Vannevar Bush: Humble Leadership in the Bureaucracy
A selective summary of "Pieces of the Action"
“What, after all, is an organization? It is merely the formalization of a set of human relations among men with a common objective. The form of the organization is important.”
Vannevar Bush, Pieces of the Action, page 85
Recently, I've embraced a now common rite of passage among the new class of science and tech policy entrepreneurs: studying the works of Vannevar Bush. He is most well known for his influential memo, "The Endless Frontier", which fundamentally shaped our contemporary scientific funding landscape through the creation of the National Science Foundation.
There is a renewed interest in the work of Bush and his ilk, as many interested in “progress studies” or “metascience entrepeneurship” begin to rethink the traditional structures of science funding. ARPAs, FROs, and anything else the good folks at Schdmit Futures can think of are all receiving interest at the highest levels of government policy making, both in the US and abroad.
And I’m overall supportive of the directionality of this rethinking and rebuilding of science funding structures. Incentive structures do play an incredibly important role in shaping systems, regardless of individual will or desire.
With that said, what I was most struck by reading Bush’s memoir is not his detailed thinking on how to structure organizations or funding mechanisms explicitly, but rather the character behind the man who guided the US’s technical advancements in World War II and ultimately crafted our modern scientific institutions. This is a selective1, opinionated summary of Vannevar Bush’s memoir, “Pieces of the Action”.
Trust
An effective organization requires trust. Trust is the bond that allows for decentralized operations and the genuine and authentic bubbling up of ideas. In contrast, an organization ruled by fear or selfishness stifles the diffusion of raw ideas, instead coloring them based on what those in power want to see.
“It is interesting that in the same period, the Germans produced only one really new advance on the submarine itself, namely the snorkel, and they produced that too late to be of much help to them. Dictatorships have to use, for the safety of the dictator, rigid lines of authority, and rigid schemes do not produce the best innovations. The same thing is illustrated in the atomic energy field, where the Germans got nowhere and the Japanese did not even start….The German submarines constantly made reports to home base by radio, presumably because the German High Command did not dare to leave them on their own.”
Page 97
Bush talks at length about the extent to which he trusted his team and how he built trust with members of other organizations (in particular, young military officers fresh from the academy), which allowed OSRD to integrate effectively. As a counterexample, the lack of trust from German High Command ultimately doomed their submarine fleet, as their consistent radio signature made them easy to track later.2
Humility
The ability to trust someone requires the presence of the virtue of humility. Trusting someone else is an exercise in being able to remove yourself from the center and trust in the other. I am convinced that many of the problems our society faces is due to a deficit of humble leaders. One does not need to go far to find examples of this problem in politics, tech, etc.
“I had served for six years as Compton’s second-in-command, as vice president of MIT. Then he served five years in an organization of which I was formally chief. It is not every man who can adapt wholeheartedly to such a change. But Karl Compton was a rare individual.”
Page 54
In particular, though Bush served as a chief science advisor to FDR, he consistently frames himself as learning from those beneath him.3
“I did make sure that my answers represented not my personal judgment but that of the best qualified scientists or engineers to be found. Sometimes I had a chance to check up before answering. More often, I had to answer at once, follow this up by going to the right place in OSRD [Office of Science, Research, and Development], and if necessary, correct or supplement my remarks to FDR at the first opportunity. There is no doubt that this attitude, which was shared by all the top echelon of OSRD in their contact with military men, helped greatly in relations with men in uniform. It was in contrast to the attitude of Lord Cherwell in Britain, who felt he was bound to give Churchill his personal judgment on all such matters. In my opinion, this procedure, which certainly annoyed British scientists, was as much the fault of Churchill as of Cherwell4. The point is that I regarded myself as a link between the president and American science and technology, and not as an oracle or an expert on all matters scientific.”
Page 70
Bush’s humility allowed him to listen to those beneath him and pass on their expertise to the decision makers above him. His humility then expanded the voices and opinions that FDR heard, from just what Bush thought, to what the entire scientific community thought on a certain subject.
“…my job, as usual, was to furnish the best, most reliable opinions of those in a position to analyze fully. Both men knew that this was what was being done, and were thus satisfied without probing beyond me. The converse was also true; those from whom I sought these opinions for relaying also found the system satisfactory… In general, the whole team was content to stay in channels, as long as the members knew that the channels were not blocked and that there was no assumption of omniscience at the top.”
Page 79
As a result, Bush’s humility worked both ways - not only did the decision-makers he reported to trust him, but the people who reported to Bush also trusted that he would pass on their judgements and work, rather than feeling the need to circumvent him. This promoted good order within an organizational structure.
Finally, promoting the essence of humility throughout an organization allows for effective collaboration5.
“The Nazis had no genuine collaboration between scientists and military men. They had a caricature of an organization. They took the old prussian caste system, with arrogant generals struting in their bemedaled uniforms, and they made a caricature of that also. Sound scientists, when used at all, were bossed around by second-rate ones who contrived to become members of the SS or the Gestapo. We have to add, also, that many German scientists, by no means all, were carried away by the prevalent conceit, the Aryan myth, and were in no condition to collaborate with anyone whatsoever.”
