Can You Hear Me – Which Party values Triple Loop Learning?

The exploitation of social media by the Obama campaign has reverberations across generations.  Two Republican Congressmen (Pence, Cantor) remarked on the phenomena on the Sunday following the 4 Nov election.  Paraphrasing: We must use this media to reach out to young people, get them our message, explain where we want to take this country.

That sounded noble, but I found myself straining to hear something else:  ”we will listen to the people.”

I never heard it.  The more I listened to representatives and spokespeople for the opposition party, the more I was struck by the absence of an eagerness to hear.  They appear eager to learn how they can reach the organized masses who turned out for the Democratic ticket, but only in terms of how they can broadcast their message to them. I don’t hear any indication that listening is part of the magic.

This difference may be profound, I don’t know.  One party speaks of principles in governing, while the other has imperatives gained from observing what people need.  The first defines leadership by sticking to proven policy principles, the second defines it as steering government through challenge and opportunity.  The first proactive, the second reactive. The first accuses the other of lacking principles, and in this election tried mightily to scare Americans into thinking that Obama in fact had hidden principles and an agenda at odds with “real” Americans.  The second accuses the first of sticking to principles that are in fact not natural laws, which got us into an ill-advised war and deregulation, and which are disconnected from the needs of the American people.

Both approaches are disastrous in the extreme.  The second leads to citizens voting themselves cash from the public till, while the first leads to oppression as minority voices are marginalized and principles trump understanding.

The seismic shift this election?  Those “proven” principles did not ensure success.  The belief that “spreading” Democracy would be welcomed by allies and weak states did not prove warranted.  The conviction that relatively unfettered markets would strive for harmony and equilibrium fell victim to the Tragedy of the Commons and basic human nature.  Finally, the Bush presidency was subject to a series of challenges for which it was demonstrably less than capable.

The Moment, for me, came during the extraordinary session where the President, the candidates, and Congressional leaders came to the same table to discuss drastic measures to address the financial crisis in October.  Mr. Obama, at ease in sessions where principles are applied to situations and learning results – sat in stark contrast with Mr. McCain, who had nothing to offer.  McCain’s presence was simply to be the symbol that would rally House Republicans. (Perhaps fatal to his candidacy, they did not stand with him.) The awkward moment:  when Mr. Obama leaned over to address his rival.  ”What do you think, John?”  No response.  Mr. McCain wasn’t there to listen, to advise, or even hear.

Mr. Obama was there to aid in governing.  The application of principles with a feedback loop so that learning can occur.  ”What works?” is the central question of the inquiring mind.

In organizational learning circles, this inquiry is a hallmark of some learning styles, defined as Single, Double, and Triple Loop:

• Single Loop describes a condition, often referred to as a thermostat, in which an organization holds stable goals and adjusts its behaviors to achieve those goals.
• Double Loop describes a condition in which new factors or experiences can change the organizational goals—and the organization adjusts its behaviors to achieve them.
• Triple Loop describes a condition in which the organization manages changeable goals—changing ways and means iteratively—and builds upon them, doing so in part by changing the organization itself in response to these requirements.

[Chris Argyris, “Single-Loop and Double-Loop Models in Research on Decision-Making,” Administrative Science Quarterly 21 (1976) & A. Georges L. Romme and Arjen van Witteloostuijn, “Circular Organizing and Triple Loop Learning,” Journal of Organizational Change Management 12.5 (1999).]

The first party would do well to consider moving from Single Loop learning, and develop the ability to learn rather than present themselves as guardians of timeless governing principles.

And the second party, flush with victory, best not forget that they won on a principle of listening, inquiry, and competent yet participative government.

 

Obama’s “Civilian National Security Force?”

The weekend blogs are abuzz over the reference to a civilian national security force mentioned by Obama this week. Godwin’s Law was invoked quickly, and the dire notion that Obama was seeking to mobilize a civilian corps that will bankrupt the nation has stirred thoughtful people who were until this morning still reeling over the revelations regarding Obama’s aunt. The venerable Drudge Report even saw fit to devote a small portion of his page to a 20-second excerpt of an Obama speech.

