Whether through the opening of monopoly markets to competition, or through the arrival of “new entrants” – digital pure players, or companies built on these new building blocks of skills and tools – many large companies have had to resist, or adapt… or at least try to. To do so, they have either hardened their existing positions, or tried to play the game of these new actors, much weaker but much more agile. The book by the French officer David Galula, “Counterinsurgency Warfare”, a military reference in the United States before it became one in France, offers some keys for reading and reflecting on this economic “war”.
David Galula was an “atypical” French officer, whom some might consider a “maverick”. Born in 1919, his career took him from combat in North Africa, France and Germany to China as it was becoming Maoist and, more broadly, to observing revolutionary wars in the Far East, to Greece during its civil war, and then to the Algerian War. From 1962, having been placed on leave at his own request, he continued his career as a visiting fellow at the Harvard Center for International Affairs and at the RAND Corporation, before his death in 1968. In 2005, his book was recommended as a reference on insurgent warfare, as the American armed forces were engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More than fifty years after its publication, these reflections and recommendations remain fully relevant – and not only for military action.
Galula describes the forces involved as “counterinsurgents” (“loyalistes” in the French edition) and “insurgents”. To draw the parallel with the dynamics of civilian companies, let us give the position of “loyalists” to companies in a dominant position, and that of “insurgents” to “new entrants”. Because the aim, above all, is to gain control of a territory, a “market” (or “market share”).
What characterises the loyalists is respect for the law, bureaucracy, procedures. It is the defence of an established position, and actions in reaction to the insurgents’ initiatives. It is above all a culture of “control”, relying on a political structure, an administrative bureaucracy, a police force and armed forces.
Let us then draw the parallel with a company’s “governance” structures, the bureaucracy and standards that govern how it operates and its practices, a certain form of management that ensures their implementation, and the sales and influence forces that face external threats, directly or indirectly.
What characterises the insurgents is the conquest of territories, but also of the hearts of the populations who live there. It is initiative, mobility, the concentration of resources – limited by nature – on given, strategic, symbolic objectives. They are also forces that draw their means of action from the support of the population, or from outside support. What unites them is a “cause”.
To stand out from the dominant companies, “new entrants” often choose value propositions that break with what exists: whether for their employees, their “activists”, or for their customers, the populations to be won over. These breaks, these innovations, are found in the discourse (we don’t sell yoghurts, we connect consumers; we don’t carry passengers, we give them freedom…); they are found in the tools – and digital modes of action of every kind have been at the heart of what “new entrants” do, in every sector; they are also found in managerial and relational practices – horizontal, participatory, informal – at least as displayed, and real at least as long as the organisation remains small, without bureaucracy.
But are loyalists and insurgents really so different by nature?
For Galula, counterinsurgency can be waged by adopting the practices of the insurgents themselves – but only up to a point. Because the aim is not to conquer territory, but to keep control of it.
So while tactics can draw on the insurgents’ agility, the priority is to destroy their emerging organisation. And, in the longer term, not to try to maintain the old organisation, but to set up a political organisation that brings together the populations in synergy.
One could speak of “self-sustaining governance” for stakeholders seen as “partners” rather than as “customers”…
And as he also describes, the insurgents themselves are forced to adopt the loyalists’ practices and tools once they have gained control of a territory. In particular, a bureaucratic organisation and a police force.
Reading this book, it therefore appears to entrepreneurs that the “start-up spirit” only lasts for a while… And that agile, disruptive strategies are the preserve of challengers, not of established players.
The parallels, and the inspiration to be drawn from them, could be described at great length. Let us mention just a few.
- Agree on a mobilising “cause”: this is what unites energies, gives meaning to action, and also makes it possible to identify the “partisans”, those who act for this cause;
- Choose the territories to conquer – and also know how to move from one to another if the fight is too unequal, to come back to it later;
- Win minds and hearts rather than seeking domination and control. No company, however rich, can hold a territory for long if the populations who live there do not feel they have a stake in their future. This means seeking partners rather than dependants and subordinates;
- Do not give in to an “inevitable” bureaucracy. Standards and regulations are no doubt necessary elements of a common language, but when they take precedence over initiative and the human factor, they strip people of responsibility and lead to failure, to accidents;
- This resistance to the well-known bureaucratic phenomenon is not incompatible with the growth of the organisation. “Holomorphic” structures are models to draw inspiration from, fostering both the initiative typical of small organisations and the sharing of common objectives, including by a large number of actors.
Had Jean-Christian Fauvet, the founder of sociodynamics, read Galula? In any case, there are so many parallels that, if he had not, it shows once again that the world of ideas often reveals tremendous potential synergies – whether directly linked by mutual inspiration, or simply the expression of the “spirit of the times”.
David Galula, “Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice”, Praeger, 1964 (French edition: « Contre-insurrection. Théorie et pratique », Economica, 2008)
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