Introduction

Ask yourself two questions; Is creativity a word that comes to mind when you think of Army? And do you think that the Australian Defence Force encourages creativity in its culture? This paper will highlight the need for the Australian Defence Force to encourage the proactive practices of creativity and show that militaries cannot achieve success and innovation over our adversaries without creative processes.

Creativity is usually associated with those related to a profession within the arts. But success in the military domain is often impossible without creativity. Often creativity would not be a word that first comes to mind when many of us think of Army or a military mission. But creativity would likely come to mind when we are asked to think of words that associate with innovation, original solutions or problem-solving. Why is this?

Finding Creativity in the Military

The Australian military is a highly structured organisation. From our initial recruitment we are introduced to a world that is totally different to that of our upbringing. We are taught a new language to speak, given a new uniform to wear and even ordered to adopt a haircut or style that makes us identical to that of our peers. This does a few things, including encouraging us to identify with a team and adopt a strong sense of loyalty. These qualities are of vital importance to the Australian Defence Force, but this initial uniformity may also encourage us to suppress things that make us different, our unique thoughts, opinions and perspective.

There is no doubt that the current military model of learning has merit, it’s fast, easy to scale up, and non-ambiguous. How often have you been in a military lesson that followed the simple structure of “like this, do that”. While this model is effective and allows students to achieve an end state quickly, it is not necessarily encouraging of understanding a process.

It has been widely studied that professional military educational institutions and training establishments suffer from a phenomenon known as groupthink.[1] Dr Irving Janis coined the phenomenon of groupthink in his original study, 'Victims of Groupthink' in 1972.

Janis was intrigued as to why groups of individuals, often of exceptional intellect and talent, made collective decisions that were often not consistent with their individual thoughts or aptitude. He concluded that groups often experienced groupthink, a method of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group or team.[2]

Groupthink is evident when members put group cohesion and maintaining order above the group mission or outcome. Groupthink has become a widely acknowledged and accepted phenomenon. If you have participated in a meeting and held back you question or opinion around the topic, then it’s possible you have contributed to a sub optimal outcome and have been subject to groupthink.

In the military we are required to adopt common values, put team before self, but also challenge the status quo to remain on the cutting edge of military innovation and success. This is a difficult balance to achieve. While military institutions often promote groupthink, military successes, particularly on operations, is usually the result of an individual who was courageous enough to challenge the conventional processes and think outside the box.[3]

The Australian Defence Force is required by Government to protect Australia and its national interests. To be achieved this mission requires significant foresight, planning and problem-solving. There is no doubt that problem-solving and decision-making are essential skills required by our leaders. The Australian military develops leaders, at all levels, to contribute to the success of this mission. We recruit, train and then employ our people to implement military solutions faster than our adversaries. The requirement for problem-solving and decision-making would imply that creativity is also required.

Defining Creativity

Everyone knows creativity when they see it, and it is likely everyone has a different opinion about what it is. Creativity is personal, unique and expressed in different ways, even experts in the field of creative research have not agreed on a standard definition of the term.[4] Creativity is perhaps one of the most significant yet least understood areas of human endeavour, yet it is vital for the progression and improvement of any society.[5] Creativity can be defined as the ability to bring something thing new into existence or to generate unique ideas that are valued by others.[6] The Australian Defence Force requires new ideas to remain ahead of adversaries in the battlefield – we require innovation.

Creativity and imagination have been agreed by many scholars as the key that makes humans the most successful being in our known universe.[7] Humans have a unique ability to analyse, imagine and then create ideas, tools and concepts that improve our society. Imagination and creativity is one of the most important, yet least acknowledged, skills of human success.

Defining Innovation

Innovation and creativity share similar concepts but have slight differences. Innovation refers to modernisation and improvement over an already existing idea whereas creativity means total originality, imagination and inventiveness – a totally new idea. Innovation and initiative are terms that are widely understood in the Australian Defence Force. For over a decade innovation was one of its core values, while initiative was a core value of the Army. They are defined by the Australian Department of Defence as:

“Innovation; Actively looking for better ways of doing business, we are clever and open to new ideas; we make the best use of resources, and encourage sensible risk taking, and the elimination of inefficiency and waste.”[8]

“Initiative; We explore opportunities and embrace innovation to improve Army and our service to our Nation.”[8]

Think of any innovative idea in the Australian Defence Force that you were aware of (maybe the drip or “pop off” rifle used by the Australian Imperial Forces at Gallipoli),[9] it is likely that this innovation involves a unique concept or the use of equipment outside that of its original parameters, it is intrinsically creative, it’s new. To achieve innovation, the originator would require a unique thought and ideas, creativity. Innovation requires an individual to think of a problem differently and often fail multiple times in the process.

Almost all military innovations were once the output of a creative process. Innovation was initially the result of imagination only. Often the strict military structure in our organisation lacks tolerance for new ideas that differ from mainstream military processes, yet without tolerance no creativity or innovation is possible.[10] It’s interesting to think that an organisation that highly values initiative and innovation would not actively encourage creativity and new ideas.

