal conflicts and b) allowed for more successful accomplishment of the needed outcomes.
John, thanks so much for your compliment! Thank you for your military service and your continued service in firefighting. I have gone down wildland firefighting rabbit holes in the past because it is absolutely fascinating to me. I get the *feeling* (without any real knowledge of this field) that there is a lot of room for substantial innovation in fighting wildfires. Insight into how divergent thinking may improve current firefighting practices would be incredibly interesting to me. You should consider writing something, if you haven't already! I would definitely read it and share it.
Scrolling down through my stack feed I saw your comment on your old piece Standards and it triggered a thought. A longtime friend and colleague, Merle Robinson, is fond of sharing his cogent observation that the US Government is designed to guarantee delivery of a mediocre level of service to the American public. Obviously, to deliberately deliver less than mediocre would not be fair to taxpayers while delivering outstanding service to every member of the American public would demand unacceptably high tax rates to fund such levels of service. I was delighted several years ago to capture the words of a U.S. Army Major that “we have plans so that we know what we are deviating from” which captured an approach to military operations that I personally date back to the Prussians (as we do with so many things military). Unable to field an army commander of a level equal to Napoleon, the Prussians looked to support their field commanders with staff who had graduated from their new Kriegsakademie to help commanders think and decide things - in the hope that their army commanders might suck less. So most of the time this is what modern armies do, they try to suck less than their opponents and hopefully achieve those momentary levels of genius that deliver victories worthy of memorializing endlessly by historians. But this requires that an army be placed in a war and on a battlefield where military victory is both possible and decisive. Such battlefields were not to be found in Iraq or Afghanistan and possibly not, at least for an American Army, in Vietnam.
"they try to suck less than their opponents and hopefully achieve those momentary levels of genius that deliver victories worthy of memorializing endlessly by historians."
This is a really profound observation. I am currently writing some thoughts about attrition and maneuver, and "momentary levels of genius" is a very useful phrase.
Sometimes. I'm not the most creative person, but i am always looking for the "best answer" to a problem, even if that means following the SOP. I see value in established protocols, but if it's not working or i see a problem, i want to make corrections. But leadership doesn't like people who ask questions, which is something i do naturally. By nature and by nurture i have developed a strong rebellious streak. That said, my experience in the Army taught me the value of teamwork and following orders. But when those orders don't bear out good results, or my experience can see such orders playing out badly, i speak up. It's not been good for my career either in the military or civilian life.
What is your experience working with divergent thinkers?
Personally i admire creative people who think "outside the box." And often, i am jealous of their abilities.
What do you think is the conventional view of divergent thinkers?
It's just like you say. It's all lip service. Leadership always says they want people to think creatively, but in truth, it's threatening to them.
Do you think the conventional rhetoric about divergent thinkers matches the conventional treatment of divergent thinkers?
Nope, you have described EXACTLY my personal experiences or what i have witnessed in the military and civilian domains. Across both, only loyal followers are valued.
Thanks so much for your comment! I think the first point is important you make it important. A lot of people can think divergently in different domains and different circumstances. It can be difficult to go against the grain, especially in highly structured environments. But it might be more difficult to let subordinates go against the grain!
This is a very old way of war, doing enough to keep things going without taking any big risks and accepting the attrition. It would have been familiar to the Army of the Potomac under MacClellan.
Lot of parallels in the civilian world! I used to chuckle when my clients told me they wanted to recruit an executive who was "a highly motivated, entrepreneurial rock star who can think outside the box to bring creative solutions to life and leap frog the competition!" Sometimes giving them a few questions to consider helped them really see if they wanted a maverick for the role, or just a "steady Eddy" to do the job. I'd ask - how would you support this person - do you have a budget to invest in the approach? Are you willing to jettison some of your old-way employees and hire new ones who have the skills to operate in the new reality this person will create? Can you see yourself (the CEO) going to the board to fight for these changes? Can you see yourself communicating this new strategy to the marketplace and Wall Street? And have you thought about how you would reward this person...because people who drive big changes don't respond well to a 3% salary bump, especially if they have doubled your stock price or tripled your market share. For Army leaders, I'd coach them to consider what they would (or wouldn't do) to support a maverick.
