The secret to the success of the Israel Defense Forces can be credited to a number of factors; according to JNS Israel military correspondent Yaakov Lappin, however, it involves creating a culture as much as the courage of its soldiers, air crews and sailors, and their effective use of cutting-edge technology.
Lappin, who has written about this in his recently published book, Blue Team Dynamics: Three Proven Leadership Principles Inspired by IDF Sources for Business and Life, joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin on this week’s episode of “Think Twice” to discuss how this works.
The book is based on years of research and interviews dating back to 2018. According to Lappin, the three principles that are the foundation of IDF culture involve the importance of after-action review of everything they do; cultivating the ability to switch from the routine to an emergency mode; and encouraging the need to recognize how to manage long-term change inside an organization. As he notes, the same ideas can help individuals or non-military organizations and businesses also succeed.
Lappin concedes that many of these lessons were forgotten by Israel’s military and intelligence establishment as well as their political masters before the catastrophe of Oct. 7, 2023, which occurred almost exactly 50 years after the IDF suffered another disaster that was also rooted in organizational failure.
With respect to Oct. 7, he says the mistake came from a basic human failing in which, “the human mind adopts and falls in love with a narrative” that is very difficult to break out of. This overrode the culture that should have prevented the complacency that led to the Hamas and Palestinian terrorists being able to carry out the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
Prioritizing after-action detailed post-training and combat analysis started inside the Israeli Air Force, but it has spread to the other branches of the military now as well. That involves creating a culture where admitting mistakes of any kind is not only permitted but lauded as necessary, especially where it concerns commanders.
The necessity of knowing when to switch to emergency mode was actually highlighted by the way many in the IDF responded to Oct. 7. Those efforts ensured that the grievous damage inflicted by Hamas was limited and then allowed the Israelis to defeat the terrorists. Nevertheless, it’s still true that the IDF failed to anticipate this “black swan” event and that the procedures that should have prevented that mistake, which involve looking for “black feathers,” rather than the swan itself, didn’t happen.
According to Lappin, the “Blue Team” approach, which refers to the creation of two groups dedicated to both planning IDF actions and those that seek to examine and defeat those plans as an enemy would, must also be credited for the amazing triumphs Israel achieved after Oct. 7 in Lebanon and against Iran. And as he notes, the very same ideas have been applied by IDF veterans in their post-military careers in business and technology.
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