As someone who is helping to write national security reform, perhaps I can shed a little light. Let me quote another radical scary government guy who raised a similar terrifying notion almost a year ago:

“My message is that if we are to meet the myriad challenges around the world in the coming decades, this country must strengthen other important elements of national power both institutionally and financially, and create the capability to integrate and apply all of the elements of national power to problems and challenges abroad. In short … I am here to make the case for strengthening our capacity to use ’soft’ power and for better integrating it with ‘hard’ power. So, we must urgently devote time, energy, and thought to how we better organize ourselves to meet the international challenges of the present and the future – the world you students will inherit and lead.”

That speaker is the current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. The notion of “soft” v “hard” power, or in the words of CSIS, “smart” power – have gained ground in national security policy circles as a more appropriate way to structure the components of national security. For just one example earlier this year, in Afghanistan, where we are helping to rebuild a nation, based as it is on an agrarian economy, we recently tripled the workforce deployed there from our Department of Agriculture. The number of deployed personnel rose from two to six. The idea that the military should continue to bear the entire burden of a broadened scope of national security is indefensible.

How large a burden? Secretary Gates also raised the idea that balancing our national security investment portfolio may be in order. Consider this chart regarding the 2006 national security budget (from the Preliminary Findings of the Project on National Security Reform):

Perhaps it is time to diversify our national security portfolio a bit. It may be good sport to decide Senator Obama was talking about reviving the Hitler-Jugend, but those political points miss an important truth.

Perhaps it is worth our time to also learn a bit about the changes in our approach to national security that will occur – no matter who wins on Tuesday.

 

Debunk Mates – Social Media Conquers Organizational Theory!

Exhibit 1. A twitter fragment reflects the opinion that Organizational Theory ‘dictates mostly top-down’ while ‘Social Media is Chaos Theory.’

Conclusion. Organizational Theory is now obsolete.

Exhibit 2. A gentleman writes a blog, which quickly goes viral, regarding what he sees as a ‘generational war’ between Knowledge Management and Social Media.

Conclusion. Knowledge Management is now (thankfully) obsolete.

Exhibit 3. I knew there was water on Mars before you did. Chances are. Why? Because the Mars Phoenix whispered it to me back in June.

Conclusion. Typical approaches to Government are now obsolete.

All done in by Social Media. Huzzah.

There is something to be said for assertions in the presence of minimal context. I forget the precise saying, but everyone has one and they can stink. Permit me a few slightly contrarian viewpoints:

1. What if, instead of ’social media’ replacing approaches to How We Organize, it simply represents a new tool-set that reflects approaches to organizations that date back almost 60 years?
2. What if Knowledge Management leaders actually embrace notions of complexity, natural science, and the distributed nature of organizational thought?
3. And what if approaches to Government actually… actually, I’ll get to that one last. Because there is a pony in that pile.

I’ll offer some ideas on these over the next few undefined units of time.

First up:

Has social media slain organizational theory?

Organizational Theory Cliff Notes – A Selection of Thoughts

The study of organizational theory is the examination of how humans organize for a common objective. The forum is the firm, the organizational units devoted to business activities, and the common objective of greater wealth accumulation within a capitalist economy. The assumptions include freedom of mobility for labor, access to capital, and a market within which to trade products and services for remuneration. The central question for organizational theory: Why do people organize, and how can organizational objectives be effectively and efficiently attained, given the determinants of human behavior?

There has been a tension between a mechanical approach to organizational management – dating back to Taylor’s (1911) scientific management theory and Ford’s embracing of it – and an organic one, which emerged in the 1950s. The former presents humans as driven primarily by economic incentives. The employee is compensated, and this is considered sufficient to provide for his maximum prosperity – this characterization of the employee is referred to as the “economic man,” driven only by wages. Taylor’s framework for organization included a clear delineation of hierarchical authority, management by exception, and task specialization. The firm was seen as a machine, and by setting the right incentives and optimized processes in place, management would only have to maintain anomalies within the structure.

Henry Ford developed the principle of mass production by applying Taylor’s theory to an industry that had previously been one of craft production. By establishing task specialization and the innovation of the assembly line, Ford created the first miracle of U.S. production in the 20th century. His reaction to the resulting labor-friendly market, where workers could move between automakers easily due to a shortage of skilled labor, was to double the going wage to $5 per day. This was an effort to exploit the “efficiency wage”, which aimed to provide an incentive for the employee to stay with Ford – even if non-compensation issues were preferable elsewhere.