Exactly! Everyone thinks they want a Steve Jobs type until they have to deal with the sonuvabitch’s antics...especially when success uncertain. Great points!
I can think of the case of a commander of an ODA in Afghanistan sent back to an area controlled by a tribal chieftain he had established a previous relationship with. He decided to actually implement Special Forces doctrine in an effort to secure his area with an *effective* COIN campaign- so he threw out the book on force protection, etc. He accepted an invitation from said tribal chieftain (who basically adopted him as another son) to move his team into his home compound. His girlfriend was a journalist in country, so she moved in as well (showing great trust by the team leader to earn it back). His team patrolled on foot with local tribesmen led by the sons of said chieftain taking the lead. They didn't raid sites or confiscate weapons, but used intel provided by locals to develop ambushes and counter ambushes of Talib patrols. His sector pacified - but then a new officer came into the FOB he was SUPPOSED to be operating out of, complained to JSOC in Kabul, and he was relieved for the use of "irregular tactics" (which is exactly what an A team is designed to implement - irregular warfare), stripped of his tab, and court-martialed. Granted, said officer had been red-lining from PTSD before he was even sent back over, but he was effectively doing what he was trained for, but in a matter that was deviant to the snatch-and-grab kinetic model the SEAL/DEVGRU types at JSOC were invested in. He was a deviant thinker for following formal doctrine rather than the more aggressive Ranger thinking of his superiors, and he was made to pay the price.
I spent a decade as an academic, and the saddest thing I experienced was the fact that an institution that supposedly values intellectual prowess actually demands more intellectual conformity than any other environment that I have worked in. Asking uncomfortable questions, challenging assumptions, or even acting outside role expectations can cause friction and kill a career. I was hired into a new public health program housed in a PE department. Like most PhDs in the field, I earned mine mid-career after being in a management position in a health department, serving on federal advisory boards, taking my own research grant to grad school, etc. Because of a shortage of tenured public health faculty, our group of Assistant Professors took on roles in managing the program and working towards accreditation that exceeded the cognitive role the PE faculty had for junior faculty, and the fact that we were older and more experienced than their Assistant Professors (who followed a traditional path of jumping straight from student to faculty) we were more confident and willing to speak up. That, and the fact that we obtained more research funding than most of their tenured faculty (in my case, contracts that agencies asked me to take on, including DoD work on MEDCAPS that was related to my health policy work but outside the cognitive scope they imagined) and were paid better (based on the school having to compete with offers that exceeded what a PE/Kinesiology new PhD would get), we basically became PNGed, to the point that the department chair was doing things like filing false police reports. Needless to say, we all work elsewhere today.
Thomas Kuhn, in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," discusses the concept of a professional paradigm as well as how it is enforced by the establishment. A paradigm is a working model that offers explanations and solutions to problems in a field, and practitioners are socialized to accept its assumptions without a second thought, with the model only being replaced when it fails to provide solutions. Not only does the socialization protect it, but practitioners ruthlessly defend it. In science, this means that dissidents aren't funded, have trouble publishing, etc. - which essentially drives dissent from the field. The military officer promotion process functions in the same way. You are rewarded for being good within the bounds of doctrine and social expectations, but punished for being too good, because that is a sign of deviation just as a social faux pas is a killer under zero-tolerance policies. John Nagl (an armor branch officer who is one of the finest thinkers on low-intensity conflict and COIN) and former Air Force fighter pilot John Boyd (possibly the best strategic thinker of the 20th century, developer of energy-maneuverability theory, and heretical supporter of the lightweight fighter concept, and creator of the counter-blitz strategy) topped out at O-5 because they deviated too much from service paradigms. President George W. Bush had to go so far as to hold special selection board for army O-7s in 2007 after innovative and successful colonels like H.R. McMaster were passed over for deviant thinking.
Jim Gant is a difficult and complicated case, but illustrative of the point that there are always trade offs. If you let someone like Gant loose, you get areas pacified, but he also gets addicted to drugs and alcohol, flagrantly mishandles classified information, and a host of other problems.
