The Squawk Point

Organisational Mechanics

  • Home
  • Blog
    • People
    • Data
    • Process
    • Wild Cards
    • Index
  • Podcast
  • Book

I Feel the Need, the Need for Speed

2 October, 2018 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

How to win a war

Historically there have been two ways to win a battle:

  1. Recruit a bigger army
  2. Build more powerful weapons

They were the only variables that mattered.  Size and Power.  The number of soldiers you had and the calibre of their guns pretty much determined if you would win.  Conflicts were wars of attrition.  Military might was everything.  If you have ever seen the trenches of the Western Front that run through Northern France and Belgium you will understand exactly what I mean.

The military strategist, John Boyd,  was a fighter pilot in the Korean war.  He realised that there was a missing factor, speed.  If numbers were equal, it wasn’t the biggest most powerful fighters that won dogfights, it was the smaller more agile ones.

The OODA loop

Boyd went on to develop the OODA loop to help train fighter pilots.  The loop works something like this:

Observe, gather data, see what your opponent is doing
Orientate: process that data to get meaning from it
Decide: work out what the best course of action is
Act: play out your decision

In a dog fight the ability to run through the cycle quickly and repeatedly determines success. If you can act faster than your opponent or “get inside his loop” then he will always be on the back foot. He will be reacting to what you have done, or better still, reacting to a situation that no longer exists.

The rate at which you can make decisions and act on them is a critical factor in military supremacy.

He who can handle the quickest rate of change survives ~ Colonel John Boyd

An intellectual hop

You don’t have to be a genius to see how the OODA loop applies to other competitive activities.  In sport, litigation, politics or business, if you can respond faster than your opponents you will leave them reeling.

A cultural leap

Our organisations are rarely that agile.  How often have you sat in a meeting which has completely failed to make a decision?  Do you ever have to throw an issue “upstairs” so somebody on a higher pay grade can decide for you?

If you want to churn through the OODA loop faster than your competition (and why wouldn’t you) then endless committees won’t help.  You have to force decisions down the organisation so more people can make them.

That has a lot to do with a clear purpose, cooperative working environment, flat structures, aligned objectives and trust. It has very little to do with risk and control frameworks, quorate committees, personal agendas or authority matrices.

Command and control won’t cut it

It is far better to make the wrong decision than not make a decision at all.  After all if you get it wrong, you can always decide to back it out…

What would Maverick say?

If you enjoyed this post click here to receive the next

Read another opinion

Image by mrBunin

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: analysis paralysis, command and control, decisions, empowerment, John Boyd, OODA Loop, purpose

About the Author

James Lawther
James Lawther

James Lawther is a middle-aged, middle manager.

To reach this highly elevated position he has worked in numerous industries, from supermarket retailing to tax collecting.  He has had several operational roles, including running the night shift in a frozen pea packing factory and carrying out operational research for a credit card company.

As you can see from his C.V. he has either a wealth of experience or is incapable of holding down a job.  If the latter is true this post isn’t worth a minute of your attention.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to read it and decide for yourself.

www.squawkpoint.com/

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Explore

accountability assumptions beliefs best practice blame bureaucracy capability clarity command and control communication complexity continuous improvement cost saving culture customer focus data is not information decisions employee performance measures empowerment error proofing fessing up gemba human nature incentives information technology innovation key performance indicators learning management style measurement motivation performance management poor service process control purpose reinforcing behaviour service design silo management systems thinking targets teamwork test and learn trust video waste

Receive Posts by e-Mail

Get the next post delivered straight to your inbox

Creative Commons

This information from The Squawk Point is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Creative Commons Licence
Customer Experience Update

Try This:

  • Regression to The Mean

  • Glory Lasts Forever

  • Fish Bone Diagrams – Helpful or Not?

  • Brilliance Alone Won’t Take You Far

Connect

  • E-mail
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • YouTube
  • Cookies
  • Contact Me

Copyright © 2025 · Enterprise Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in