What is Strategic Design? Cultivating cognitive agility for the craft of generalship

Abstract

This essay explicates the philosophy of strategic design, a reflexive practice of generalship for defense and security organizations. It presents strategic design as a distinctive facet of generalship which enables defense practitioners working at the strategic level to address the kind of complex security challenges facing military leaders and decision makers in the 21st century. Combining unique first-hand insights from the co-instructor of the Israeli Defense Forces Generals’ Course, cross-cultural expertise on socialization of knowledge in defense and security settings, and elements of narrative and critical theory relevant to military design practice, it advocates cognitive agility as a critical mindset for defense leaders who need to generate transformative potential in an era of wars with no end. As a way of illustrating a model for cognitive agility for generalship, the authors unpack some of the more esoteric aspects of the ‘Z’ model of strategic design inquiries, namely the concept of self-disruption, the strategic efficacy of storytelling, and the principle of leveraging real-world operations as the expression of epistemology in action.