Laziness Part 2

Being lazy takes a lot of hard work - it might be the hardest thing you've ever done.

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.

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“That’s Just Being Smart”

A common attack vector of my concept of laziness:

“All of this is obvious. This isn’t being lazy, it’s just being smart. This is common sense.”

I disagree.

I heard a great podcast with Tim Ferriss and Richard Koch last year. Koch has written extensively about the 80/20 Principle, also known as the Pareto Principle. To boil it down as much as possible, the 80/20 Principle is the observation that, in general, 20% of causes are responsible for 80% of results. For example, In business, 80% of revenue tends to come from 20% of customers. It’s the principle that’s important, not the numbers. A small amount of the population is responsible for a large percentage of crime. The most widely seen social media posts are a small percentage of total social media posts. Most customer complaints come from a small percentage of customers. And so on. Koch’s major focus seems to be that 80% of your productivity comes from 20% of your efforts. (I’ve never read his books, but this seems to make sense).

In the podcast, Richard tells the story of how he discovered this idea in an old economics book by Vilfredo Pareto, and how he (Richard) decided to apply it to studying for his rigorous exams at Oxford. Instead of studying for everything, he looked back at old exams and only studied those things that were asked during every round of exams. According to him, this felt like cheating, and he didn’t have to work particularly hard. Yes, this was him being smart. But it was born from laziness. Richard didn’t want to study for his exams, He wanted to hang out with his friends and drink beer, but he had to take the exams to graduate. He had to study, but he wanted to do it in the easiest way possible. In the end, he passed his exams with high marks.

A smart student who was very diligent would have made a very efficient study schedule, read day and night, made copious notes, written a detailed study guide with a matrix for cross-referencing information, and designed flashcards that they could put by their commode. They would have studied and studied and studied and gotten to the same place where Richard ended up — with a degree from Oxford.

When it comes to studying for exams, this type of person is absolutely brilliant. But when it comes to leading large groups of people, this instinct can be harmful. There are plenty of smart commanders who destroy units by doing the things that they think are “smart.” Seriously, what commander ever thinks, “I am going to do something really stupid and make things worse?”

To reiterate: a lazy commander doesn’t do nothing. A lazy commander does as little as possible. If you are trying to be “smart” you will try to do smart things. If you are trying to be lazy, you will only do those things which you have to do, or that you want to do because it will allow you to be lazier in the future. If you are lazy, when you want to fix a problem or if you have to act, you will look for the easiest ways to do those things.

You may have heard the term, “necessity is the mother of invention.” If being lazy is necessary, you have to invent clever ways of doing things that don’t require much work. Prioritizing laziness makes you smarter, trying to just be smart doesn’t mean you’ll do smart things.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. “thisisjustbeingsmart.”

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My Command

When I became a company commander I made a series of assumptions that shaped my entire command philosophy. One of those assumptions was, “I am not the smartest person in the company. If we do things my way, we are doomed for failure.” I knew based on my previous experience as a platoon leader that I was neither an especially gifted leader, nor a talented tactician, nor a particularly visionary person. I convinced myself that I was not as competent as my ego told me I was, and that my abilities to influence others were severely limited. But I knew that in a company of over 100 Soldiers that there were at least a couple of gifted leaders who could help me shape a halfway decent organization. I knew that if I could identify, empower, and synchronize the smartest and most influential Soldiers and leaders in the company that I would not be the single point of failure for the organization. 

I was more fortunate than many company commanders because I had many exceptionally talented leaders under my command. I quickly realized that there wasn’t much I needed to do. Truth be told, when we weren’t in the field training, I spent the majority of my day reading books, manuals, and doctrine, thinking about ideas for training, updating the company Facebook page, responding to emails, talking with Soldiers, annoying the captains on battalion staff, and outlining many of the concepts in these essays. And what happened? We were the top-performing company in the brigade during the Combined Arms LFX (according to the brigade commander), we had the best command climate in the brigade (according to the DEOCS survey), we had the healthiest Unit Risk Inventory on Fort Carson (I am told the civilian in the risk management office still talks about our company three years later), we had the lowest rate of misconduct (according to the brigade legal team), and the highest readiness numbers (according to the brigade Command Sergeant Major.

