Book Review: Pieces of the Action
Vannevar Bush's takes on organizational structure, managing teams of scientists and engineers, and effective communication.
Should You Read This?
I stole this book from Pillar VC because it was published by Stripe Press, and I had no idea what I would be getting into. As I’ve since learned, Vannevar Bush (this book’s author) is known for leading the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) and the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) during World War II, where he oversaw the Manhattan Project. He’s also well known for writing Science, the Endless Frontier, a report about government funding of science.
Pieces of the Action, however, is about neither the Manhattan Project nor government-funded science. Instead, it’s a collection of thoughts and stories centered around running organizations and working towards technical progress.
This review is written with people working at technical organizations in mind. If you’re interested in Bush’s insights into organizational structure, managing teams of scientists and engineers, and effective communication, then this review is for you!
If you’re instead interested in stories about obscure weapons prototypes, hydraulic engines, and Bush’s conversations with different government leaders, this review includes a few stories where relevant—but I would recommend purchasing a copy of Pieces of the Action and reading it yourself.
If you’re running late somewhere and only have two minutes, consider skipping to the end of this review to read a bulleted list of my takeaways from this book.
1. A Call for Determination and Light-Heartedness
Bush recalls being told that progress would halt—“that the frontier had been occupied, that all of man’s wants had been met, that science had come to the end of a trail, that future growth would depend only on increase of population.” Fifty years later, this sort of argument still sounds familiar to me! I hear it being said with different words: “we’ve entered a stagnation,” “the low-hanging fruit has been picked,” “scientific progress is slowing down.”
And while there are many good reasons to be concerned about the pace of progress, it’s easy to take what has happened for granted. Bush reminds his readers that in the time from 1910 to 1970:
the percentage of Americans living and working on farms had fallen from 30% to 5% (without causing food shortages);
American education shifted from a majority of people having not finished middle school to a majority of people having finished high school;
and America had built an entire welfare system without corruption or destroying industries.
This progress is amazing! By 1970, many employees and their employers enjoyed very similar standards of living: cars with A/C, balanced diets, heated homes, etc. Bush doesn’t even mention major projects like human space travel and the interstate highway system that had been completed during that time period.
In the past fifty years, we’ve seen similar progress:
the percentage of Americans working in agriculture has fallen to below 1% (again without causing food shortages),
over 90% of Americans have finished high school, and nearly 50% have completed an associate or bachelor’s degree,
and the infant mortality rate has fallen from 20 deaths per 1,000 births to under 6.
To counter the widespread technological pessimism (of 1970, though this rings true today), Bush calls for:
determination, “a revival of the essence of the old pioneer spirit that conquered the forest and the plains,” and
light-heartedness, saying “we take ourselves too seriously these days … for, after all, there is happiness in the world … if we but seek it, and welcome it when it appears.”
2. Organization Function is a Property of Organization Structure
Having encouraged his readers to be more optimistic, Bush turns to examining the factors that cause some organizations to excel while others stagnate.
Different organizations have different goals. For instance, the military’s goal is normally to do something concrete, like supplying and protecting a location. To accomplish these goals—which I think of as “executing” goals—military organizations are close-knit and pyramidal. This means that everyone knows who they receive orders from, and no one person is in charge of giving too many people their orders. This structure helps military organizations execute. On the other hand, “innovating” organizations responsible for creating new tools and tactics need to have looser structures so that researchers have the freedom to pursue new ideas and find what works.
Militaries obviously need to prioritize execution, but they also rely on innovation in weapons and tactics. Changing the military’s structure during times of peace to focus on innovation, however, would be much too slow to meet these needs. This requires the military to have working relationships with loosely-structured organizations that can focus on weapons and tactics innovations.
During his career, Bush directed two loosely-structured organizations that supported the more pyramidal military: the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) and the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). He goes into quite a bit of depth telling stories about these organizations; I’ll share only what I think are the most interesting and relevant details. While history is unlikely to repeat itself exactly, I find the setups of these organizations to be interesting case studies in conducting, coordinating, and optimizing research & development processes.