“The military officer promotion process functions in the same way. You are rewarded for being good within the bounds of doctrine and social expectations, but punished for being too good, because that is a sign of deviation just as a social faux pas is a killer under zero-tolerance policies.”
It depends on how you go about it. If you follow my advice and try to stay hidden, you can get along okay. I ended up becoming an Army Space Operations Officer from being and Infantry officer, because Space guys are paid to think about things that no commander would ever think about. Space guys are paid to be WILDLY divergent and come up with INSANELY clever ideas. The worst the commander say is no. You can get away with divergent thinking as a space guy because you really can’t do any damage because commanders have to assume risk for any of your activities. Some commanders have extremely low threshold for accepting risk, others have extremely high thresholds, it just depends. But this is a good arrangement. You have no idea how much chaos would reign if you let space officers do whatever they want.
Got me thinking about investing: Many investors like to be seen or at least think themselves as contrarians, which is the same as a divergent thinker. Yet they are almost always followers of other people's ideas, and that is not wrong - momentum (buying what's going up has worked wonders in the last few years). Some are consistently contrarian and wrong, some are consistently contrarian and then one Big Moment proves them right and makes their reputation for ever (Mike Burry and the GFC).
The smartest ones are able to switch between divergence and convergence, depending on the situation.
I do consider myself a divergent thinker, but as you recommend, most divergent thinkers do in fact try to fly under the radar. I don't want people recognizing my "momentary level of genius" because it becomes a "shoving toothpaste back into the tube" situation.
I'm gathering from your post that the military views divergence like the rest of normative society, as a hindrance, to be called upon when needed but 'lets not be too loud' about it. Many leaders claim they want real outside-the-box thinking, but when that box is opened, there is more than just the ideas that go along with it. These divergent thoughts and epiphanies are part of a personality. Convergent thinkers want the divergent thinking presented IN A NEAT LITTLE BOX. Hence, putting the toothpaste back in the tube. If you have trouble handling the mess, then don't squeeze the tube.
I can relate to this. I see myself as a divergent thinker and have frequently found myself frustrated by needing to 'hide my light under a bushel', so to speak. I try to keep an eye out for Kairos - when that window of opportunity for divergent thinking opens - in organisations it's all about holding back and waiting for the right time to unleash.
The Army and the military exist to fight wars, not win them.
Notice how the Americans knew everything about the enemy and weren’t allowed to touch them.
Meanwhile at CENTCOM “We can’t find them.”
Said the LTC I knew when I bought up our record, there’s the convergence.
Sad and hilarious, we saw the enemy every day, usually on a routine. We caught and released to the point where I thought we should give the enemy swipe cards.
"Being divergent is only really necessary when the organization has converged in the wrong direction." I agree. I would also add that it is also necessary in an area that is new enough that there is no clear convergence. Divergence is necessary to test out options to allow convergence on a good solution. Which is pretty messy, because there are more wrong ways to do something than right ways.
Your post reminded me of Richard Farson's book, "Management of the Absurd." Farson's big ideas are: the opposite is likely true; hold your judgment and listen; act on what you see not what conventional wisdom tells you is there.
When I read your post, I recalled a section of the book where Farson describes how managers say they want "divergent" thinkers but what they really want is: "more of what they already have." I synthesized the ideas as: "managers don't want net new creativity, they want manageable creativity."
Knowing that you're a reader and a leader, you might find that book full of useful insights.
Thanks so much for the recommendation! I have not read the book but I will add a footnote to credit Farson with this insight.
Thanks for the book recommendation, I've not heard of this one but am fascinated by the world's absurdities and the deep complexity of people, this looks right up my street so I've just bought a copy.
Excellent read. I can’t find the quote from a German General in WWII while discussing how they fought and what to expect from the different Allied Countries they faced. The Germans studied all the opposing countries manuals, but commented that the Americans don’t follow their own manuals and fight like hell so they’re the hardest to fight. Of course we are a very different army now, hell we’ve gone through a few giant changes since then, but I can’t help but feel like we lost something when we got so regimented and compliant. Francis Merion or Pappy Boyington wouldn’t make O-3 in today’s military, hell neither would Patton.