It’s important to note that my laziness was likely not the cause of these results. But I did so little that it’s unlikely that I made the company any worse than it would have been with another commander. I simply provided a vision, empowered the right people, issued guidance when it was required, and things worked out. What else does a commander need to do?

I was so lazy that I usually had no idea what was going on with the company on a daily basis, and I didn’t care to know. The First Sergeant ran the morning meeting and I rarely paid attention as he gave out the tasks for the day to the platoons. I always spoke last, after everyone had a chance to raise issues or give input, and I had the same routine. I approached the whiteboard and wrote “priority”¹ and underneath it wrote, “release time.” If I knew what the priority was I wrote it on the board and said, “X is the priority, that means it gets done first. Everything else is secondary, but not unimportant.” If I didn’t know the priority, I asked the room what the priority was. The group quickly reached a consensus and I wrote it on the board. Following that, I would usually ask the group when they thought we could release the Soldiers. When we first started doing these meetings the group would say 1600 or 1700, then I would write 1500 on the board and say, “work faster because I am kicking everyone out at 1500,” much to the chagrin of the First Sergeant.

As time went on, I kept trying to push the release time earlier and earlier until the First Sergeant was having conniption fits. If the Sergeant Major found out how early we were letting the soldiers leave, he who would have skinned the First Sergeant alive. Release time averaged about 1500 when we weren’t training in the field.²

I tell this anecdote to highlight my laziness. I purposely didn’t want to know what was going on with the company on a daily basis because I knew that my personality would drive me to get too involved, and if I got too involved it was likely that I would do more harm than good. It was much better to let the First Sergeant, Executive Officer, and platoon leadership handle the day-to-day responsibilities. My role as the commander was to ensure that everyone was on the same page and generally moving in the same direction, not to make the trains run on time. I constantly reinforced my vision for the company by giving my “elevator pitch” multiple times a day. After 16 months in command, I probably gave my elevator pitch over one hundred times. I would walk up to a group of Soldiers, engage them in some small talk and say,

“Gents, our two words in this company are ‘trust’ and ‘discipline.’ Each one of you has to have complete trust in your subordinates, peers, and leaders, and each of you has to earn that trust from them in return. The way you earn that trust is through discipline. The Spartan army was successful because each man had the discipline to hold his shield up to protect the man to his left and trusted the man to his right to do the same for him. Weapons have changed but war hasn’t. Trust each other and discipline yourselves. We are getting ready for war and if we don’t get this right we’ll get slaughtered like all the forgotten armies of centuries past.”

Reinforcing that message and staying out of the company’s daily business was crucial to success. Unfortunately, I have seen too many commanders with too much interest in the daily business of their units and not enough interest in promoting a singular vision for their units. 

No matter what you think your skills are as a leader, you must at least start with the assumption that you are not the most talented member of your organization, and that many of your efforts to improve the organization are as likely to cause harm as benefit. As I said in part 1 of this essay, instead of looking for more things to do, focus instead on identifying and eliminating those things that the unit is doing that is causing harm. Eliminate useless meetings, dump unimportant administrative burdens, start asking “why” about everything the unit is currently doing. This technique of removal also lends itself to a much more empirical approach. When you remove something from the status quo it is much easier to see the causation of positive or negative consequences. If you remove what you think is a useless meeting and then a bunch of tasks go uncompleted, you can easily reinstate the meeting and see if the problem is fixed. It is much more difficult to add something to the status quo and then measure the result. The lazy commander would rather stop doing old things than start doing new things.

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Underperforming Organizations

Can a commander be lazy if he inherits a severely underperforming organization? The first step in turning around an underperforming organization is a diagnosis of the problem or problems. The biggest indicators that an Army unit is underperforming are high levels of misconduct: DUIs, drug use, domestic violence, insubordination, and low levels of medical readiness. Other indicators tend to be poor administrative systems: awards, evaluations, and leave forms are constantly late, inaccurate, or both. Soldiers can’t get pay issues fixed, training calendars don’t exist or are inaccurate, and families don’t have predictability about the schedule and don’t know how to address problems with command. Units with issues like these will likely underperform in the execution of their military duties, whatever they are. 

