Why we need Adaptation

1. Why we need Adaptation Therefore the premium will be more on the ability to ... • rapidly decide, as situations develop, what is to be done, how, who with, & how to measure success • rapidly assemble tailored diverse (incl non-defence elements) teams and get them operational and effective, • maintain effectiveness under unpredictable and rapidly evolving conditions, retaining ability to mount additional ops as needed ... rather than on the ability to do particular kinds of operations very well – which is the ‘usual’ kind of mission effectiveness Things are getting tougher for defence – we face increasing...: • diversity of defence roles & security challenges .. more to deal with • uncertainty and pace of change ... ... ... ... .... ..... less time to adapt • complexity and inter-relatedness ... ... .... . .... ..... less predictable • constraints and public scrutiny... .. .... ... . .... ...... lessoptions All this  defence cant be sure, in advance, of: • what it will have to do, and who with, .... so cant optimise • when it will have to do it, ... ........ .... ..... so cant prepare • how to ensure successful outcomes, ... .. so cant control these are dynamic properties of the force that ‘emerge’ as a result of many decisions about structure, process, doctrine, personnel, equipt, training, ....

2. Power of Adaptation • Dynamic emergent properties such as adaptation cant be simply acquired or designed for! • The key is to grow them – i.e. foster and shape their emergence through exploiting adaptive processes. • Adaptivity is a generic feature of all naturally occuring Complex Adaptive Systems which allows them to: • produce ‘intelligent’ contextually appropriate behaviour in an unpredictable and possibly hostile environment, and • improve their ability to do so over time. • We can exploit understanding of adaptation to: • identify spontaneous informal adaptive loop in complex STS, coexisting with, and often undermining deliberate formal adaptive mechanisms; • analyse factors determining effectiveness of formal and informal adaptive mechanisms, and suggest leverage points for modifying them; • design new adaptive mechanisms to deal with anticipated future pressures and changes; and • Evolve them to greater effectiveness

3. What do we need to know about adaptivity? We have to know: - whatdynamic emergent propertieswe seek, and - how to foster their emergence using Adaptivity. Our Conceptual Model of “C2” needs to contain the independent and target (emergent) variables, and the relationships between them, to characterise existence, health, type, class and level of adaptivity, and its outcome So we identify: • Four Classes of Adaptivity*,depending on: • the time-scale, effect-scale and type of change that it is intended to deal with, and • the nature and scales of response required • Five Levels* of application at which Adaptivity can be implemented: • Action-in-the-world, • Learning, • Learning-to-learn, • Defining-success, and • Co-Adaptation • and so a rich matrix (4 x 5) of possibilities to be exploited for better endowing defence with the dynamic emergent properties we seek. • For implementation, various Types* of Adaptive Mechanisms • 2 Pure Types: evolutionary (works on populations) learning (works on individual systems), • Various hybrid types each successive level creates more adaptive power to deal with more challenging levels of complexity

4. Change to be dealt with Response needed 4Classes of Adaptivity Robustness of force to the unknown future Implications for C2 to enableadaptivityadaptivity of C2 Time- scale Effect-scale int / ext Time- scale Effect-scale Robust-ness of force to damage, & shocks during ops Flexi-bility Slow time for new reqt to emerge major, wide-ranging external to match major how C2 enables flexibility how to make C2 flexible Robust-ness of force to the unexpected during ops. how C2 enables resilience how to make C2 resilient Resi-lience Fast from local up to major internal timely all scales how to make C2 respons-ive how C2 enables respons-iveness Robust-ness of force to changing conditions during ops. how to make C2 agile how C2 enables agility Respon-siveness Fast local external im-mediate local Agility Inter-mediate major, and/or wide External and/or internal rapid Signifi-cantly different strategy

5. Action-in-the-world Learn-ing Learn-ing-to-learn Defining-Success Co-Adapt-ation Adaptivity at different scales Flexibility Resilience Respon-siveness Agility Because human beings are inherently adaptive, when the adaptivity required is at the scale of a single individual, it works well provided they have the necessary motivation, capability, information and authority A tight hardened team can also be adaptive within the scale of the capability, information and authority they have. This is where we need to understand and improve adaptivity As we increase the scale of adaptivity required, the degree of adaptivity we find decreases. individual team organisation enterprise SCALE

6. Where Organisational Learning Opportunities Are Sanctions or punitive Measures Sanctions or punitive measures Learn about context. Learn about the boundaries of what is/isnt acceptable DON’T SCAPEGOAT!! Review boundaries between “wrong” and “right”. LEARN RESILIENCE Learn about the complex dynamics leading to outcome Corrective measures (individual learning) DON’T SCAPEGOAT!! Review boundaries between “wrong” and “right”. Improve decision process and decision support. Learn about the complex dynamics leading to outcome Review how ‘unacceptable’ is defined. Sanctions or punitive measures. STOP BLAME GAME “near misses” air safety vs medical safety Learn about tolerances, and robustness of processes. Learn about the complex dynamics leading to outcome. Confirm what was already known or guessed

7. Success and Failure influence factors for adaptation

8. Multi-Level Selection or Multi-scale Adaptation If there are interactions between different adaptive processes… then … under the right conditions can lead to coherence and emergence of super-system, structures at higher scales… If all independent then have bunch of local hill-climbers but no cross-impacts, no global emergence Adaptation is good at growing solutions to complex problems, including the problem of how to exploit adaptation … in a single instance (learning-to-learn or evolving evolvability) … or in multiple instances Adaptation at different scales, in different subsystems, operating on different aspects of different ‘systems’…. but can also lead to chaos and instability!!