OUT OF THE BOX THINKING

 

In the Armed Forces, the senior hierarchy normally exhorts the youngsters to indulge in “Out of the box thinking”. The irony of this sermon is that most of them themselves have been treading the beaten path, as that is safe and secure. Any deviations and you are treading in a dangerous zone, where a failure may end up in premature culmination of a promising professional career.  As they say ‘better to be safe than sorry’, so no unnecessary risks is the mantra for success. 

But ‘nothing ventured nothing gained’ and while sticking to the laid down SOPs are ok for peace time activities, operations are a different ball game altogether. No operational plan survives the first bullet being fired. All contingency planning comes to a nought, as the adversary surprises you with an altogether different approach. This creative ‘out of the box’ thinking is absolutely essential for mere survival in counter insurgency operations, one has to think like the terrorist to be able to defeat him. 

I am sure all of us are seized of this dictum, but the million dollar question remains as to how do we inculcate this in the youngsters. First and foremost, our system of assessment for professional courses and exams needs a de novo look. I will illustrate this with a simple example, I was preparing for Staff College Entrance Exam along with a friend who is from the Special Forces during our Pre-Staff Course. We were attempting a Cordon and Search appreciation as a practice test, while I followed the script, he followed what he actually did during the operations. During the discussions I tried explaining to him the need to stick to the script, but he felt otherwise. As luck would have it, our Tactics “B” paper had us attempting a Cordon & Search operation itself and sure enough, I qualified, while he couldn’t. 

Same story is repeated during the War games, Operational Alert exercises etc, Red or Yellow Land always ends up losing it, even if their Commander had a better plan. Aim being that wrong lesson of Blue Land succumbing should not be taken home, but I think it is actually counter productive as the whole thing is stage managed and ingenuity or innovative thinking is given a short shrift. 

To be able to think differently, one has to be creative and of a fertile imagination, only then one can conceive “Out of the box” plans and this must be practised and encouraged during peace time activities. If all our lives, we haven’t done it, we can’t suddenly become a Guderian, Rommel  or Zorawar during war. Creativity has to be nurtured and leaders need to be given this opportunity to indulge in these activities on a day to day basis. To be able to act out of the box, one has to first think out of the box, but our thinking process has become so straightjacketed with years of regimentation that this knot needs a deliberate effort to disentangle.

Encourage creativity by motivating the young officers to pursue a hobby, writing, painting, music, photography, dance, anything at all, but this aspect needs to be addressed as a vital trait of character and should be commented upon by the officers in chain of command. Originality has become a rare commodity, especially in this era of Artificial Intelligence where Chatgpt rules the roost. By no stretch of imagination am I advocating that creative pursuits be  the only criteria for judging an individual, but unless he or she finds that it has a productive value, it will not be an honest effort. Our question papers in Promotion exams should also not be rote based, but rely on ground knowledge acquired in the units. Similarly our thesis during Higher Command and NDC must focus on challenging topics which are not the usual run of the mill topics which have been thrashed out a million times already with nothing substantial emerging as an output. Articles in the magazines published by our think tanks are also not meeting international standards. May be making military history campaigns and biographies an yearly effort for all officers will nudge them towards professional reading, as even that aspect is highly neglected. 

Since we are highly regimented, we have ourselves created the proverbial box, we follow drills, procedures, SOPs thus remaining in the box. To set ourselves free and break these shackles we need an outlet where we don’t get stuck, that is where these creative pursuits will help. We also need to get rid of this tyranny of ranks, mere seniority in rank does not anoint anyone as the ultimate knower of the truth. The urge to be a “Yes” man stems from this very fact, wisdom and seniority are not always complementary. Professional respect is earned by your deeds and reputation in the organisation and not by your rank per se. So youngsters shun this timidity and bash on regardless, be original, be creative, because that will breed excellence.