In the face of problems like these, how can a commander afford to be lazy!? There’s so much that needs to be fixed!

An aggressive and proactive commander will likely grab this organization by the scruff of the neck and try to force it into submission. This commander may seek to attack all the problems she sees all at once. She may institute a slew of new policies, procedures, initiatives, and programs, some of which may succeed some of which may cancel out all of that success.

Usually, the harder she tries to control things, the worse things get. If she has a bad temper, her subordinates will likely get really good at hiding problems from her so she’ll think things are improving. Or she works so hard and is so competent that she literally fixes all the problems personally, but when she leaves the unit falls apart.

When it comes to turning around a large organization, let the master show us the way.

One of my favorite turnaround stories in military history is when Patton took over II Corps from General Frendenhall in 1943, after the battle of Kasserine Pass which was a disaster for the US Army. Patton pulled the laziest of lazy moves to start off his command.

He correctly diagnosed that the main problem with the unit was a severe lack of discipline. So what did he do? He walked over to the mess hall and said, (paraphrasing) “no one is allowed in after 0700.” This meant everyone has to wake up early if they wanted to eat breakfast.

Seeing that soldiers were walking around without properly secured ties or properly worn helmets he said something like, “if your uniform is messed up or if you’re not wearing a helmet, you’ll get a $25 fine.” Most soldiers earned about $50 a month so that was a steep fine. He was so lazy, he just announced the fine, he never even put in a place a mechanism to enforce it:

Now, Patton insisted we had to wear leggings, full helmets and ties all the time. Any soldier who disobeyed his dress order would be fined $25. We all had some money but it was sort of valueless because we did not have any place to spend it. The division must not have enforced that order because I never did hear of anyone paying a fine.

-Allen N. Towne, Medic, 18th Infantry Regiment.³

Usually, if a commander makes policies like this, he runs the organization around trying to enforce them. NCOs get detailed to be on patrol walking around handing out fines, guards get posted at the mess hall to make sure the doors close at 7am, commanders send out strongly-worded emails about how “uniforms are the corps commander’s #1 priority!” But that didn’t happen. For Patton, it wasn’t about enforcing pedantic rules, it was about sending a message: there’s a new sheriff in town and you better get your heads on straight. As long as they got that message, the enforcement mechanism would have been nothing but a distraction.

Speaking of sending messages, Patton used his electric personality to communicate a very simple vision to his men: Offense, offense, offense. Move forward, kill the Hun. “If we are not victorious, let no one come back alive!” (Direct quote). What a lazy dude. He barely lifted a finger. I’ll bet he slept eight hours every night. After all, he did say, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all. Men in condition do not tire…Men who do not rest, do not last.”⁴

Patton took command of II Corps on March 7th, 1943. 10 days later, on March 17th, they went on the offense. In fact, Patton didn’t even change the battle plan that was made by the previous commander, even though he replaced the G3 and the Chief of Staff with officers he knew and trusted.⁵ He knew that it was too late to change the plan, and trying to do so on such short notice could have been disastrous. On March 23rd, they began the battle of El Guettar and put up one hell of a fight. Wikipedia says the result was “inconclusive," but considering where II Corps started, I would call that a successful turnaround.

Patton didn’t have a bunch of people writing long memos or making PowerPoint presentations. He didn’t have platoon leaders give “LPDs” on professionalism. He didn’t have a discipline stand-down day. He didn’t have his lawyers look everything over to make sure it was okay. He saw a problem, implemented a very easy (albeit blunt) solution, and then went and executed.⁶

But let’s look at a more realistic garrison example, one that may correspond more closely with your experience.

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One Thing At a Time

Lieutenant Colonel Folkus just took over command of a rifle battalion. His unit is a total disaster. There is rampant misconduct (DUIs, domestic violence, etc), the soldiers have no discipline, the officers are all trying to leave the Army, the NCOs are trying to get orders for other assignments, medical readiness is extremely low, and the vehicles and equipment are poorly maintained. Luckily, our new battalion commander is quite a lazy fellow — he doesn’t like to have a lot going on all at once so he chooses to focus on one problem at a time. Fixing big problems like DUIs is too hard and too complicated so he ignores it, choosing to focus on small easy to fix problems.