2.1 National Defense Research Committee (NDRC)
The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was set up in 1940 to fund and direct scientific research in five different areas. Each division was headed by a single chairman who was given broad authority within their domain. The five divisions worked on:
armor and ordnance;
chemistry and explosives;
communications and transportation;
detections, controls, and instruments (think radar);
and patents and inventions.
The NDRC was a lightly staffed organization that relied on collaborations with academic and industrial laboratories to conduct research. The NDRC operated like a highly directive and centralized funding agency, even going so far as to create laboratories when none existed to support its mission. (Funding was originally issued at an individual grant-based level before the NDRC switched to funding entire programs at institutional levels.)
Each division’s chairman reported directly to Bush, who served as the chairman of the NDRC. As chairman, Bush was in charge of managing outside relationships and, when they reached him, making decisions. On the need for having a final decision maker, he writes: “there should never be, throughout an organization, any doubt as to where authority for making decisions resides, or any doubt that they will be promptly made.”
The business and governmental relations for all the divisions were managed by a separate office that reported directly to the chairman (Bush). This meant each research division’s management never had to worry about contracts, business, or regulations and were free to single-mindedly pursue innovation.
2.2 Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)
In 1941, the NDRC became the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) when adding a committee for medical research. This transition was made by an executive order, which greatly increased the funding available to the organization and made the position of director (Bush) to be appointed by and answerable only to the president of the US.
The OSRD typically followed one of three organizational models when conducting research:
First, whenever possible, it relied on existing laboratories. This approach required minimal administrative effort and allowed the OSRD to leverage the strengths of established teams.
Second, when rapid progress was essential and relevant expertise was dispersed, the OSRD created entirely new research organizations, such as the Radiation Laboratory at MIT and the Radio Research Laboratory at Harvard. This strategy reduced communication barriers, promoted collaboration, and focused researchers on a specific problem.
Third, especially in the case of medical research, the OSRD coordinated large networks of laboratories around a central goal. For instance, it organized multiple institutions in its search for anti-malarial drugs and in the development and mass production of penicillin. Although Bush provides limited detail here, this model seems particularly effective when the work benefits from geographic distribution, existing institutional infrastructure, or involvement from researchers who could not be centralized under a single organization.
Despite being built for a specific time and purpose, the NDRC and OSRD are great case studies in intentionally shaping organizational structures to enable innovation. Both organizations granted individual divisions a high degree of autonomy and worked to keep the divisions free from rote operational concerns. However, despite having loose overall structures, these organizations maintained clear authority and decision-making processes. In this way, the NDRC and OSRD exemplify loosely structured, “innovating” organizations that effectively complement their “executing” counterparts.
What could still cause well-structured organizations to fail? Sometimes clear chains of authority create dissatisfaction and unrest. While reflecting on labor strikes as an example of this unrest, Bush notes that “throughout any organization, nearly every individual both receives and gives orders.” “But it makes a great deal of difference, from the standpoint of political stability and of human dignity, how the orders are given, and whether they are followed cheerfully.”
Operating with respect is a basic point, but its impact can’t be understated. All sorts of organizational malfunction arise from people giving and receiving orders doing so meanly or disrespectfully. When closing out this section, Bush reflects on the relative importance of organization structures and people’s character:
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 organization is important. Far more important are the men themselves, and their insistence on working together effectively for a common end.
3. Overcoming Obstacles to Progress
Having tackled organization structure at a high-level, Bush turns his attention to what can still prevent a well-structured organization from functioning, which he calls roadblocks. There are a number of common types of roadblocks in individuals: greed, pride, needless traditionalism, and holding outdated convictions. Good leaders anticipate and work to avoid these roadblocks. To detail the effects of roadblocks and some ways around them, Bush recalls a few stories about developing new weapons technologies for use by the armed forces.
3.1 Submarine Detection in World War I
One project Bush worked on was submarine detection systems in World War I (WWI).
To give a lay of the land, the National Research Council (NRC) had an anti-submarine warfare committee that worked with a committee of naval officers. The NRC had only the budget that the Navy gave them, meaning the naval officers could prevent any research from being done in this area if they so pleased (which was bad).
