Brigadier General Imre Porkolab has served for 30 years and worked extensively with NATO. He built Hungary’s national defense innovation ecosystem. I asked him what it takes to speed up innovation inside a military.
People and technology
Imre stresses the human element in military operations. New technology matters in military and civilian organizations, and the way people adopt and use it decides the outcome. Military principles also help civilians deal with a fast-changing world.
Bureaucracy and DIANA
Militaries face bureaucracy and interoperability problems when they try to move faster. The Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, DIANA, is a network of nations working to rethink how NATO develops technology and to speed it up.
Training leaders
Imre describes a curriculum that builds resilience and stress management in future leaders, with technology woven into the design. He shares how lessons from military training carry over to civilian work.
Innovation depends on how people orient to new tools. Imre has seen that from inside two systems.
What slows the adoption of new tools in your organization more, the tools or the people’s picture of them?
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Written by Ponch Rivera with AI assistance in production. The full conversation is in the player below.