The unit’s administrative systems are clearly broken so he starts there, but he doesn’t want to actually do anything. He calls the unit S-1 OIC/NCOIC, and the First Sergeants to a meeting. If there is a smart staff captain he invites her, too. He says to the group,

“Our administrative systems suck. I want everything submitted on time and I want it to be accurate. No one is in trouble and I don’t care whose fault it is. I just want it to get better. This group is collectively responsible for ensuring this problem gets fixed. I hold everyone person in here equally accountable for the result. Stay in here and come to me when you have a plan to fix it.”

LTC Folkus purposely leaves out the Battalion Executive Officer (XO) and Command Sergeant Major because they have no skin in the game. A lazy commander doesn’t want leaders making decisions for other leaders, he wants leaders to collaborate. Following the meeting, the group collectively briefs the commander, the XO, and Sergeant Major on the way forward.

Maybe the group fixes the problem, maybe they do not. If they do not, the commander reevaluates the problem, gathers the right people, and helps facilitate a consensus. He doesn't move on to other problems until the administrative systems are fixed. If the organization can’t do the smallest things right, trying to fix other problems would be a complete waste of time. Once they do fix the problem, the commander can now move on to a new problem, having done basically nothing to fix the first problem. He follows the same formula: he looks for a problem that is simple and relatively easy to fix. He gathers the people who are closest to the problem and asks them to collaborate to fix it. The focus is not on making decisions but on reaching a consensus. In this way, the commander empowers leaders to participate in the improvement of the organization.

Maybe this approach works for our hypothetical commander and maybe it does not. But here is one thing you can be sure of: by doing very little and focusing on letting others fix one problem at a time, he’s unlikely to make the problems worse. By going slowly and focusing on incremental improvement, he can more easily measure the cause and effect of his actions. If things get worse after a commander takes one action, it is much easier to see if and how that action made things worse than a commander who takes 15 actions. If a commander moves to fix eight problems all at once, and things get worse, it’s very hard to determine if and how he made them worse.

The other factor here, which we’ll explore in further essays, is that by empowering people to solve one very small problem, they start to feel empowered to solve other problems all on their own. And because they put energy into solving problems, they are also looking out for ways to prevent problems in the first place. If it takes less effort to prevent a problem than to fix a problem, people who feel empowered will take steps to prevent problems. In this way, by fixing one small problem, commanders may actually be solving three or four problems or more.

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Bias For Action

Being lazy is not for everyone and it is not for all times. The degree of laziness is dependent on scale and complexity - the greater the scale and complexity, the greater the amount of laziness is required; the smaller the scale and lower complexity, the closer you get to zero laziness. No one below a company commander can be lazy. A platoon leader can experiment with laziness, but she cannot be lazy. Platoon leaders are close enough to problems to be able to try and fix them, get nearly immediate feedback, and then readjust. Commanders and especially Sergeants Major must embrace laziness as a mindset if they want to embrace Mission Command as a philosophy. 

Unfortunately, “bias for action” is a buzzword that in recent years has begun appearing in the “requirements” sections of job postings, and military schools aim to cultivate it in its officer corps. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff, General (R) Martin Dempsey writes,

“If you are a leader in today's environment...you will find yourself responsible for the outcome of a contest for the success, the trust, and the confidence of those who follow you in an ever-evolving, ever-changing environment. And to prevail in that contest, you need to develop a bias for action.”

A lack of formal agreed-upon definition, but widespread acceptance of its supposed importance, essentially ensures that “bias for action” will be misused and abused. Depending on how the concept is defined, “bias for action” is not opposed to my concept of laziness.

Part of Dempsey’s definition is,

“A bias for action is a leadership instinct that mitigates decision paralysis and helps you avoid the endless pursuit of that one exquisite piece of information which seems to be all that stands between you and clarity.”