Page 128
Humility is the oil grease that allows information to effectively be filtered and flow up and down an organizational hierarchy, regardless of what the hierarchical structure is itself. Pride is the stumbling block that hinders success.
Building Process
Trust and humility are essential components within an organization in that they help facilitate the well-ordered operation of an organization. Bush also consistently highlights the importance of process to ensure the meritocratic sifting through of ideas, rather than through short-circuiting or nepotism.
“The Romans called a new recruit a tyro…The tyro is the freewheeler in an organization, who gums up the works because of his arrogant ignorance, often because he filches authority that does not belong to him. He operates because his boss doesn’t know what he is doing, or knows and doesn’t care. He can throw any organization, civilian or military, into confusion…The tyro has a contempt for channels of authority and ducks around them. Military men during the Great War especially distrusted and disliked his pattern of operation, and they still do. Everyone who has ever worked in a complex pyramidal organization recognizes that there occasionally appears somewhere on the ladder of authority a dumb cluck who has to be circumvented if there is to be any progress whatsoever. But the process of shearing such a one of his formal control is then usually a group process, and this is not what I mean.
page 133
Bush writes about a notable “Tyro”, Geoffrey Pyke, a salesman who tried to market his outlandish ideas during World War II, most notably to build giant icebergs as naval carriers in the Northern Atlantic. His ideas gained significant traction, and resulted in hundreds of man-hours spent designing and studying such an idea in both the UK and Canada during the war, because their leaders at the highest levels of science and technology allowed themselves to be persuaded by charisma and hype, rather than leveraging the significant expertise available to the state, beyond the word of one man. Here is Bush’s engagement and response to Pyke:
“The next thing I heard about Habakkuk [code-name for the iceberg project] was when Mountbatten [kind of equivalent to a US Joint Chief of Staff] and Pyke walked into my office. They had evidently just come from the White House. There was no presentation of a proposal, no request that OSRD should study one and advise on it. Rather, Pyke told me the plan was approved, and just what OSRD was now to do about it. Mountbatten looked embarressed, but not nearly enough so. I listened. Then I told Pyke, no doubt with some emphasis, that I took orders from the president of the United States and from no one else, and that ended the interview. I never heard any word on the subject…
These two short interviews [includes a subsequent brief discussion with FDR on the idea] probably spared this country the waste of a million man-hours of work by scientists, engineers, and technicians who had much more realistic things to do. The Canadians went ahead with the program. The National Research Council at Ottawa took it on. ‘The order stemmed from the highest authority, its temper was mandatory, and as a result a tremendous flurry of activity got under way in Canada’ as Eggleston tells it. Much of the effort of some of Canada’s most able scientists and engineers was thus used.”
Page 136
Bush of course did not make this decision on his own: knowing that this was coming down the pipe, he had consulted with engineers in the Navy and OSRD on the viability of this idea and what alternatives they would propose as an improvement.
To be clear, you do sometimes have to circumvent blockers in the bureaucracy6. But Bush distinguishes “Tyro’s” from this more normal process:
“Everyone who has ever worked in a complex pyramidal organization recognizes that there occasionally appears somewhere on the ladder of authority a dumb cluck who has to be circumvented if there is to be any progress whatsoever. But the process of shearing such a one of his formal control is then usually a group process, and this is not what I mean. The tyro I have in mind is not formally in the chain of command at all; he just buts into it at all sorts of levels and clashes the train of gears”
Page 133
Finally, the importance of trust, humility, and layering well-formed processes on top in a bureaucracy implies a degree of trust in the state, a belief that the state R&D apparatus, when properly empowered and organized, is competent and capable of building great things. That degree of trust is clear throughout Bush’s memoir.
I’ve found that we generally don’t have that degree of trust in the government today. For a variety of reasons, many people no longer expect much, or anything, from the state today. But if we want to build again, the public sector has an important part to play in that process. Achieving this will require committed individuals working within the government, inspired by a vision of what we can collectively accomplish.
Addendum: Who Decides?
Permitting is a topic of great interest in housing and energy today. The underlying question of permitting is essentially “Who gets to decide”? It is interesting that the military’s process, for arguably the highest risk endeavor that exists, has a very unique process for decision-making:7
“The military principle is that every officer, from the young platoon commander to the head of an army group in the field, knows exactly the scope of his authority within his own area, and over his own troops and equipment, where he operates under orders that defines his mission. These orders may be changed by higher command. But his operation within those orders is never interfered with. If he cannot perform, he is relieved, but no one tells him how he must do his job.”