Submarines couldn’t go deeper than 150 feet or so before WWII, meaning they mostly operated in shallow waters. Whenever they heard a ship, they would turn everything off and rest on the ocean floor. This raised a problem: how can you find enemy submarines when they’re off?
An early-career Vannevar Bush worked on a magnetic solution that produced a tone when its magnetic field was disturbed, but the Navy refused to fund it. Persistent as ever, Bush took the technology to the American Radio and Research Corporation (AMRAD), a private sector company, implied the technology would benefit the private sector, and got it developed. The Navy insisted on some modifications that were eventually overruled, wasting six months. In the end, 100 devices were made, and three made it onto British submarine chasers in the North Sea.
This experience taught Bush the importance of having a proper liaison between the military and the civilians working on developing weapons technologies. Without a liaison, the Navy’s lack of technological expertise and slow communication delayed helpful technologies from reaching the field. Additionally, no liaison meant no coordination between groups working on the same problems. Another group was working on submarine detection using non-polarizing electrodes to pick up stray currents, and Bush eventually helped them get their device working, but he didn’t know their group existed until he stumbled across them one day.
3.2 Submarine Detection in WWII
By World War II (WWII), submarines were faster and could go deeper. However, the Navy had refused help from the NDRC in building anti-submarine weapons. This led to the best anti-submarine weapons being “ashcan” depth charges. Ashcans were set to detonate at a certain depth, but they sank so slowly that submarines could sink just as fast as the ashcans themselves, thereby avoiding them.
How did this happen? Bush proposes two reasons: “First, the organization was tight, and all decisions were made by a top brass old-fashioned technically. Second, these decisions, once made, were not reviewed, were not even commented upon, by anyone whatsoever.” The OSRD was eventually able to get relations with the Navy back on track, by way of “patience, skill, good fellowship, and time” as well as “the movement into positions of authority of able young naval officers.”
Eventually, the British and the Radiation Laboratory at MIT independently found a way to detect German submarines by listening to their radios and shore radio stations (LORAN). Ultimately, a lot of weapons technologies came into use, including: magnetic airborne detection of submarines, centimetric radar to detect submarines, SONAR to distinguish between submarines and decoys, anti-submarine rockets shot from airplanes to puncture submarines, self-propelled target-seeking torpedoes, and more.
In the war, “once a problem became clear, the invention, if a useful one, was bound to appear, if not made by one man then by another.” Vannevar created defensive patents that he signed over to the American public for all of the technologies he could. His thought process was that patents were important when trying to get venture funding for an invention, but these inventions had already been funded by the public sector. Moreover, he writes that “the general attitude in laboratories everywhere was, ‘The hell with the credit, get on with the job.’”
However, some roadblocks remained in getting these new technologies adopted. Even once a device had been put onto a submarine and the sailors had been trained, it often still came back in its wrapping, unused. Many new devices weren’t used until the establishment of the Tenth Fleet, led by Rear Admiral Francis S. Low. The fleet was largely ignored by Admiral King, allowing Low to collaborate with the OSRD and achieve a number of successes against German U-boat submarines. This illustrates how the adoption of new technologies sometimes demands the creation of new teams.
3.3 Tanks
In the realm of tanks, acquisition of technologies wasn’t fully or quickly explored. “Ordnance knew all about tanks and allowed no one to enter their sacred precincts.” After hearing rumors of a new tank design being full of defects, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson sent Major General Stephen G. Henry to learn about the defects. The commanding officer at the station made a plan for Henry’s visit, but Henry insisted on the following plan to break through the entrenched interest environment, saying: “I am now going out into the tank park. No officer will come within 100 yards of that park while I am there.” Once in the tank park, Henry learned about the tanks from the sergeants who worked directly with them.
Bush notes that “innovations are very likely to appear outside the organization that could find them useful.” To avoid problems like ordnance stifling the development of tanks, organizations need to constantly be looking for new external technologies to adopt or adapt to their needs.
What do these stories about submarine warfare and tanks teach us about handling roadblocks? All three stories “illustrate the dangers of isolated groups with vested interests.” Great progress can come from close joint effort between military men and engineers with freedom and independence to explore bizarre ideas. This system relies on mutual respect and reliance.