Lazy commanders aren’t paralyzed when faced with a decision, and they can act with absolute decisiveness when necessary. Lazy commanders have a bias for inaction most of the time but bias for action when action is required. However, not all action is created equal. As I have said, it is highly likely that a commander’s actions will cause more harm than good. The important thing is that a commander has a bias for inspiring action in her subordinates, not just for acting herself. A commander who is constantly biased towards action can confuse his organization by making everything a priority and driving the unit in several different directions at the same time. This action paradox ensures that the harder the organization works the less it will accomplish. Given the choice between having a bias for action and a bias for laziness with the ability to act decisively when necessary, I’ll choose the latter every time. 

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You’re doing it wrong

If you’ve got something that needs to be done, then do it. As I’ve said, being “lazy” is about limiting damage at scale, not about how you conduct your personal business. If I was better at branding, I would have called this concept “strategic laziness,” or “tactical laziness,” but I don’t mind being a little glib.

I’m not saying put off responding to your emails, or forget about sending the updated risk assessments to range control. And when things are simple, rather than complex, you better be ready to go all-in.

During my company’s final AAR at JRTC in 2017, the OC/Ts gave us a lot of things to work on, but one thing I was really proud of was when they said to all my soldiers, “your commander has a motor like no one we’ve ever seen.” As I said, I wasn’t perfect, but I was the last one to sleep every single night and the first one up every morning. I trooped the line of the patrol base multiple times per night, I studied maps, did leader’s reconnaissance, made little improvements to the command post, stayed in close contact with the platoon leaders, traded messages with other commanders on our communications platforms, constantly hounded my higher headquarters for updates, and I even made a tripwire alert system out of 550 cord and chem lights.

Why wasn’t I being lazy? Because fighting in a wargame is much simpler than being in garrison — most of the complexity is eliminated when you have the entire unit in the field doing the same thing. In garrison, there are dozens of things going on: soldiers are getting detailed out to do different things, leaders are busy with a variety of different tasks, vehicles and equipment have to be maintained, random inspections pop-up, officers are doing inventory lay-outs, there are a bunch of meetings, VIPs show up for visits, generals randomly plan safety stand-down days, on and on. During a CTC rotation, there are also a lot of things going on, but there is one big thing: fighting the OPFOR. When things are simple and complexity is low, laziness quickly goes away.

So, don’t think laziness is an excuse for you to shirk your duties. My version of laziness is about letting things run their course at scale without making them worse, but acting decisively when action is required. Knowing the difference takes experience and judgment — reading these essays hopefully won’t hurt either.

Next Month

In the last essay, I talked about the concept of “Failceeding,” an applied form of laziness where you simply let things happen, even failure.

In this two-part essay, I’ve talked about my conception of laziness and why I think it’s important to understand the idea of minimizing damage when making decisions at scale.

Hopefully, I have made it clear how laziness and failceeding go together. Failceeding is a state of mind where you purposefully allow failure to happen and then use the failure to achieve results that you could not have achieved without the failure. Laziness is a broader concept aimed at limiting damage at scale. If you are prepared to failceed because you are not afraid of any particular outcome, you enable yourself to be lazy. By enabling yourself to be lazy, you limit the damage you can do at scale. By limiting damage, you won’t make things worse.

So, how does a commander get anything done? Just be lazy and wait for failure and everything will work out? What kind of bullshit is this?!

Fear not, in the next essay we will turn our attention to the proactive steps that even the lazinest commanders can take to create an organization that can solve its own problems and improve itself without you even knowing about it.

I’ll leave you with this passage from the Tao Te Ching:

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

Next comes the ruler they love and praise;

Next comes to one they fear;

Next comes the one with whom they take liberties.

When there is not enough faith, there is a lack of good faith.

Hesitant, he does not utter words lightly

When his task is accomplished and his work done

The people all say, ‘It happened to us naturally.’⁷

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Epilogue

Snuffy fumbled with the cap of his Military Special Vodka. He was so angry that his hands were shaking. He flinched when he heard a rapid tap-tap-tap on his door. It was the distinct sound of someone knocking with a heavy ring. But the deep bass and penetrating volume of the knock indicated that the heaviness of this particular ring far exceeded that of a normal one. Who wore a ring that big? It could only be one person.

He opened the door and quickly processed the unfamiliar feeling of seeing one of his officers dressed in civilian clothes. Taking an extra millisecond to ensure that this was who he had suspected it might be — his platoon leader, Lieutenant Jones — he reflexively said, “good evening, sir.”