Organisational creativity is often viewed slightly different to individual creativity. Organisational creativity can best be defined as “the creation of a valuable, useful new product, service, idea, procedure or process by individuals working together in a complex social system”.[11] An example of organisational creativity in the modern military era could be the establishment of the Panzer Divisions by Germany in 1935.

These divisions were a collection of different military capabilities (engineers, infantry, artillery and tanks) that came from different units and commands for a specific mission. Today they would be known as a combined arms formation or a Joint Task Force. At the time this concept was new, the result of a creative process that did not fit with standard military thinking. Although deemed highly successful and still used today, it is well documented that some senior leaders in the German military strongly opposed this creative restructure.

There are many examples of creative thinking in Australia’s military history yet compared to the rapid changes and progression of private industry, or human society in general, the Australian Defence Force is slow to adopt change, very slow. There have been recent pushes by senior leadership to foster creativity and innovation in the ranks through the Defence Innovation Hub, Army Innovation Day and numerous good ideas expos. Many of these initiatives fail in our culture of strict structure, avoidance of risk, and our negative response to the failure. Defence often relies on our neighbours in Defence Industry to carry the risk of failure that is required in any creative or innovation process. If the Australian Defence Force is serious about creating innovation, creativity, and creative leaders it cannot be a part-time venture. Creativity should be an activity encouraged by our senior Defence leaders and evident in our day-to-day work – we must train as we fight.[12]

The Australian Defence Force requests innovation and creativity from our people in various doctrine and publications, but it lacks the organisational maturity to actively encourage the creative process.

Success in Creative Failure

There is risk in creative thinking, particularly in military application. We have all heard of a simple creative “brainstorm” activity, writing down every idea that comes to mind when we think of our selected subject then expanding on these ideas to achieve a goal.[13] With every new and creative idea, there are often many bad ideas that were discarded during the creative process. These bad ideas should not be seen as failures, but rather as an important part of the creative process. However, in the military context there is risk if one of these bad ideas are selected and developed. The Australian Defence Force must operate within a specific and narrow framework that is subject to strict rules and regulations; these regulations don’t often allow failure. These pressures tend to push our leaders to mediocre solutions. Military culture generally does not encourage its members to find unique solution to a new challenge. It tends to either resist change or, in the best case, slightly modify an existing or similar solution.

If we were to agree that creativity is important to achieving innovation and complex problem solving and that innovation and complex problem solving is vital to military success, then we need to practice creativity. Where do we practice creativity? The most appropriate place to practice creativity is in simulation, military exercisers or in training establishments. In simulation training the risk of failure has fewer practical consequences than on the battlefield. A safe area to explore creativity is known as an area of psychological safety.[15]

I’m sure that like me, you have been on a military development course that requires an assessment that would allow creativity (perhaps a Tactical Exercise Without Troops, or TEWT), however you completed the assessment with the mindset of “this is what the instructor wants me to do” rather than, “this is my creative solution to the problem.” We likely do this to avoid failure because of our instructors or organisations response to the failure. Current military training is not a space of psychological safety. If our organisation does not have space for members to experiment and potentially fail, it will not have room for new creations and innovation.[16] How an organisation responds to failure will determine the organisations culture of creativity and innovation. Creation and innovation are not possible without failure.[15]

The implementation of creative practices within a military context does come at higher risk than many other organisations due to the nature of the duties we are required to undertake. It is of vital importance that commanders don’t implement creativity when high levels of control are required, for example during a live fire platoon attack. Perhaps the danger and risk associated with a military environment has contributed to a reduction in the appetite for higher risk and therefore reduced creativity. If an Army wants creativity and innovation it needs to create a place to safely accept risk. Training and simulation are the logical places for creativity.

Art in War

It is likely that you have heard of the theory that military operations require both the application of art and science, a theory that is widely accepted, but with a definition that is not universally agreed. A broad understanding is that the science refers to the framework and doctrine that we require to achieve a military mission and the art being the unique application, interpretation, creativity, and rapid decision making of that science.

Dr Milan Vego, a professor in military tactics and expert in creative thinking in the military argues that war is largely an art, not a science. Hence, it is inherent that military commanders and their staff must be highly creative in planning, preparing, and employing their forces for combat.[14] Art is not possible without creativity. An organisation that does not work actively to encourage creativity will never be at the cutting edge of industry or the human potential.

Conclusion

Creativity is a vital component for any advancing organisation, and the Australian Defence Force is required to understand and be prepared to operate in the most advanced and complex environments. The strict Defence structure and its current perception of failure makes it difficult for creativity to flourish within the organisation. For the Australian Defence Force to advance and remain competitive on the battlefield it must develop a culture of encouraging creativity and create space for leaders to exercise in psychological safety. The Australian Defence Force must invest in its greatest advantage, the creative potential of its people.