Very interesting discussion and great article Austin. I did 2 years in Afghan and 2 in Iraq. I think I’m lots of ways those wars are tougher on the guys because we take casualties and can’t get into a decent gunfight unless you break some rules. That’s frustrating for the young guys.
CW3, USA, Ret.
Thank you so much for your comment. I really appreciate the kind words! And thank you for serving! For all of our faults, the Army does amazing things and we will be ready for whatever comes next.
Great insights. So much of what you wrote rings so truly clear. As a, now retired, former leader in a less lethal profession (wildland fire), I wish I had been more self aware of my divergent thinker instincts, conscious of how to utilize them, and in a more covert manner. It would have a) circumvented many internal conflicts and b) allowed for more successful accomplishment of the needed outcomes.
John, thanks so much for your compliment! Thank you for your military service and your continued service in firefighting. I have gone down wildland firefighting rabbit holes in the past because it is absolutely fascinating to me. I get the *feeling* (without any real knowledge of this field) that there is a lot of room for substantial innovation in fighting wildfires. Insight into how divergent thinking may improve current firefighting practices would be incredibly interesting to me. You should consider writing something, if you haven't already! I would definitely read it and share it.
Scrolling down through my stack feed I saw your comment on your old piece Standards and it triggered a thought. A longtime friend and colleague, Merle Robinson, is fond of sharing his cogent observation that the US Government is designed to guarantee delivery of a mediocre level of service to the American public. Obviously, to deliberately deliver less than mediocre would not be fair to taxpayers while delivering outstanding service to every member of the American public would demand unacceptably high tax rates to fund such levels of service. I was delighted several years ago to capture the words of a U.S. Army Major that “we have plans so that we know what we are deviating from” which captured an approach to military operations that I personally date back to the Prussians (as we do with so many things military). Unable to field an army commander of a level equal to Napoleon, the Prussians looked to support their field commanders with staff who had graduated from their new Kriegsakademie to help commanders think and decide things - in the hope that their army commanders might suck less. So most of the time this is what modern armies do, they try to suck less than their opponents and hopefully achieve those momentary levels of genius that deliver victories worthy of memorializing endlessly by historians. But this requires that an army be placed in a war and on a battlefield where military victory is both possible and decisive. Such battlefields were not to be found in Iraq or Afghanistan and possibly not, at least for an American Army, in Vietnam.
"they try to suck less than their opponents and hopefully achieve those momentary levels of genius that deliver victories worthy of memorializing endlessly by historians."
This is a really profound observation. I am currently writing some thoughts about attrition and maneuver, and "momentary levels of genius" is a very useful phrase.
Do you consider yourself a “divergent thinker?”
Sometimes. I'm not the most creative person, but i am always looking for the "best answer" to a problem, even if that means following the SOP. I see value in established protocols, but if it's not working or i see a problem, i want to make corrections. But leadership doesn't like people who ask questions, which is something i do naturally. By nature and by nurture i have developed a strong rebellious streak. That said, my experience in the Army taught me the value of teamwork and following orders. But when those orders don't bear out good results, or my experience can see such orders playing out badly, i speak up. It's not been good for my career either in the military or civilian life.
What is your experience working with divergent thinkers?
Personally i admire creative people who think "outside the box." And often, i am jealous of their abilities.
What do you think is the conventional view of divergent thinkers?
It's just like you say. It's all lip service. Leadership always says they want people to think creatively, but in truth, it's threatening to them.
Do you think the conventional rhetoric about divergent thinkers matches the conventional treatment of divergent thinkers?
Nope, you have described EXACTLY my personal experiences or what i have witnessed in the military and civilian domains. Across both, only loyal followers are valued.
Thanks so much for your comment! I think the first point is important you make it important. A lot of people can think divergently in different domains and different circumstances. It can be difficult to go against the grain, especially in highly structured environments. But it might be more difficult to let subordinates go against the grain!
