Laziness Part 1
Being lazy takes a lot of hard work - it might be the hardest thing you've ever done
If you are short on time and can’t read the whole thing right now, skip to the section called The Whiplash Effect. Please come back and read the rest later.
Prologue
When I was a student in the Florida phase at the US Army Ranger School in 2012, I was selected as the patrol leader (PL) for a raid against an enemy position. Our mission was to attack the compound, collect intelligence, pass it to our higher headquarters, and then move out before the enemy launched a counter-attack. Given very little time, I had to push my platoon hard to rapidly move the 10 kilometers to the objective.
Once we arrived near the target, I set up an over-watch position with my machine gun teams and quietly moved the assault team close to the objective building. At my command, the machine guns opened fire to suppress the enemy while my assault team rushed the building. As we approached, the machine guns teams shifted their fire away from the building to prevent fratricide, in accordance with my plan. But the machine gun teams shifted their fire a few seconds too early, and the assault team began taking casualties because the enemy was not pinned down. Despite this, I got the assault team in the building and we overpowered the OPFOR.
I began consolidating the platoon on the objective. We had a lot to do in the fifteen minutes before the enemy counter-attack force arrived, and I was going to make sure it all got done. I was loud, really loud. I barked orders left and right. “Get the casualties secured! Medic! Get the casualties! Where’s my search team!? Search Team on me! Where’s 1st squad!? Get security set up! We’ve got live prisoners! They need to be secured and searched!” It was chaos. I was losing my voice. It felt like we didn’t have enough people to cover the perimeter or do everything that had to be done on the objective.
Out of the darkness, I heard a quiet voice say, “Hey, Ranger, come over here.” I scurried over to the dark figure standing tall against the moonlight and said, “sorry, I can’t see who I am speaking to.” He said, “it’s okay, it’s Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) so-and-so” (I can’t remember his name. If you know who the 6th RTB commander was in January 2012, let me know). He said, “Take a knee. Pull out your canteen and drink some water.” I did as I was instructed. He slowly took a knee next to me and said, “watch this.”
As I rested there on one knee, everything around me calmed down almost immediately. The squad leaders set up security, the specialty teams went about their business, and the medic began the radio call to evacuate the casualties. It happened rapidly and efficiently, and I didn’t have to say a word. My fellow Ranger students knew exactly what to do.
The LTC and I looked at each other. He flashed a mischievous grin that said, “see what I mean? Pretty cool, huh?” I was so punch drunk from not sleeping for more than a few hours for the past week, and not having eaten since the morning, that his look made me erupt with laughter. He laughed along for a second and said,
Hey Ranger, sometimes you as the leader are creating the chaos that you are trying so hard to control. You’ve got to give clear guidance in the planning phase and then trust your teammates to do their job. Being loud and in-charge is great to get your soldiers fired up, but beyond that, you’ve got to let them execute effectively. If you’re not doing that, you’re just getting in the way.”
That was one of the most important lessons I learned at Ranger School, and one of the best lessons I’ve learned in my life. For those of you who are curious, yes, I still got a “GO” on that patrol — IYKYK.
Lazy is better
The following quote gets thrown around a lot, so please excuse me if you have seen it before.
I distinguish four types of officers. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy. Usually, two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they makeup 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.
-Kurt von Hammerstein, Commander-in-Chief, German Military 1930-1934
Hammerstein recognized that commanders who do too much often cause far more harm than good, and the more decisions made by commanders at higher levels, the fewer decisions are left to those at the lower levels. A lazy and incompetent commander is clearly preferable to a proactive and incompetent commander. If a commander is incompetent but lazy, she won’t do nearly as much damage as she would if she was extremely proactive. But laziness is preferable even in a competent commander. A lazy and competent commander will know when action is required, and typically will respond with the appropriate amount of energy, rather than overreact, because his bias is towards inaction. He is hesitant to act unless absolutely necessary.
But whenever an officer assumes command of an organization, he or she often feels pressure to act. This sense of urgency drives commanders to search for and eliminate inefficiencies; to discover the weaknesses of the organization and act swiftly to improve them. But if all commanders were equally talented, and all attempts at improvement equally beneficial, then units would only ever improve, and would never regress. But Soldiers and leaders know that organizations ebb and flow; some units flourish following a change of command, while some units wane. This is because not all commanders are equally talented, and not all efforts at improvement cause improvement — they sometimes hurt more than they help. Unfortunately, it is much easier to destroy a good unit than to build a good unit. Generally speaking, a bad commander can cause much more harm than a good commander can cause benefit. It only takes one bad commander at the top of an organization to destroy it, while a good unit must leverage the talents of multiple people. Even a good commander can usually make only marginal improvements in the organization.
