Thank you for this article. I am not from a military background but I wanted to share how relevant and useful these articles are in helping me build a highly operational business in the UK where planning, logistics and delivery are crucial. We have been doing our best to use mission command principles in our business and I strongly believe it has given us advantage over our competitors. Thank you
Honestly, your last one about leader at the centre really landed with us. I took my team through it on Tuesday and this morning they ran a small workshop on their own leader at centre diagram. We draw bolder rings around trust and competence and bolder lines to demonstrate communication channels. It's fascinating how it unveils itself and then how people realise how they need to strengthen the connection first to then build that mutual trust with where they have weaker connections. To be competitive I focus on building a high performance teams first. Having a decentralised organisation chart really enables us to have that ability to react to the chaotic environment and market that we are in. I wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you
“sandbagging” has a negative connotation. its actually savvy. “lazy” also has a negative military image. its actually all about efficiency (see von hammerstein). ever observe the differences between prey animals and predators? 😉🫡
One lesson from my stint at the Pentagon was that “where you stand depends on where you sit” - I’m bending the original “definition” a bit to applaud the efforts to change one’s POV a bit from time to time because you can get better depth perception on your objective. I especially like the observation about what really is “peak” efficiency versus getting maximum usage out of your organization. It seems to me that one driver of the demand for 100% one hundred percent of the time is the notion as noted that unused capacity is waste rather than reserve. This is an attitude sometimes heard in businesses where the focus is on greatest return to the shareholders. For the uniformed services (and my home, the State Department), we have seen Congress label reserve capacity as “waste, fraud, and abuse”. One result is that neither Congress or industry was willing to foot the bill to support unused manufacturing facilities as a hedge against future demand because it was “waste” or “unrealized profit”.
If you optimize for resiliency, you can find efficiency. If you optimize for efficiency, you will never be resilient. I've been productive and I've been busy, but never both at the same time.
I disagree with proactive meaning you are doing a lot.
But I do agree that we understand that you can’t control everything when fighting but in garrison want to overly control stuff when we can’t.
but I saw most success when we built the steps of the training model into the calendar and put maintenance related tasks on the training calendar
Rarely was a range cancelled (happened but not often) but what got stepped on was the RXLs. Then we felt it on the range. Adding those steps to the calendar lead to an informed discussion about risks when stuff came down.
But I do agree that building resiliency into daily plans allows you to react better and it’s less stressful. You still have time to get after the priorities.
Totally reasonable, which is why I tried to emphasize “Looking ahead is unavoidable—it something that must be done.” I don’t think that contradicts the main point: optimizing for being reactive is the the rule, being proactive is a luxury.
Do you think that this fits better for an IBCT due to the maintenance requirements in a ABCT/SBCT. I remember most of the white space that was set aside ended up being used to hang parts to get ORR back up.
Thank you for this article. I am not from a military background but I wanted to share how relevant and useful these articles are in helping me build a highly operational business in the UK where planning, logistics and delivery are crucial. We have been doing our best to use mission command principles in our business and I strongly believe it has given us advantage over our competitors. Thank you
Thank you so much for your comment! I am glad you have found these articles useful and I hope your business continues to be a success 💰💰
Honestly, your last one about leader at the centre really landed with us. I took my team through it on Tuesday and this morning they ran a small workshop on their own leader at centre diagram. We draw bolder rings around trust and competence and bolder lines to demonstrate communication channels. It's fascinating how it unveils itself and then how people realise how they need to strengthen the connection first to then build that mutual trust with where they have weaker connections. To be competitive I focus on building a high performance teams first. Having a decentralised organisation chart really enables us to have that ability to react to the chaotic environment and market that we are in. I wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you
That’s really good feedback! I’ve got another exercise you can run through with your team they you’ll like. I’ll publish it next week.
“sandbagging” has a negative connotation. its actually savvy. “lazy” also has a negative military image. its actually all about efficiency (see von hammerstein). ever observe the differences between prey animals and predators? 😉🫡
Exactly. This one is of the foundational concepts behind The Distro: https://open.substack.com/pub/thedistro/p/laziness?r=qm122&utm_medium=ios
One lesson from my stint at the Pentagon was that “where you stand depends on where you sit” - I’m bending the original “definition” a bit to applaud the efforts to change one’s POV a bit from time to time because you can get better depth perception on your objective. I especially like the observation about what really is “peak” efficiency versus getting maximum usage out of your organization. It seems to me that one driver of the demand for 100% one hundred percent of the time is the notion as noted that unused capacity is waste rather than reserve. This is an attitude sometimes heard in businesses where the focus is on greatest return to the shareholders. For the uniformed services (and my home, the State Department), we have seen Congress label reserve capacity as “waste, fraud, and abuse”. One result is that neither Congress or industry was willing to foot the bill to support unused manufacturing facilities as a hedge against future demand because it was “waste” or “unrealized profit”.
If you optimize for resiliency, you can find efficiency. If you optimize for efficiency, you will never be resilient. I've been productive and I've been busy, but never both at the same time.
I disagree with proactive meaning you are doing a lot.
But I do agree that we understand that you can’t control everything when fighting but in garrison want to overly control stuff when we can’t.
but I saw most success when we built the steps of the training model into the calendar and put maintenance related tasks on the training calendar
Rarely was a range cancelled (happened but not often) but what got stepped on was the RXLs. Then we felt it on the range. Adding those steps to the calendar lead to an informed discussion about risks when stuff came down.
But I do agree that building resiliency into daily plans allows you to react better and it’s less stressful. You still have time to get after the priorities.
Totally reasonable, which is why I tried to emphasize “Looking ahead is unavoidable—it something that must be done.” I don’t think that contradicts the main point: optimizing for being reactive is the the rule, being proactive is a luxury.
thank u sir. been reading your every article and all of them are a treasure
Absolutely, adaptability is infinitely more important than the plan. Unfortunately this statement tends to undercut how important the plan is too.
It depends on if it is THE PLAN or the “real” plan.
I wrote about the difference here: https://open.substack.com/pub/thedistro/p/stakeholder?r=qm122&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
This is a great explanation of why and how white space/slack is so important. There's a difference between being productive and being preoccupied!
Do you think that this fits better for an IBCT due to the maintenance requirements in a ABCT/SBCT. I remember most of the white space that was set aside ended up being used to hang parts to get ORR back up.
The principle definitely holds. I am in an armored division and I understand the maintenance struggle.