This is a very old way of war, doing enough to keep things going without taking any big risks and accepting the attrition. It would have been familiar to the Army of the Potomac under MacClellan.
Lot of parallels in the civilian world! I used to chuckle when my clients told me they wanted to recruit an executive who was "a highly motivated, entrepreneurial rock star who can think outside the box to bring creative solutions to life and leap frog the competition!" Sometimes giving them a few questions to consider helped them really see if they wanted a maverick for the role, or just a "steady Eddy" to do the job. I'd ask - how would you support this person - do you have a budget to invest in the approach? Are you willing to jettison some of your old-way employees and hire new ones who have the skills to operate in the new reality this person will create? Can you see yourself (the CEO) going to the board to fight for these changes? Can you see yourself communicating this new strategy to the marketplace and Wall Street? And have you thought about how you would reward this person...because people who drive big changes don't respond well to a 3% salary bump, especially if they have doubled your stock price or tripled your market share. For Army leaders, I'd coach them to consider what they would (or wouldn't do) to support a maverick.
Exactly! Everyone thinks they want a Steve Jobs type until they have to deal with the sonuvabitch’s antics...especially when success uncertain. Great points!
I can think of the case of a commander of an ODA in Afghanistan sent back to an area controlled by a tribal chieftain he had established a previous relationship with. He decided to actually implement Special Forces doctrine in an effort to secure his area with an *effective* COIN campaign- so he threw out the book on force protection, etc. He accepted an invitation from said tribal chieftain (who basically adopted him as another son) to move his team into his home compound. His girlfriend was a journalist in country, so she moved in as well (showing great trust by the team leader to earn it back). His team patrolled on foot with local tribesmen led by the sons of said chieftain taking the lead. They didn't raid sites or confiscate weapons, but used intel provided by locals to develop ambushes and counter ambushes of Talib patrols. His sector pacified - but then a new officer came into the FOB he was SUPPOSED to be operating out of, complained to JSOC in Kabul, and he was relieved for the use of "irregular tactics" (which is exactly what an A team is designed to implement - irregular warfare), stripped of his tab, and court-martialed. Granted, said officer had been red-lining from PTSD before he was even sent back over, but he was effectively doing what he was trained for, but in a matter that was deviant to the snatch-and-grab kinetic model the SEAL/DEVGRU types at JSOC were invested in. He was a deviant thinker for following formal doctrine rather than the more aggressive Ranger thinking of his superiors, and he was made to pay the price.
I spent a decade as an academic, and the saddest thing I experienced was the fact that an institution that supposedly values intellectual prowess actually demands more intellectual conformity than any other environment that I have worked in. Asking uncomfortable questions, challenging assumptions, or even acting outside role expectations can cause friction and kill a career. I was hired into a new public health program housed in a PE department. Like most PhDs in the field, I earned mine mid-career after being in a management position in a health department, serving on federal advisory boards, taking my own research grant to grad school, etc. Because of a shortage of tenured public health faculty, our group of Assistant Professors took on roles in managing the program and working towards accreditation that exceeded the cognitive role the PE faculty had for junior faculty, and the fact that we were older and more experienced than their Assistant Professors (who followed a traditional path of jumping straight from student to faculty) we were more confident and willing to speak up. That, and the fact that we obtained more research funding than most of their tenured faculty (in my case, contracts that agencies asked me to take on, including DoD work on MEDCAPS that was related to my health policy work but outside the cognitive scope they imagined) and were paid better (based on the school having to compete with offers that exceeded what a PE/Kinesiology new PhD would get), we basically became PNGed, to the point that the department chair was doing things like filing false police reports. Needless to say, we all work elsewhere today.