Page 151“In any theater of war there should be a single chief commander with full authority over all forces in the theater, land, sea, and air. His mission should be given to him by the Joint Chiefs of Staff after approval by the president…The Joint Chiefs of Staff should have no power to alter such a mission, once assigned, without securing renewed approval. Nor should they interfere in the slightest degree with their commander in the field as he carries out the mission. They should watch him - closely - and if he falters they should promptly recommend his relief and replacement. They should operate the home front to ensure that he is furnished men, supplies, and weapons…But they should not interfere with the judgement of the field commander.
Page 95
It has been argued that the loss of this radical combination of independence and autonomy coupled with strict accountability (usually due to political interference in operation) is why American generals were less successful in Korea and Vietnam than during World War II.8
This summary is mostly focused on the earlier parts of the book about Bush the Big Science Bureaucrat. He also talks about his experience as a teacher, inventor, and engine-tinkerer, which are all also worth reading!
There are probably modern day examples of this when comparing the Ukraine-Russia conflict as well.
Also, I could’ve sworn I saw this idea tying the importance of trust, scientific progress, and democracy somewhere in Fukuyama’s End of History but I can’t find it. If anyone can find this, I would greatly appreciate it (or maybe I’m making it up)!
Bush also writes about his experience as a professor working with two young teaching assistants teaching a graduate class at MIT on operational methods for circuit analysis.
“With these two chaps I was putting together a final examination. Suddenly, I came to the realization that they knew more about the subject than I did. In some ways, this was not strange; they were concentrating on it, and I was getting involved in other things. But it hit me solidly. And right there I decided that I was not going to get in the way of younger men, and that, when the time came that I could not compete genuinely with them, I would get out….I told my two assistants that I was through teaching the course and that it was theirs to develop. I told them my book was out of date and that they should write its sucessor. (They later did.) They did not believe me at the time, but I meant it.”
Page 222
Further to the point about humility in leaders as a necessity for them to trust their subordinates:"
“Churchill, on the other hand, butted in on all sorts of technical matters. He, of course, had an ego that has never been matched anywhere. Just as he did not hesitate to represent himself as an expert on military strategy and tactics, he did not hesitate to consider himself an expert on the application of science to weapons. Cherwell, in the position of carrying out Churchill’s orders, was bound to be in conflict with all sorts of committees and individuals; and he was.
Page 289
It could be argued that the focus on the collective good during a time of existential war certainly helped with the suppression of the individual ego. Here is Bush talking about the patents for the anti-submarine technologies (self-propelled target-seeking torpedos) they created:
“In no case did I know who the individual inventor was, nor did I care. Moreover, the men in the laboratory did not care either. For one thing, once a problem became clear, the invention, if a useful one, was bound to appear, if not made by one man then by another. For another thing, in general, no one was looking for personal credit…But the general attitude in the laboratories everywhere was, ‘the hell with credit, get on with the job’..... ‘So hundreds of patent applications were filed…assigned to me as director of OSRD, and by me dedicated to the public… I suppose that in the process I personally destroyed more property in the form of patents than any other man living….In addition, the inventions on which I destroyed patents had no need for venture capital in their development. OSRD [Office of Science, Research and Development] had supplied that”
Page 99-100
And Bush was certainly not above such maneuvers! The advancement of anti-submarine technology during the early 1940’s allowed for the creation of new naval doctrine, from defensive convoying to offensive submarine wolfpack hunting. Unfortunately, Admiral King, then Commander in Chief of the US Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations was set in his ways and refused to allow even testing this new tactic or technology.
“Yet I was in a tough quandry. My associates were working hard with alert naval officers on a friendly basis. These in turn were urging their points of view internally in the Navy. I had close relations with a few highly competent admirals and could discuss the problem with them… But should I go directly to FDR and urge a change, which would have been to attack directly the competence of the chief of naval operations? There was great doubt as to the success of such a move. But there was no doubt whatsoever that it would have spoiled the gradually improving relations with the services generally…
The solution, when it came, involved the creation of the Tenth Fleet in the charge of a highly competent officer, Rear Admiral Francis S. Low. This saved face for King, for the Tenth Fleet reported directly to him. And this did no harm whatsoever; King did not interfere with Low as the whole program was altered, probably for the simple reason that King had no grasp whatsoever of the technical revolution that had occured.”Page 104-106
Yes, Bush circumvented an obstinate Chief of Naval Operations while preserving friendly relationships by creating a whole new fleet! I believe this is what we now call “demo pilot”
One final one that is a bit less clearly stated, but evokes similar principles, particularly around the role of scientists and engineers in military planning:
“Military men view with great seriousness their task in the planning of military strategy; they have devoted a lifetime to preparing to do it well. An invasion into this area by men of political background is resisted with vigor…The mission of the military should be determined and stated by the full system of the political state; top military leaders should be thus selected, and then they should be given full support to plan and carry out their mission. This is sound doctrine. To have altered it by injecting scientific thinking at the very top level, by introducing into the planning counsels some man of primarily scientific or engineering background, would have done more harm than good…At the planning table there should be at least one man who understands weapons, those of the present and of the probable future…That man should be a military officer.
Page 131-132