This asymmetry of effort, where harm is more harmful than improvement is beneficial, wouldn't matter if every commander knew whether or not he or she was a good commander or a bad commander, or somewhere in the middle. Although “self-awareness” is an important aspect of a strong leader, thorough self-awareness is elusive; the worst problem with bad commanders is that they don’t know they’re bad, and even good commanders can cause harm through bad decisions.
Every decision a commander makes will either improve the organization, or hurt the organization to varying degrees, and it’s almost impossible to know beforehand. Because one cannot know whether or not one is a good commander or a bad commander, and because even good commanders can make decisions that do more harm than good, commanders should always be seeking to do less; give broad guidance, delegate decision making authority as much as possible to the lowest level possible, and as close as possible to the people the decision will affect the most. In other words, commanders should not be afraid to be lazy and let others do the work.
Do No Harm
In his book Antifragile: things that gain from disorder, Nassim Taleb talks about the concept of iatrogenic harm, that is, unintentional harm done to a patient by the healer. This phenomenon is well documented in the medical community and kills over 100,000 people per year and seriously injures millions.1 Unfortunately, many military organizations have failed to grasp the concept that just like medical interventions, many of a commander’s actions cause more harm than good. So let us introduce a Hippocratic-style oath for commanders, the first rule of a commander should be: “do no harm.” It is far more important for commanders to remove obstacles that their subordinates face and to choose to stop doing things that the organization is currently doing, rather than generating and executing new ideas. Sometimes the best change is simply to stop doing things that are harming the organization.
Some may object that “do no harm” is not the same as “do nothing.” This would be a fair objection if my argument was for commanders to do nothing, but that isn’t my argument. Laziness, as I mean it here, does not mean doing “nothing,” it means doing little - to be inclined to do nothing rather than to act and to stop doing things that aren’t necessary. Too often commanders walk into their offices after a hard physical training session, with all of the feel-good hormones coursing through their veins and good ideas coursing through their brains, and start writing emails with new policies and procedures aimed at optimizing the organization. I, myself, have experienced this phenomenon, which is why I made a rule for myself: no decisions can be made directly after PT. In fact, I would wager that many officers and NCOs have received an email from a commander or sergeant major that they could tell came directly after a hard PT session. I’ve heard company First Sergeants scream at their computers at 0900 after receiving an email from the brigade Command Sergeant Major, “Was he high when he wrote this?!” Yes, First Sergeant, yes he was.
The Whiplash Effect
I don’t know if there is a technical definition or explanation for “organizational momentum,” but anyone who has been in a large organization knows that such a phenomenon exists2. Organizations are either making progress moving towards something or they muddle through every day trying to accomplish tasks. Organizations led by lazy commanders can be masters of momentum because the commander won’t react when distractions arise.
I learned early in my military career that there exists something like a “whiplash effect” when a decision is made in an organization. Take for example the commanding general of an Army Post. Following a series of vehicle accidents he has had enough and wants to put an end to it. He gathers his brightest officers for a brainstorming session. It is decided that all units should have a safety stand-down day in one week to cover safe driving. After all, it’s only one day and there clearly is a problem that needs to be addressed.
The Division G3 shop spends three hours writing up a FRAGORD and then distributes it to all of the brigades at the end of day 1.
On day 2, the brigade commanders receive a strongly worded email from the division commander about how safe driving is now the “division priority,” and that a FRAGORD is being distributed with directed guidance. The brigade commanders forward the email along with additional guidance to all of their battalion commanders.
The brigade S3 sections see the FRAGORD in their inboxes from the previous day and begin to do some analysis and make tentative plans. They design a plan, but it is quickly changed by the brigade operations officer who just received direct guidance from the brigade commander. He doesn’t have time to explain everything because he has to spend the rest of the morning taking phone calls from battalion S3s asking about a rumor they heard about a safety stand-down day.
The brigade S3 section is consumed by the safety stand-down for the entire day before finally pushing out a FRAGORD right before the close of business.
In the morning on day 3, the battalions get to work on their portion of the safety stand-down day plan in accordance with the brigade’s guidance. Whatever they were working on gets pushed to the side because safety stand-down day is the “division commander’s #1 priority.”