It’s important to stop here and note two truths.

1. This is but one approach in the field of organizational theory.
2. This particular approach has been relatively unpopular (outside of factory work) for a very long time.
3. Bonus truth: Scientific management theory is one reason why “Six Sigma” makes sense to some managers, despite the evidence of great harm to natural work processes, innovation, creativity, etc.

A Few Challenges to Taylor and Scientific Management

The organic approach appeared soon after WWII, with explorations into systems science (sometimes called ’soft systems methodologies’) and decision theory that together began to explore a more radical description of the nature of the firm. Yes, our friend chaos theory entered the scene way back in 1927, later popularized in 1963 when Edward Lorenz first noticed the possibility that minor changes to initial conditions could lead to enormous changes in weather prediction models. (Further popularized by Jeff Goldblum in 1993, but I digress.) It didn’t take long before chaos (and the parent field of complexity) found its way into organizational thinking – cementing the observation that human organizations also demonstrated non-linearity, co-evolution, emergent behaviors, etc. Chaos theory has actually been a part of organizational theory for longer than most social media evangelists have been alive.

In 1947’s Administrative Behavior, Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon criticized the Taylor scientific management approach, by revisiting how we make decisions and exploring the limits of rationality. The economic man theory assumed the ‘man’ had access to perfect information and could therefore behave according to rational choice theory. Simon renamed the employee as “administrative man,” arguing that decisions are made with incomplete and imperfect information. How can you manage a workforce as if they had all the information they needed within the firm, and made decisions based on an economically rational assessment of their choices?

In 1960 Douglas McGregor developed alternative notions of employee motivation – beyond the efficiency wage – in his work on Theory X and Y (The Human Side of the Enterprise). Theory X, perhaps a direct reference to Taylor, relied on an authoritarian approach to management, while Theory Y he termed a participative management style. “The capacity to use a high degree of imagination, ingenuity and creativity in solving organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population.”

And so on. Recent work in value networks and organizational network analysis reveals that the organization obviously is more than the employees, and is best understood, examined, and managed as an ecosystem.

So-Social Media?

So if organizational theory has contained inside its hallowed halls the ideas that 1) people’s imperfect decision processes matter more than management edicts or high wages for success; and that 2) organizations are more ecologies than machines, so you’re better off gardening than engineering… what does this say about the effect of social media on organizational theory?

How about: social media represents an affirmation of the organization as ecosystem? It introduces diverse voices into the value network. Yes, it challenges the hierarchical delivery of information we use to manage our work lives – but that is a challenge to hierarchy, not to organizational theory. And before you declare the death of hierarchy, consider that this is an artifact of our sociology. It will take more than twitter to reverse the anthropological and sociological imperatives of hierarchy.

Conclusion

Social media is another in a series of challenges to hierarchy, not organizational theory. It also provides a remarkable tool for the detection of weak signals in a decision environment, while challenging our cognitive ability to pay attention – but I’ve run out of pixels for today.

 

The Diminution of General Powell

Colin Powell, U.S. Army General (Ret), former Secretary of State, the man behind the eponymous Powell Doctrine…

…is black.

And today, that’s all that matters to Rush Limbaugh and some backers of McCain.  According to Politico, Limbaugh said: “‘Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race,’” Limbaugh wrote in an e-mail. “‘OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I’ll let you know what I come up with.’”

For the record, using this logic, Senator Obama is also the first “inexperienced, very liberal” candidate I have endorsed.  I have no political footprint, of course, so this did not make Politico or any other news source.  But then, I imagine white guilt explains my support.

Citizen Powell spent considerable time Sunday morning explaining to the media why he was backing Obama over his old friend.  He was even asked the delicate question, and gave a sensible reply.  No matter, although Powell measured up the two teams and chose the one he felt was best suited to the times – Limbaugh tells us his vote was a given because of the color of his skin.  The content of his character no longer matters to Rush Limbaugh.

I had occasion last night to conduct a small experiment with a friendly waiter at my local ristorante.  He was ending his shift, but the friendly bartender was still on duty.  I showed her the news item regarding Powell, and her eyes lit up.  The waiter asked what I was showing and when I told him he replied:  “90% of the black vote is going to Obama, we know that.”  I called the bartender over and asked him to repeat that to her face, a few shades darker than his.  To his credit, he did, and the moment was delicious.  He is not a racist, and to her credit she was not offended.  He doesn’t believe his conclusions diminish all people of color, and she knew he wasn’t racist.  She dismissed his assumption airily – “That’s not why I’m voting for him.”

