The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was a surprise more for how it happened than the fact that it happened at all. The United States knew that Japan, Germany, and most of Europe were at war so the US military took steps to protect its fleet in Hawaii. They trained soldiers to protect the beaches. Lined up battleships in a row so as not to block the channel exit. Kept all the fighter planes parked tightly next to each other in the middle of the airstrip to protect them from external sabotage. Limited their reconnaissance to preserve manpower and planes for when they had to fly out of Hawaii to engage.
Pretty much everything the military did made it easier for Japan to devastate the operation when it bombed Pearl Harbor. The US believed that years of history would repeat themselves and that it was “a well-established premise that any decisive battle would be fought at sea.” And in that area, we were superior — with nine mighty battleships at the base to dominate the Pacific and serve as “the mightiest weapons of war.”
Those in command operated sensibly based on their fundamental beliefs, but of course, we now know that their premise was flawed — and from that fateful day forward, the aircraft carrier, not the battleship, would dominate the military arsenal.
Japan surprised Pearl Harbor by using new types of weapons, traveling 4000 miles under radio silence, and developing a new platform from which to change the method of attack. Your competitors are busy doing the same. Are you acting like the Pearl Harbor officers and plowing forward without questioning your core tenants or assumptions? You might have visible symbols of power — your equivalent of battleships — but if your organization faces a new method of attack your plans could be sunk. Don’t plan tomorrow based only on yesterday.