Lieutenant Jones was uncomfortably short. Not uncomfortable for him, mind you, but uncomfortable for others, who were always shocked upon first meeting him that so much bravado could emanate from someone of such minor stature. His giant university class ring hung from the right hand that he extended toward Snuffy as he asked, “What’s going on Snuff?”

Snuffy let his eyes fall to the ground as he shook the young Lieutenant’s hand. Jones jerked his hand aggressively and pulled Snuffy out into the hallway, enveloping him in a bear hug. Jones could tell by the banging and screaming coming from Snuffy’s room right before he knocked that Sergeant Smith had already called to let him know the bad news. Jones released the young Private from the hug and stepped into his room to assess the damage.

Seeing the bottle of liquor on the desk he said, “What’s this, Snuff? You gonna drink yourself to death?

Snuffy was sad, ashamed, angry, and annoyed all at once. He wished Lieutenant Jones hadn’t come and simultaneously wished he wouldn’t leave. Snuffy felt that Jones was the only officer who Snuffy who cared deeply for his Soldiers. Snuffy had never even seen another officer in the barracks.

“This is bullshit, sir! I earned that 4-day pass. I always pull my weight, I’ve never gotten in trouble, I am a super careful driver, and I always give 100%. Why are they canceling passes!?

Jones took a deep breath as he stood by Snuffy’s bunk. “Can I sit, Snuff?”

“Sure, sir”

Jones stared looked up at the ceiling, searching for words, as sat near the foot of the bed. Snuffy could tell that he was thinking about what to say.

Jones felt a tension familiar to all officers, regardless of rank — should he say what he wants to say, or should he say the thing that he should say to support the chain of command? Could he find a happy medium?

Jones finally broke the silence:

“Snuffy, here’s the deal. Officers make decisions as best as they can, based on a variety of factors. Sometimes, yes, they are just trying to get promoted or impress their boss. Sometimes they have a pet idea that they want to try out and they don’t think through all the consequences. But most of the time, they are really trying to do what’s best for the unit and for their soldiers, even if the soldiers disagree. Sometimes, at our level, these decisions don’t seem to make sense, especially when it impacts us personally. When we feel the whiplash of their decision-making, we basically have two options: we can bitch and complain and drag our feet or we can say, ‘roger, that!’ and go and execute as best as we can.”

“Your pass got canceled, and personally, I think that’s bullshit. But I am not the battalion commander. I care about you, Snuffy, and I want what’s best for you because I care about you and I care about our platoon. Because I care about you, I don’t want you to do something stupid because you got screwed over.”

“We’re a team, and we’re gonna figure out how to get you through this. You’re going next weekend, assuming you still want to go. I’ll do all the paperwork for you and have the commander sign off on it. You were going to propose this weekend right?” Snuffy blushed and nodded as Jones chuckled playfully. “Alright, do you think Sandy wants to be with a guy who gets kicked out of the Army for doing something stupid? Or do you love her enough to get to formation in one piece tomorrow morning?” Snuffy tried to hide the smile that was fighting to form on his face. Jones stood up and wrapped Snuffy in another bear hug. Before he turned to leave he said, “there’s not much we can control, there never is. For those things we can control, we should try not to make it worse.”

1. The word “priorities” was banned from my company. There was only ever one priority.

2. This footnote kept expanding until I had written like 500 words. It’s now going to be its own newsletter.

3. Patton’s First Victory by Leo Barron, page 10.

4. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-much-did-world-war-ii-soldiers-sleep-151926 (I googled, “how much did Patton sleep” and got this link. If you know how much he slept usually, let me know. )

5. Patton’s First Victory by Leo Barron, page 10.

6. I tell this story to illustrate my point about laziness, not to prove it. There are plenty of examples of very good turn-arounds that required a commander to be very aggressive and extremely proactive. David Hackworth’s turnaround of 4-39IN infantry in Vietnam is a good example. The amount of laziness is always dependent on context. Large scale, highly complex, lots of time = very lazy. Smaller scale, less complex, little time = less lazy.

7. Tao Te Ching, Book One, Ch. 17, translated by D. C. Lau, Penguin books