I’d like to mention two other notes from this section. First, Bush noted that the position of an officer impacts their stance towards innovations. Top officers on the field tend to be very open-minded. Officers back home tend to be risk averse and not tell field officers about new innovations as they’re more focused on operations than innovation. However, field officers who came back home are good, for they understand the needs of the field.
Second, on the effectiveness of Soviet weapons innovations, Bush writes: “their brilliant successes in limited areas have come about because they have extended a notable measure of freedom to scientists and technologists where results of possible military value seem attainable.”
4. Handling Tyros
Before moving away from the problem of roadblocks, Bush spends a whole chapter discussing one specific roadblock in organizations: tyros.
First off, what is 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.” A tyro will duck around channels of authority, often by skipping levels and talking to people much higher than his manager. Tyros will also ignore physics in favor of persistence. Succinctly, a tyro is someone who lacks technical experience and pays little regard to their assigned place in an organization.
How is a tyro different from an amateur? In short, “wisdom distinguishes the amateur from the tyro, in invention as well as in everything else.” “[The amateur] is operating in a field in which he is, at first, in ignorance, for it is far removed from his formal training and experience. But he can learn, and often does.” Bush gives the example of a lawyer turned president of a modern industrial company. As regards much of the business, the lawyer is an amateur. Despite this, his mastery over legal matters enables him to hold the respect of his fellows as he learns that which he’s ignorant of.
(Some people are amateurs at lots of things and master of no specific thing, “foxes” in the Isaiah Berlin hedgehog–fox categorization. To succeed, Bush writes that these people need the ability to quickly become well acquainted enough in a subject to understand & judge whether proposals are sound and the ability to be a good judge of men.)
To illustrate how problematic tyros can be, Bush shares two stories revolving around Geoffrey Pyke.
Pyke contacted the Chief of Combined Operations, Lord Mountbatten, to propose his plan for Project Habakkuk, which would be a massive block of pykrete (2000 by 300 by 200 feet) that would float in the Atlantic to serve as a home base for transatlantic planes and submarines. This ice-and-wood-pulp island would have a refrigerating plant, diesel engines, living quarters, and more. Mountbatten shared this plan with Churchill, who in turn sent a memo to the Chiefs of Staff for urgent action. Pyke then approached Bush telling him the plan was approved and that the OSRD was to carry it out. Having a keen sense for these matters, Bush insisted that he only took orders from the president.
A separate time, Pyke presented a plan to Lord Mountbatten that involved airdropping Archimedes-screw-propelled snow vehicles into Norway to destroy heavy water power plants being used for atomic energy. This plan made its way from Mountbatten to Churchill through the US command to Bush. The plan was taken seriously, rushed through production, and 1000 “weasels” were produced by the end of 1942 (at the expense of the US’s B-17 production). However, the US Air Force had never been told about this plan, which Air Marshall Harris vetoed, using fifth columns to knock out the power plants instead. The weasels were used to deliver supplies in Italy and to transport wounded troops back, but this at much cost.
How can we withstand the deleterious effects of tyros on our organizations? Bush has a few ideas, starting with how the military handles these matters (emphasis added):
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 define 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. A staff officer can transmit orders from his boss to clarify a mission, being exceedingly careful that this is all he is doing and that everyone involved knows it. A staff can also take a general order from its chief and break it down into a set of detailed orders; in fact, that is often its primary function. The really good staff man can even, in an emergency, alter orders on his own if he knows his boss’s plan well enough, but he will do this with care and check up promptly. But the staff officer who steps over the border can be a menace. There is no job that calls for more good common sense than that of the staff officer, or of the deputy to the chief in any organization. I am no expert on military organization, but it does not take long to learn this much.
Relatedly, “another principle is that tasks or missions should not in general overlap, or that, when some duplication is inevitable, there must be constant staff action to avoid gaps or conflicts.” These two principles boil down to making sure each person has clearly scoped responsibilities and that no two unconnected people are ever responsible for the same thing.
Tyro-shaped problems can come about as a result of technical incompetence but also as a result of poor coordination. When it comes to products, there are two failure modes: either the product is developed too slowly and competitors get ahead, or it’s developed too fast and it fails in the world. Both of these problems are the result of improper coordination. Each job function wants their own thing. To ensure proper coordination, each function’s job should be to make sure that their boss has full information to make a decision (and that the boss indeed does make a decision).