Disclaimers: I do not know Colin Powell, but I have been privileged to hear him speak in a small setting while he was in uniform; I almost knocked him down one day as I rounded a Pentagon corridor too quickly; and I used to know the owner of the auto parts store that he frequents to work on his beloved car.  I know this young waiter, and as I say, I have no reason to believe he discriminates against people on the basis of their color.  I do not know Mr. Limbaugh, and have no idea if he does.

This is what President Bush used to call, in a different context, the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Yes, it may be correct that some people of color will vote for Obama on the basis of his heritage, and it may be true others will not for the same reason.  However, it reduces both sides to assume those votes are based entirely on race.  If it is wrong to call McCain supporters merely racist – and it is – then how can it be correct to call black Obama supporters electoral sheep?

When you reduce Mr. Powell’s endorsement as based on pigment alone, you deny his humanity and call him a liar.  The man has provided his rationale, and he deserves – like anyone, and more than most – to be trusted as a man of his word.

 

A Brief Meeting with My Enterprise Commensal Bacteria

Enjoyed a rather remarkable conversation yesterday.  A gentleman associated with an enterprise social software firm put a question out into the ether regarding adoption of such products.  To be specific, he used Twitter to pose the question.  The “tweet” was then visible to anyone who had already signed up to follow his musings, and anyone who searched for key terms contained in his message.  (To be more interesting, you can establish an RSS feed so that when anyone tweets and uses keywords you care about – you can get an alert.)

This gentleman is in the list of people I follow, and I saw the question.  Paraphrasing:  if we deploy enterprise social software, are we establishing another stovepipe?

I could not resist, and charged in with my response.

“EXACTLY why I’ve been vapor-locked over the adoption of enterprise social software.”

He responded.

“Still major benefits from siloed E2.0, but how to connect it more broadly?”

And then something curious happened.  Another person, who follows my messages, chimed in.

“My issue is that enterprises think, in regards to social software, that their problems are somehow different or distinct.”

At one point, specific questions were posed and direct, thoughtful answers provided.

“web 2.0 silos. Thinking along 2 lines: (1) They’re not connected to anything internally. (2) Many employees not on the sites”

Response:

“(1) They CAN be connected to sites internally (most of them have public APIs & services)” and “(2)The emergent and open nature of Web 2.0 software allows for employees who need the information to join the site as needed.”

From there, the three of us had a conversation that touched on the need for corporate information preservation in the face of litigation, the complex nature of enterprises, and finally the notion that enterprises need to comprehend their role in their own value networks. While connecting people and information within the enterprise is essential, connecting to information generated by your suppliers, customers, partners, competition, etc., is also vital for keeping aware of trends/changes/risks/opportunities.

All of this reminded me of a recent NYT article that discussed commensal bacteria:

“Since humans depend on their microbiome for various essential services, including digestion, a person should really be considered a superorganism, microbiologists assert, consisting of his or her own cells and those of all the commensal bacteria. The bacterial cells also outnumber human cells by 10 to 1, meaning that if cells could vote, people would be a minority in their own body.”

There is no question where my body ends and these bacteria begin, but is it useful and enforce the distinction?  Similarly, is it useful to establish information systems that exclude the people who help us do our job – but who are not employed by our firm?  Understanding how to connect to and collaborate with these colleagues and potential colleagues may be as important as coordinating internally with fellow employees.

All in all, this was a very successful meeting.  Three professionals, from a total of two firms, came together to check assumptions and learn from one another.  We used a Web 2.0 tool outside our firewalls, and there is even a record of our conversation – searchable from any browser.  It took up very little time, as we focused on common questions and ideas.  (There was no status report or financial impact statement on the agenda.)  One of our number had never before interacted with the other two – yet the meeting only contained people interested in the topic.

Oh, and I believe there were others in the meeting, having sidebar conversations as well.  As they could see “our” conversation, they likely offered their own perspectives privately.

If only there were a catchy name for the infrastructure and culture that allowed us to come together like this.

