In 2010, I was an executive officer in the Navy, splitting my time between U.S. headquarters and being deployed to an international location.
The 21st century is dominated by networks because the introduction of the information age, we can suddenly create, free flow these globally distributed, organic, shaped networks of individuals.
The 20th century was all about hierarchies: if you want to create something, if you want to start a country, create a product, whatever it is. Your goal is to create a highly efficient hierarchical model, scale it, because that's what the competition's doing.
The reality, as the battlefield taught us, is that a 20th-century organizational system is simply insufficient for the speed of the information age.
The information age has ushered in a networked and interdependent world, one in which challenges and opportunities appear and disappear faster than traditional organizational models can manage.
As the insurgency in Iraq started to grow, we realized this is a connected network of individual actors that can move at light speed.
In any bureaucracy, there's a natural tendency to let the system become an excuse for inaction.
As you move up a traditional, sort of bureaucratic structure, there's a certain point at which you realize, 'Well, I'm not really on the implementation or execution side - I'm not on the battlefield. I'm an operations person who's overseeing multiple units that are out on the ground doing the job.'
When the collective mentality of any organization is self and self-preservation first, it's a sure sign of pending doom.
When we first met, I was probably six layers down in the military structure, but General McChrystal at that time was a soldier's leader, and he was part of the task force. So everyone developed close relationships.