Thomas Kuhn, in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," discusses the concept of a professional paradigm as well as how it is enforced by the establishment. A paradigm is a working model that offers explanations and solutions to problems in a field, and practitioners are socialized to accept its assumptions without a second thought, with the model only being replaced when it fails to provide solutions. Not only does the socialization protect it, but practitioners ruthlessly defend it. In science, this means that dissidents aren't funded, have trouble publishing, etc. - which essentially drives dissent from the field. The military officer promotion process functions in the same way. You are rewarded for being good within the bounds of doctrine and social expectations, but punished for being too good, because that is a sign of deviation just as a social faux pas is a killer under zero-tolerance policies. John Nagl (an armor branch officer who is one of the finest thinkers on low-intensity conflict and COIN) and former Air Force fighter pilot John Boyd (possibly the best strategic thinker of the 20th century, developer of energy-maneuverability theory, and heretical supporter of the lightweight fighter concept, and creator of the counter-blitz strategy) topped out at O-5 because they deviated too much from service paradigms. President George W. Bush had to go so far as to hold special selection board for army O-7s in 2007 after innovative and successful colonels like H.R. McMaster were passed over for deviant thinking.
Jim Gant is a difficult and complicated case, but illustrative of the point that there are always trade offs. If you let someone like Gant loose, you get areas pacified, but he also gets addicted to drugs and alcohol, flagrantly mishandles classified information, and a host of other problems.
“The military officer promotion process functions in the same way. You are rewarded for being good within the bounds of doctrine and social expectations, but punished for being too good, because that is a sign of deviation just as a social faux pas is a killer under zero-tolerance policies.”
It depends on how you go about it. If you follow my advice and try to stay hidden, you can get along okay. I ended up becoming an Army Space Operations Officer from being and Infantry officer, because Space guys are paid to think about things that no commander would ever think about. Space guys are paid to be WILDLY divergent and come up with INSANELY clever ideas. The worst the commander say is no. You can get away with divergent thinking as a space guy because you really can’t do any damage because commanders have to assume risk for any of your activities. Some commanders have extremely low threshold for accepting risk, others have extremely high thresholds, it just depends. But this is a good arrangement. You have no idea how much chaos would reign if you let space officers do whatever they want.
My dinner with Vizzini
Got me thinking about investing: Many investors like to be seen or at least think themselves as contrarians, which is the same as a divergent thinker. Yet they are almost always followers of other people's ideas, and that is not wrong - momentum (buying what's going up has worked wonders in the last few years). Some are consistently contrarian and wrong, some are consistently contrarian and then one Big Moment proves them right and makes their reputation for ever (Mike Burry and the GFC).
The smartest ones are able to switch between divergence and convergence, depending on the situation.
Regarding divergent thinkers:
“You better get me Johnny Dean, Liz Butsky, and the Fad King.”
I do consider myself a divergent thinker, but as you recommend, most divergent thinkers do in fact try to fly under the radar. I don't want people recognizing my "momentary level of genius" because it becomes a "shoving toothpaste back into the tube" situation.
I'm gathering from your post that the military views divergence like the rest of normative society, as a hindrance, to be called upon when needed but 'lets not be too loud' about it. Many leaders claim they want real outside-the-box thinking, but when that box is opened, there is more than just the ideas that go along with it. These divergent thoughts and epiphanies are part of a personality. Convergent thinkers want the divergent thinking presented IN A NEAT LITTLE BOX. Hence, putting the toothpaste back in the tube. If you have trouble handling the mess, then don't squeeze the tube.
I can relate to this. I see myself as a divergent thinker and have frequently found myself frustrated by needing to 'hide my light under a bushel', so to speak. I try to keep an eye out for Kairos - when that window of opportunity for divergent thinking opens - in organisations it's all about holding back and waiting for the right time to unleash.
He’s more forgiving than me.
Which doesn’t make him right, sadly.
The Army and the military exist to fight wars, not win them.
Notice how the Americans knew everything about the enemy and weren’t allowed to touch them.
Meanwhile at CENTCOM “We can’t find them.”
Said the LTC I knew when I bought up our record, there’s the convergence.
Sad and hilarious, we saw the enemy every day, usually on a routine. We caught and released to the point where I thought we should give the enemy swipe cards.
Agree.
Disagree-
But DL
"Being divergent is only really necessary when the organization has converged in the wrong direction." I agree. I would also add that it is also necessary in an area that is new enough that there is no clear convergence. Divergence is necessary to test out options to allow convergence on a good solution. Which is pretty messy, because there are more wrong ways to do something than right ways.