The staff captains call the company commanders to alert them that the training that the commanders had planned can no longer happen because it now conflicts with safety stand-down day. It does not matter what the company commanders had planned, everything must be rescheduled or, more likely canceled. Hundreds of man-hours planning, resourcing, and preparing have now gone to waste because of the canceled training events.
At the battalion and below, things have now changed drastically because of the safety stand-down day. All projects that had momentum have stopped. Company commanders and First Sergeants are going to each other’s offices trying to figure out why there has to be a safety stand-down day. They say things like, “don’t they know it would make WAY more sense to do it next month?” And, “The Battalion’s plan for safety stand-down day doesn’t make sense.” This negativity extends to the offices of the executive officers and platoon leaders, eventually making its way down to the lowest private.
Private Snuffy
It was Thursday afternoon as Private Snuffy packed his duffel bag for his weekend trip; he had an approved 4-day pass to visit his girlfriend, a specialist at another Army post about 5 hours away, and he wanted to get an early start the next morning. He was excited as he double-checked his packing list. He reached into the bag and pulled out a small box — he wanted to look at its contents one more time. He slowly popped it open and marveled at the tiny gold ring crowned by a diamond that sparkled in the evening sun — he imagined her beautiful smile, getting down on one knee, and slipping it on her finger. He knew she was going to say “yes,” even though his nerves continuously rattled his confidence. He was snatched from his blissful thoughts by the loud ringing of his cell phone. Why was his team leader calling him? Usually, he would just text, but a call meant something was serious.
Snuffy answered the phone with a nervous tremble in his voice, “W-what’s up Sergeant Smith?” Smith didn’t let him down easy. “Snuff your pass is canceled. The battalion has revoked all mileage passes until after safety stand-down day next Friday.”
The news hit Snuffy like an anti-tank round. He couldn’t control his emotions and burst into tears on the phone. Smith went on, “Sorry, Snuff, I know you were excited for this one. Here’s the deal, kid: this is the Army. This is how it is sometimes. Your girl, Moncrief, is in too, right? She’ll understand. Just postpone it a couple of weeks and see her then. Are you tracking the uniform change for tomorrow? OCPs instead of PT gear, and make sure to be there early.” Snuffy choked as he held his tears long enough to reply, “roger, sergeant.”
Snuffy sank into his chair and buried his head in his arms. He felt the moisture of his tears leaking through the sleeves of his Kansas City Chiefs hoodie, the one she had bought for him the last time they were together. This was the third time he had had to cancel seeing Sandy in the last 10 months, and he hadn’t seen her in almost six weeks. He was afraid she would leave him if he had to cancel another visit.
After a few minutes, his sadness was suddenly overcome by intense anger. He violently slammed his fists onto the desk, catapulting the picture of him and Sandy onto the floor. He roared as sprang to his feet, “HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO ME!?” He wasn’t going to drink tonight because he had to drive in the morning, but now, nothing was going to stop him. He didn’t care if he showed up drunk for duty, after all, what were they going to do? Cancel his pass? Kick him out of the Army? As he reached for the bottle in his bottom drawer he thought, “screw this BS and screw them. I might just have a few sips, then grab my keys and drive there tonight.”
Whiplash Continued
What was an easy and obvious decision to a 2-Star general, had hundreds, if not thousands of unforeseen effects, most of them negative.
There is no guarantee that a safety stand-down day will have the desired effect of decreasing the number of vehicle accidents. Just because a commander takes a certain action and then something gets better, doesn't mean that it was the action that made it better. This is known as post hoc ergo propter hoc, “after this, therefore because of this,” a fallacy of logical inference. Going back to the “safety stand-down day” example, suppose that vehicle accidents declined after safety stand-down day. Wouldn’t that prove that the General’s policy was a success? No, it proves nothing.
To understand what caused a decrease in vehicle accidents, one must first determine what caused the increase in vehicle accidents. An unexamined variable (or randomness) could have caused an increase in accidents, and then simply reverted back to the average (known as regression to the mean), completely independent of the General’s actions. But regardless of the actual cause of the decrease in vehicle accidents, the General is tricked into thinking that safety stand-down days decrease accidents. He, therefore, dictates that a safety stand-down day and additional driver training will occur once per quarter, and a new whiplash is created.
It seems that many generals, at least in the Army, intuitively understand this concept and take steps to avoid it. I noticed a major positive shift when I was a company commander in the 4th Infantry Division after Major General George (now Lieutenant General) took command of the division in 2017. MG George actively stayed connected to company commanders and gauged the impact his decisions were having at the lowest level. He asked for direct feedback from company commanders on things they wanted to stop doing. Instead of making proclamations like, “I want the best ideas and suggestions,” he asked us directly, “what can we stop doing.” I was proud to have him as the division commander.
Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!
The whiplash effect of directed guidance is mitigated through the use of Mission Command, a panacea concept for the lazy commander. Commanders issue their intent, and subordinate commanders work out the details. Unfortunately, working out the details too often happens at too high a level; too many proactive commanders want flexibility from their higher headquarters, but then don’t extend that flexibility to their subordinate leaders. A lazy commander, however, is more than happy to simply pass on, or slightly refine, guidance from her higher headquarters to her subordinates, providing only those details which are essential to mission accomplishment. A lazy commander has no problem simply telling subordinate leaders, “Here’s my intent. Y’all get together and figure out what you want to do and then let me know.” We’ll examine the power of wiring your organization for success in the later essays.
Part of laziness is procrastination. A lazy commander should always be buying more and more time before acting, this is sometimes called “tactical patience.” Proactive commanders can trick themselves into thinking they have less time to make a decision than they actually do because their internal voice is telling them that they must act! This can be a grave error, as acting too quickly with incomplete information can cause confusion and whiplash effects. Buying time gives lazy commanders more flexibility. Sometimes problems, given enough time, simply go away on their own (again, regression to the mean). A commander who waits also gives herself more time to collect information and sort through existing information has a much clearer picture before acting. Instead of having to make a hard decision in an opaque environment, the correct course of action can become obvious as time lifts the curtain of opacity.
But there are some major cultural obstacles in the Army that prevent commanders from being brave enough to be lazy. Commanders are too often incentivized to do more, rather than do less. The fear that the organization might make a mistake is enough to drive commanders to reserve decisions at their level that would be best delegated down. The Army Officer corps always talks about how it needs to eliminate the “zero-defect culture” and how we need to eliminate the stigma around honest mistakes. But you seldom find a commander with the intestinal fortitude to actually work to change that culture. One of the main reasons for this, as Mr. Don Vandergriff has pointed out in his many excellent works, is the Army Personnel system3. As it stands, a Battalion Commander who makes a series of errors, perhaps even small errors, will never be the commander of a brigade combat team. If a Battalion Commander wants to see the next rank, his incentive is to look as good as possible, to prevent or cover up mistakes, and to promote a culture of zero-defects.
Being lazy is courageous. Letting go of the illusion of control, allowing events to run their course, and empowering subordinate leaders to make the vast majority of the decisions are all crucial to the success of Mission Command. A lazy commander doesn’t do nothing, she just doesn’t do much. She chooses to spend the majority of her time and energy communicating her vision for the organization and using her position to solve problems at the lowest level.
Next Essay!
In last month’s essay, I talked about the concept of “Failceeding,” an applied form of laziness where a commander simply lets things happen, even failure. If you haven’t read it yet, please do.
The first draft of this essay on laziness was over 10,000 words. It’s still over 8,000 words, so I have decided to divide it into two parts. Part 2 will hit your inboxes next month.
If I have written this essay correctly up to this point, you have a lot of questions, disagreements, caveats, and/or comments:
What if you inherit an organization that is all jacked-up?
Don’t leaders need to have a bias for action?
Why do I call this “laziness?” Isn’t this just being smart?
Should all leaders be lazy? What about fire-team leaders?
What if not-acting, when you should act, will hurt the unit?
How did I apply this as a commander?
How can a commander know when to be lazy and when to act?
What happens to Private Snuffy??!!
All of this and more will be addressed in the next essay, which you can read here:
Laziness Part 2
This is Part 2 of an essay on Laziness. Click here to read part 1. If you are short on time and can’t read the whole thing right now, skip to the section called Underperforming Organizations and just read that. Please come back and read the rest later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenesis
If you know of any work that has been done on this topic let me know so I can learn more.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/us-army-culture-french
This essay hasn't gotten nearly enough love. This is stuff I live by, but I don't really have a choice. It feels like it is intertwined with innate personality. I hate the idea of putting effort into something that isn't effective, let alone something that ultimately ends up making things worse. Its painful to see the culture continuously reward people for counterproductive efforts, but not nearly as painful as the whiplash effects we're drowning in as a result of a pervasive bias towards action.
I had a commander talk about waiting to make a decision until the “last responsible moment”. Sometimes initiative is over rated.
This was one of the best leadership essays I’ve ever read. Thanks.
-Retired CW3