I’m not a military strategist. I’m an innovation professor.
For decades, I’ve helped leaders at top global companies develop the mindsets, methods, and muscles required to lead through change. In the last ten years, I’ve been honored to do the same for the US military and its allies. And I’ve learned something crucial from that experience: We’re preparing our people for a world that no longer exists.
Emerging technologies and dislocating events now unfold faster—and hit harder—than any strategic planning process can keep up with. We used to believe that with enough data and a well-laid plan, the future could be predicted, controlled, or at least managed.
That era is over.
Just look at the exponential evolution of artificial intelligence. In the time it takes to draft a doctrinal update, we’ve seen AI integrated into a variety of uncrewed aerial platforms with autonomous targeting capabilities. These systems will soon operate across domains and make decisions that no human planning cycle could anticipate, let alone fully understand in advance.
That’s not a technological challenge—it’s a mindset challenge. The new normal in military education is not linear progress—it’s ambiguity, incongruity, and paradox.
Strategic Planning Is No Longer Strategic
Most strategic planning systems were built for a world of relatively slow change. They work best when we can define the battlefield, the enemy, the timeline. But we’ve entered a nonlinear reality where we will be challenged not just by our adversaries, but also by the misalignment of our own mental models with what’s actually happening.
COVID-19 taught businesses this lesson the hard way. Strategic roadmaps were scrapped within days. But some organizations—like Zoom or Shopify—pivoted and adapted in real time. They weren’t more clairvoyant. They were more adaptive. And in my work with military units, I’ve seen the same principle at play.
We don’t need better forecasts. We need better framing. And that means cultivating what I call adaptive intelligence: the ability to interpret changing conditions, generate responses quickly, and iterate under uncertainty.
What Makes a Mindset Adaptive?
Adaptive thinkers ask questions that don’t have tidy answers. They hold contradictions without rushing to resolution. They see ambiguity not as a failure of planning, but as a natural feature of a complex world.
They experiment. They reflect. They improvise.
And most importantly, they learn faster than they plan.
This is what we need to teach—not just in war colleges or professional development seminars, but in the earliest moments of enlisted and officer training. Every service member, regardless of rank, will be asked to make decisions in environments where the script doesn’t apply. This isn’t about soft skills. It’s about combat-ready cognition.
So how do we do it?
Most importantly, we need to shift our orientation from content delivery to mindset development. Doctrine has its place. So do tactics and models. But these must be framed as tools—not truths.
In a recent innovation leadership program I led for a NATO-affiliated group, I didn’t start with frameworks. I started with a question: Why do we say we value innovation, but reward compliance? We didn’t resolve the question. We wrestled with it. And that experience—starting from paradox instead of instruction—changed the way participants engaged, reflected, and acted. It activated not just their minds, but their ownership.
I’ve seen this same transformation across dozens of military cohorts when we replace structured content with live tension—when we stop asking, Did they memorize the steps? and start asking, Can they think their way through the unknown?
Four Methods for Developing Adaptive Military Thinkers
In the fast-evolving tech and biotech sectors, where I’ve trained innovation leaders for over thirty years, one principle is constant: You don’t start with static plans—you start with dynamic uncertainty. These leaders are taught to frame problems on the fly, test assumptions, and iterate quickly. Military education must now do the same.
Drawing from decades of experience training innovation leaders in the tech and biotech sectors, here are four methods that translate directly into preparing today’s warfighters to lead in complexity and act without certainty:
1. Begin with unresolved tensions—not learning objectives.
In biotech, leaders are trained to navigate live challenges with no clear solutions—such as how to accelerate vaccine deployment while preserving long-term efficacy. These scenarios force decision-making through complexity, not compliance. Military training should begin the same way: with unresolved, real-world tensions. Use operational paradoxes to frame the learning experience, not as sidebars but as the core challenge:
- How do we empower decentralized action while preserving the chain of command?
- How do we maintain interoperability while protecting national sovereignty?
Pose these tensions up front and allow participants to wrestle with the dilemma before offering theory or precedent. This approach primes adaptive thinking from the start.
2, Embed microadaptation into every exercise.
High-growth tech firms regularly stress-test leaders with midstream changes—sudden shifts in market signals, technology outages, or product pivots. The goal is not perfection, but agility. Military exercises should do the same. At all levels—whether combat training center rotations, warfighter exercises, or operational- or strategic-level wargames—introduce scenario injects that force real-time reassessment.
A drone feed goes dark. A coalition partner drops out. An objective suddenly becomes secondary to a humanitarian threat. These are not disruptions—they are the exercise. The point isn’t to follow the plan; it’s to reframe the plan. Measure how quickly leaders can diagnose and redirect—not just how well they execute.
3. Use doctrine as a lens—not a law.
In innovative industries, playbooks and protocols are reviewed after experimentation to make sense of what happened—not to dictate every move in advance. Military doctrine should be applied in the same spirit. After simulations or field exercises, use it to reflect and sharpen strategic judgment. Ask:
- Where did doctrine, standard operating procedures, and other formal guides help clarify the decision space?
- Where did they constrain initiative?
This develops a more mature understanding of when to comply and when to adapt.
4. Build ambiguity tolerance into promotion pathways.
In tech and biotech, organizations now promote leaders not just for results, but for cognitive agility—their ability to operate with flexibility and creativity in uncertain environments. The military can do the same by embedding behavioral indicators into performance evaluations:
- Comfort making decisions with incomplete information
- Willingness to challenge assumptions constructively
- Ability to hold competing priorities without freezing
These are not abstract traits. They are operational advantages in environments where change is constant and planning is always behind.
Why This Matters Now
This is not just about improving instruction. It’s about preserving operational relevance. A warfighter who can’t tolerate ambiguity will hesitate. A leader who needs a checklist will miss the moment. A system that resists paradox will fail to adapt in real time.
What we need now are not just answers, but adaptive minds—trained not only to execute plans, but to diagnose situations, create novel responses, and act before certainty arrives. That starts with how we train and how we teach. Because when the situation changes faster than the syllabus, thinking is the only weapon that scales.
Jeff DeGraff is clinical professor of management and organizations at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. He has trained innovation leaders in the tech, biotech, and defense sectors, and developed programs used by the US military and NATO in over forty-five countries.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Nicolas A. Cloward, US Army