 

So What Is Knowlege Management, Anyway

As part of this reform legislation, I’ve been asked to provide a definition for KM.  I’ve managed to avoid this for, oh, 11 years.  But no longer.  There are at least 47 definitions of KM, as compiled by one blogger.  Many good, many not.  I can’t choose one, I need to craft one that I can live with, even if my name will not be associated directly with it.

So here it is.

Knowledge Management refers to the management of the components and enabling of relationships from which knowledge emerges: used to enhance decision making, spark innovation, and comprehend weak signals in the information environment.  Knowledge management does not focus on managing knowledge itself; rather, it seeks the positive interaction of the component elements that can be managed to lay the foundation for better decision making, innovation, and adaptation.

Ok, not pithy, but then again – not everything can be reduced to an elevator speech.  Let’s see if this one makes sense to the lawyers.

 

Why are you Supporting Obama, Uncle John?

My niece asked me this last night.  My short answer was:  I have grandchildren.  She asked for the long answer, and here’s what I told her.

1) My work on national security reform this year has convinced me that significant changes are necessary to secure the nation’s freedoms and prosperity. From civil-military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to understanding the security implications of international finance – we currently fail to integrate the elements of national power to realize security goals effectively.  We lack a national strategy, and worse: We lack the ability to create strategy.  As a result, we find ourselves reacting instead of planning.  Because only the military plan and prepare for deployment, we send them in first.  We are currently ‘nation-building’ in Afghanistan, an enormous agricultural economy, and guess how many employees from the Department of Agriculture are in country?  Well, recently the workforce there tripled, so the situation is improving.  Yes, we finally have six people in country to assist Afghan farmers recover and plant something other than poppy fields, up from two.  It’s just not expected as part of their job, because we don’t prepare the rest of the government to assist the military in our obligations.

An Obama presidency will be elected on a mandate of change, and will be more open to the need to consider a new approach to national security.  McCain is an honored Cold Warrior, but so far does not speak in ways that indicate he understands the nuance and complexity of international issues (he was precipitous in his assessment of the Georgia situation).

2) McCain’s response to the fiscal crisis was scattered, and amounted to “fire the SEC chairman.”  First of all, the President lacks the authority to fire the head of the SEC.  Second of all, there is no indication of wrongdoing – he has accused a public servant of ‘betraying the public,’ the worst thing you can say, and there is no truth to it.  Worse, the problems are mainly systemic, not just due to individual greed.  To wield the “accountability” stick without ideas for reform to the regulatory frameworks (which were called outdated by Secretary Paulson) indicates a lack of understanding regarding What Needs to be Done.  He may have come around by now, but he’s not demonstrating to me that he’s ready to lead on ‘day one.’

3) Sarah Palin.  Her selection is an indictment of McCain’s judgment.  I’m sorry, she has a compelling personal narrative, and has endured possibly some unfair reporting – but she is profoundly unprepared for the office.  Worse, she believes she is prepared.  She is, to quote a conservative columnist, ‘out of her league.’  Read this column from National Review – an extremely conservative publication.  (http://tinyurl.com/4t6zgw) Others are weighing in as well (http://tinyurl.com/3p53v6) The argument that only elites are against her implies that we don’t want ‘elites’ in office.  When did elite become a bad word?  We like elite doctors, and elite lawyers when they’re on our side – why do we want “regular folk” to manage the helm of government?  Yes, Katie Couric can be a left-wing shrew.  But she asked fairly simple questions – and Gov. Palin failed to convince me she can even think straight. (http://tinyurl.com/54jfka)  McCain is a five-time cancer survivor would be the oldest first-term president if elected.  Actuarial tables don’t lie – Gov. Palin could find herself behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.  That visual, to me, is terrifying.  She’s worse than Dan Quayle, because she believes she needs to show confidence and is possibly blind to her own lack of preparedness and understanding.

4) There is no reason to vote for Sen. McCain.  I miss him, I supported him in 2000, but I miss him now.  Increasingly, I’m coming to realize that the ‘maverick’ who was always nipping at Republican heels, keeping them honest, isn’t necessarily the right man to man the helm.  Being a POW makes you a hero, it does not make you a national security expert.  Being in the Senate for 30 years does not make you an outsider.  He’s given me no positive reason to vote for him, he has no plan other than to extend the tax cuts.  His campaign is based on little more than exploiting fears about Sen. Obama’s age and tired narratives about tax-and-spend Democrats.

