Organizations in every sector face pressure to adapt quickly in response to change. According to Steven Spear, Senior Lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management, their success doesn’t hinge on speed or even resources—it’s about how well teams learn, solve problems, and collaborate.
Legacy systems and the hidden cost of silos
Spear offers the US Navy as a prime example. Critical delays in repairing submarines and other warships are actively compromising the organization’s surge readiness and strategic edge. Nuclear attack submarines, a key U.S. advantage, are being especially impacted, with the USS Boise—awaiting a $1.2 billion overhaul since 2017—serving as a cautionary object lesson.
Some propose that additional funding for the Navy will help, but Spear points to outdated, top-down leadership strategies as the primary culprit. Indeed, 1960s-era management styles (which he believes were flawed from the start) have resulted in organizational silos, coordination failures, and a persistence of legacy systems. While none of these issues are necessarily unique to the US military, a look back at naval history offers a hopeful alternative approach to organizational management at large.
The power of distributed experimentation
As Spear has previously shared, at the turn of the 20th century, the US Navy faced two profound changes: a need to shift strategy (from transcontinental to transoceanic) and rapid technological change (including the introduction of turret-based battleships). These developments demanded new ways of operating and making decisions, since past experience was no longer a reliable guide.
When Navy leadership realized they had problems without answers, according to Spear, they decided to “take those problems and push them out to the field,” giving ship captains and crews not only “responsibility but authority to experiment.” Combat Information Centers (or CICs) were created to synthesize findings, and the Navy ran “fleet problems,” which were large-scale experiments designed to address unknowns.
Instead of simply following orders (what Spears calls “an aye aye sir compliance model”), these soldiers were empowered to solve problems. The expectation was not for them to necessarily share a correct answer, but rather, the lessons learned from running the experiments.
Learning that sticks at every level
A similar strategy can transform organizations across industries. Much like the US Navy today, modern enterprises are characterized by legacy management models, fragmentation, and delayed problem-solving. Embracing ambiguity and conducting experiments, not just in labs or on a small scale, are foundational drivers of success.
As Spear shared in a conversation about his co-authored book Wiring the Winning Organization, organizations that cannot adapt to change in this way enter “failure mode.” This occurs when “despite evidence that what we're doing is not working… we're so compelled to maintain operational tempo we don't stop and fix what is not working.”
Even for large, complex, or slow-moving changes, leadership can implement thought experiments and simulations. The goal should be to constantly test assumptions, learn from outcomes, and adapt mental models and strategies accordingly.
Wired for impact: Leadership lessons for agile organizations
The following best practices are drawn from Spear’s research on effective leadership and strategy from organizations he identifies as models, including HD Hyundai, United Airlines, Toyota, TSMC, Panasonic, and Airbus:
- Prioritize collective learning. Aim to create an environment where team members feel empowered to contribute knowledge and skills, working toward what Spear calls the ideal “social circuitry.” This should include fostering open dialogue and psychological safety, so that people feel secure in raising concerns and sharing ideas.
- Break down silos and build cross-functional teams. Spear advocates for moving away from narrow, functional roles towards mission-focused teams. This approach can help improve communication, accelerate problem-solving, and align efforts, enabling organizations to respond more effectively to complex challenges.
- Embrace continuous improvement and experimentation. In Wiring the Winning Organization, Spear and co-author Gene Kim argue for “slowification,” a process that involves taking time for reflection and adjustment, not just execution. In tandem, leaders should encourage small-scale experiments with rapid feedback loops.
- Move beyond compliance to better address problems. According to Spear, a discovery mindset needs to trump conformity: “We have to figure out what problem we really need to solve, why it’s actually occurring, what corrective actions will address it effectively, and how to bring those ideas into action.”
- Leverage technology and data for superior decision-making. Access to real-time data systems can dissolve silos, empowering teams to act decisively when issues arise. By leveraging predictive analytics and AI-powered tools, organizations can proactively identify and address both local and systemic problems before they snowball.
As Spear has observed, today’s innovations have altered very little about what rapid change requires—for the US Navy in the late 1900s and now, and for organizations of all kinds.
“Technology changes the conditions in which we're operating, it changes the tools available to us, it changes the object of our design intent. What it doesn't change are the powers and the limitations of the human mind which is why management systems … must be designed intentionally around taking advantage of the powers of the human mind working individually and collaboratively and collectively,” he says.
Learn how these leadership principles can serve as a growth lever for your organization in Steve Spear’s upcoming course Creating High-Velocity Organizations.