This might make it sound like the only way to mitigate the effect of tyros is dictatorship. How can you sometimes invite criticism and dissent and other times issue orders to be followed without question? Bush recalls: “I know that some of our finest military men can resolve this quandary, for I have seen them do it. If the general’s hat is on sideways, the field is open to discussion and no holds barred. If it is on straight, it is time for orders and action and no fooling.”
5. Most of Inventing Is Execution
When dealing with inventors (or early-stage startup founders, or academics starting companies), it’s easy to overrate the importance of a good idea or invention. To avoid being led down futile rabbit holes, we must guard ourselves against unproven yet grand-sounding ideas. Bush writes, “Inventions are a dime a dozen.” Similarly, he compares inventing to poetry, writing, “An invention has some of the characteristics of a poem. Standing alone, by itself, it has no value; that is, no value of a financial sort” (sorry, poets).
5.1 Patents
What about patents though? Aren’t those valuable? Bush warns that the patent system can be an infohazard. It’s easy to assume that if the government helps you protect an idea, it must be valuable. But the law itself is broad and indifferent: “The law says that a combination of elements that is new and useful is an invention and is patentable. Its use may be utterly trivial.”
(Bush writes a lot about the patent system in Pieces of the Action. Presumably, his interest in patents is a result of him being an administrator instead of an engineer for much of his career. His take on the purpose of patents: “The object of the patent law is not to reward an inventor. Rather, the law aims to encourage venture capital to undertake the often great risks and expenditures necessary to develop an invention and put it on the market. It also encourages a company to maintain research programs to find new things.”)
5.2 Nothing Sells Itself
To illustrate the relative merits of good inventions versus such trivial matters as “sales,” Bush shares a story. One of his many inventions was a tool (a thin sheet of transparent plastic with gelatin, dye, and acidity treatment) to help people with taking a thin tissue sample to dye and examine for cancer under a microscope. This invention was made after watching people with a problem, and it solved the problem—but it didn’t catch on.
Why? Even the best inventions don’t sell themselves. “It is sad, but a fact, that the American public, professionals and all, have to be sold. They will not buy life insurance if its virtues are merely brought to their attention; they have to be persuaded by a salesman, whose salary, while he spends long hours doing the persuading, is, of course, ultimately paid by them.
Is there a way around this evil sales-heavy state of affairs? Think of how much more time and money pharmaceutical companies could spend on life-saving medications if they didn’t employ sales representatives. Bush encourages a level-headed acceptance of the status quo, writing, “There is no use bewailing all this. It is an inevitable accompaniment of the hectic sort of life we lead and the complex nature of our varied interests.”
5.3 Secrecy
Beyond just neglecting the importance of sales and persuasion, some people so overrate the value of inventions that they insist on keeping ideas secret much longer than necessary. This can hold otherwise great inventors in a place of anonymity; “sometimes an inventor remains unknown because he works in secret.”
Good industrial labs let people publish their results. Obviously, it can be necessary to control exact timings of disclosures so that patents can be filed—but researchers like publishing, and they aren’t likely to be hired away from an organization where they enjoy their work and they’re allowed to publish.
Conversely, Bush writes that “the inventor who works alone, who is isolated from the current trend of thought, and who hence does not grasp where the real opportunities lie, seldom makes a worthwhile invention.” If you keep yourself a secret from the world, no one will know about your ideas. If you protect yourself from the world, shielding yourself from criticism or working in isolation, your ideas won’t be worth knowing about.
6. Applications to Today
What would Vannevar Bush say to today’s technical organizations working on ushering in the next generation of breakthroughs and progressing science? I can’t know for sure, but I can try to channel a kind of pseudo-tulpa of Bush. (I couldn’t resist the structural parallels to Revelation 2 and 3 here, sorry.)
6.1 Focused Research Organizations (FROs)
“To focused research organization (FRO)-style organizations, I applaud the creation of new teams! Just as the adoption of new weapons technologies in naval warfare relied on the creation of the Tenth Fleet under the command of Rear Admiral Francis S. Low, so too will new scientific innovations require the creation of many new organizations singly focused on innovating in areas where progress seems attainable.