I can think of more, but those are enough for me.  A year ago, I hoped for this matchup, because I felt I could live with either choice, and we would finally have two leaders vying for the position.  I no longer feel McCain is a good choice for the presidency, and support Sen. Barack Obama for president.

Love,
UncJB

 

Wang Xin, Chinese Girl

Listening carefully to the commentary about a certain young platform diver representing China, I pick up some language odd to my Western ear. Pausing the DVR, I ask my bride if she heard. I rewind, and listen again.

“initially, she was selected for gymnastics progam. Then, a few years later, she was switched to diving.”

It was the use of the passive voice that struck me. After hearing interviews with other athletes, who speak of their personal choice, I had scoffed at the odds that people made such life-changing decisions at such young ages. Did Tiger Woods really choose his life, after all, when he appeared on television at age 3? Did the Williams sisters have a real choice?

But in this circumstances, I faulted or scoffed at over-eager parents. I hadn’t fully considered the children whose State selected their life direction. My bride and I chatted briefly, lamenting the loss of individual freedoms for so many millions. A nagging voice, however, still whispered to me regarding the relative freedoms for children of stage parents here as well.

When I re-started the DVR, the hints of moral equivalence vanished.

“She was switched to diving when the program heads learned she didn’t like to eat. She is 4′10 and approx 65lbs. She says she prefers being thin, and the coaches realized she was therefore better suited to diving.”

So faced with possible anorexia nervosa, a stage parent would likely seek medical attention for their charge. The Chinese State, however, re-assigned Xin to a sport more suited for an underweight if troubled Chinese Girl.

These Olympics are getting harder to watch with each passing day.

 

Will This Product Make the Portal More Functional?

With slight editing, this question was posed to me this morning.  The product in question was an RSS service, of questionable value on many levels.  For one, employees are not blocked from using their own RSS feeders, so those who are interested in using this capability are already doing so.  For another – and more importantly – I have a real problem throwing more technology at a workforce who has yet to fully appreciate the value of social software to their work processes and knowledge needs.  Their leadership talks of “facebook in the enterprise” and “social computing” but does not themselves use any tool that can be considered in this space.

So what is their interest?  Why consider the investment?  I don’t honestly know.  Perhaps they believe that seeding the garden is useful, although the endless business case and ROI conversations that accompany any IT investment belie this.  Perhaps they read HBR and other business magazines that indicate all the cool companies have them.  But filling the enterprise with vendor fairy dust does not result in “Enterprise 2.0,” anymore than wearing scrubs makes one a doctor.  Whatever is driving this interest along Mahogany Row, it is not emerging from informed concerns regarding their workforce productivity and satisfaction.

I will try to advise first principles:

* Focus on what we’re trying to accomplish with information technology.  

* Get people who manage corporate information to take their responsibilities to the employee seriously.

* Provide a garden of tools and suggest usage.  Watch usage patterns, encourage and broadcast success.  

* Listen.  Change your mind when proven wrong.

* Connect all employees to enterprise applications – don’t allow yourself to decide the “20% who can’t get past client firewalls” to no longer matter.  

* Provide an open environment so that employees can find and use information that may not be Corporate, but which may be relevant at the point of decision. 

* Never decide what should be relevant for them.  ”The right information at the right time to the right person” is not something you engineer, but enable.

There are more, but I’m rattled today.  Days like this make me want to close the laptop and take out the bocce ball set.  While we try to make progress, I’m reminded the snake oil salesmen remain and proliferate.  As do the ingenues to tend to their sirens.

 

What if there were only one regime for classified information?

Today, a security clearance from the Department of Defense still earns you a “Visitor, Escort Required” badge from the Department of Homeland Security. Or most intelligence agencies. The reverse is also true.

The reasons why aren’t important. The organizational histories are reasonable, there are no villians.

However, a systemic view of national security quickly points up the folly of the current patchwork regime, with its redundancy and lack of organizational trust. If we need to share information quickly across the system of national security, then it is time to consider the behaviors that are nothing more than dysfunctional at the system level.

The DoD Information Sharing Strategy speaks of sharing information with unexpected partners, driven by unanticipated events. Perhaps it is time to reconsider also the list of expected partners, due to events that are becoming increasingly anticipated.