Fourth Generation Warfare & Organisations

I had to explain why “Fourth Generation Warfare” is important for organizations last weekend at the Burren Slow Food Fleadh, and I thought I might set down a quick version of  it here . We are all familiar with the old model of hierarchical organizations, but we are lagging a bit at moving to understanding and using the sort of networked models now emerging.

An old style organization is a top-down, hierarchical operation with a great deal of control from the top down, and complex reporting and control structures. They have heavy organizational trees and policy manuals for almost everything. In most cases, the “book” isn’t geared to the pursuit of excellence, it is simply a way to minimize the risk of failures. As they now operate, they tend to make sure that no one is individually responsible for anything and no one has much, if any power.

In contrast, a fourth generation organization has very little structure

It has a small headoffice, often run by a visionary leader who has a clear mission statement and some basic principles which guide high level strategy.

It has almost no intermediate management layers, unless they are essential for some specific mission. It also hands down no detailed operational plans, but it may provide a menu of possible activities. It may also facilitate sharing knowledge about the organizational mission

At the lowest level it has a flock of cells where all the low level tactical decisions are made.  As long as they fit in with the overall strategy of the organization, local groups can do whatever they feel is useful in their area, and within their capacity.  In a networked world, “local” doesn’t always mean geography – a globally distributed virtual team might  focus on a key task, and indeed many businesses already use this model.

This model implies accepting several things.

It accepts mistakes. Groups will sometimes act in a way that sets the overall effort back. That isn’t a failure of this model of organization, because traditional organizations often fail spectacularly. Failure is learning opportunity

It accepts that groups will emerge, work and disappear.  The existence of a local group is not an end it itself, and sometimes it is as well to dissolve a group and release it’s potential rather than keep it hanging on one life-support. Skilled and committed operators will move on, and form new groups.

It thrives on chaos. There is no master plan; there is a swarm of groups and operators moving towards a shared aim. From simple ideas, complex and sophisticated results can and do emerge.

It is loose, unstructured and scary. Deal with it.

It is a model which draws on Blitzkreig, and ‘auftragtaktik’, and the writings of theorists like Thomas Hammes, to explain how warfare in the 21st century works, but it is a model of organization which is becoming more common in business and voluntary groups.