“To hire and retain the best talent, let researchers publish as much as possible. Remember that progress relies as much on the innovations themselves as their adoption in real-world settings. Never forget the importance of persuading people to use new technologies and testing their actual deployment into real-world settings.`
Overall, I think that Convergent Research has done an excellent job scoping and explaining their vision for FRO-style organizations, and I think Bush would have very few notes.
6.2 Applied R&D Startups
“To applied R&D startups, thank you for driving forward the adoption of innovative technologies. When government funding dries up, progress waits on teams that are willing to take a risk on connecting basic research to industrial applications-focused R&D.
“Proceed with caution: don’t bite off more than you can chew. It’s easy to overestimate the importance of an idea and underplay the work that will be necessary to fully apply it and see industry adoption. Don’t be afraid to appoint liaisons and invest in communication between disparate groups.
6.3 BBN-Model Organizations
In his post “A Scrappy Complement to FROs: Building More BBNs,” progress studies writer Eric Gilliam defines BBN-model organizations as organizations that:
1. [Are] novelty-seeking, with a strong preference for projects that [push] the technological frontier forward substantially.
2. Buil[d] useful technology for actual users. This entail[s] professional contract management and a willingness to focus on difficult systems engineering tasks.
3. [Use] more flexible team structures than academia. When compared to academia, they more effectively [hire, organize, and incentivize] researchers, engineers, and other experts to collaborate on applied projects in a common-sense fashion.
“To Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc (BBN)-model organizations, the government (and large government-like corporations) depend on external groups as a source of innovation. Your ability to maintain loosely-structured organizations is a crucial complement to larger, more pyramidal organizations.
“To effectively manage professional contracts, keep the responsibility of contract management and negotiation separate from novelty-seeking researchers. Whenever possible, communicate and coordinate with other groups working on the same problems as you.
6.4 Research Universities
“To research universities, truly your minds are unknowable. You claim to receive public funding for the pursuit of basic research, yet you publicize and applaud those who are able to pursue applied research in the academy.
“Would that you would either pursue novel basic research or applied research wholeheartedly! Then you could adopt the proper structures to pursue these goals and more effectively move your research toward real-world application.
Summarized Takeaways
For ease of reference, I’ve put together a strongly-worded list of Bush’s most opinionated takes on running technical organizations and related matters:
Progress
Scientific progress is neither guaranteed nor impossible. We should be optimistic, determined, and light-hearted with regards to further progress.
Organizational structure
“Executing” organizations should adopt close-knit and pyramidal structures to accomplish concrete goals.
“Innovating” organizations should adopt looser structures to create new tools and tactics.
Everyone in an organization should know who has the authority to make decisions and never doubt that decisions will be made promptly.
It’s helpful to protect early-stage research from having to deal with contracts, business, and regulations.
People’s character and attitude within an organization always matter more than that organization’s structure.
Roadblocks
When moving technology across disparate organizations, it’s important to appoint a liaison to communicate and help speed adoption.
If multiple groups are working on solving the same/similar problems, appoint a liaison responsible for ensuring the groups coordinate when helpful.
Review (or at least allow comment on) old decisions.
The adoption of new technologies can require new people or new teams.
Informational skip-level meetings can be necessary to accurately identify problems.
Isolated groups with vested interests are dangerous. Useful new innovations frequently come from outside an organization.
Handling tyros
Tyros—slow-learning amateurs with a disrespect for authority and structure in an organization—can cause serious problems.
Amateurs can succeed if they have a bit of wisdom, along with either the ability to learn quickly or a keen judgment of people.
Don’t follow orders if they don’t come through the proper channels of communication.
Each person should have clearly scoped responsibilities and no two unconnected people should ever be responsible for the same thing.
Inventions
Ideas are worthless by themselves.
Nothing sells itself, and it’s pointless to be upset about this fact.
Researchers will stay at jobs where they like their work and can publish their results.
Researchers working in isolation, protected from feedback and criticism, won’t produce good results.
Thanks to Corin Wagen for editing drafts of this post.