Notes on Certain To Win by Chet Richards
Posted: April 15th, 2011 | Author: danny | Filed under: Book Notes | No Comments »
Notes on Certain To Win, The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business by Chet Richards
In this text, Richards -- the essence of boyds mannuever strategy, and TPS
Page 10
After considerable research, Boyd concluded that a small set of principles formed the foundation for the German victory and that they wer primarily cultural, that is, they dealt with the behavior of people in groups. These "principles of the Blitzkrieg" do not give instructions on how to deploy tanks on the battlefield. Rather they aim to attack the ability of the other side to make effective decisions under conditions of danger, fear, and uncertainty and to increase our ability to function well under these same conditions. There was, in other words, little exclusively military about Boyd's philosophy of conflict.
Page 22
... somehow the Germans had evolved a way to cope with the chaos. Since they could cope with it, it was in their best interest to create it, and they designed the strategy of the Blitzkrieg to do just that. As for the French, panic and confusion seemed to snowball as the battle progressed.
...
It was a powerful force and should have been able to throw a roadblock in front of the fast-moving Germans. As the French force stopped to refuel, however, Major General Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division, joined by the 5th Panzers, ambushed them and destroyed all but 17 out of the original 175 French tanks. Now Rommel did something that characterizes Blitzkrieg warfare. Rather than dig in and "consolidate his position," or otherwise savor the fruits of victory, he proceeded to use his advantage in time to neutralize his opponents' forces and weapons. Battle-weary as they must have been, rommel's troops remounted their vehicles, pressed on to the west, and actually reached the new French defensive line before the French.
Page 23/24
... British military historian Basil Liddel hart had to say:
The issue turned on the time factor at stage after stage. French countermovements were repeatedly thrown out of gear because their timing was too slow to catch up with the changing situation ... The french, trained in the slow-motion methods of World War I, were mentally unfit to cope with the new tempo, and it caused a spreading paralysis among them.
Or from the British general whom the Germans credit as one of the sources of the Blitzkrieg, J. F. C. Fuller:
It was to employ mobility as a psychological weapon: not to kill but to move, not to move to kill but to move to terrify, to bewilder, to perplex, to cause consternation, doubt and confusion in the rear of the enemy...
In other words, the purpose of the Blitzkrieg strategy was not so much to cope with chaos, but to cause and then exploit it, and it is this cascading of panic and chaos that accounts for the German's "string of luck."
Page 25
Our view of the world, our "orientation," as Boyd called it, depends heavily on things happening close in time to when we expect them to happen. Mismatches in time - such as when things don't appear to be happening in a continuous and predictable (even if very rapid) manner - can be disorienting. Under stress, disoriented people become demoralized, frustrated, and panicked. Once in this condition, they can easily be defeated, regardless of the weapons that remain in their possession.
Page 29/30
... a concept known as agility, another word that has lost its original meaning through careless application. Boyd, however, used the term in a specific sense, to mean the ability to rapidly change one's orientation - roughly, worldview - in response to what is happening in the external world.
...
The essence of agility and of applying Boyd's ideas to any form of competition is to keep one's orientation well matched to the real world during times of ambiguity, confusion, and rapid change, when the natural tendency is to become disoriented.
Page 39
There is a saying that the battle is not always to the strong, but that's the way to bet. If by stronger, you mean bigger, or more advanced technologically, you are going to lose your bet fairly often even you're wagering (or investing in ) business.
....
There have always been strategists down through history, in the East in particular, who have held the "bigger is better"notion in special contempt. The noted Chinese strategist Sun Tzu (c. 5th century B.C.), who is still widely studied today, dismissed the fascination with size thusly: "Numbers alone confer no advantage." Japans favorite strategist, the 17th Century samurai warrior-philosopher, Miyamoto Musashi, wrote with blunt contempt that "it does not matter who is stronger or who is faster."
Page 42
Forrest put his arm around him and uttered those immortal words of strategy, "Ah Colonel, all is fair in love and war, you know."
- "All warfare is based upon deception" - Sun Tzu
- "War is trickery." - Muhammad, Prophet of Islam
- "Mystify, mislead and surprise" - Stonewall Jackson
- "I put the scare on them, and I keep it on. " - Nathan Bedford Forrest
Page 43
Table I - What Wins
Things We Want To Have On Our Side:
- Sense of Mission
- Morale
- Leadership
- Harmony
- Teamwork
Which Allows Us To:
- Appear Ambiguous
- Be Deceptive
- Generate Surprise & Panic
- Seize & Keep The Initiative
- Create and Exploit Opportunities
Which Cause These In The Enemy:
- Bickering
- Scapegoating
- Confusion
- Panic
- Rout
- Mass Defections & Surrender
Page 44/45/46
So there might be a set of equations that tie the inflation rate to stock prices, and another set that relates unemployment to housing starts, and so on. The idea is that once all these equations are joined together, you can raise the discount by one-half point and the model will tell you the effect on unemployment (or whatever).
...
So you think that by now, somone would have invented a model of the economy that works. Then, at least in theory, economic policymaking would be simple: Play with the model until you et a result you like (or can live with) and then implement the policy (the model inputs) that produced it.
...
... Perhaps the problem is, as I have suggested for strategy, that modeling by it's very nature cannot address the underlying basis of economics.
Nobel Laureate Frederick Hayek eloquently makes this case in his book, The Fatal Conceit. Hayek inveighed against the notion of ever being able to plan a productive economy. he argues that formal planning methodologies -- which are models of how an economy works -- do not capture what really drives a competitive economy, in particular the information processed through decisions made daily by millions of buyers and sellers. Conversely, countries try to run their economies through a central state planning mechanism cannot process information nearly as well as the multitude of players in a decentralized system. Hayek's theories were validated in the last half of the 20th century, when countries that relied on Soviet style planning collapsed in competition with those that evolved decentralized, capitalist economies.
Another reason economies are impossible to model involves the messy presence of human beings. Financially massive organizations warp the environment they inhabit much like the way gravitationally massive bodies warp space-time in physics: Normal rules do not apply to them. Giant companies influence Congress, the executive branch, and local governing bodies to pass legislation they want - granting them subsidies, protection, environmental relief, favorable tax status, and so on - and otherwise treat them in way that are perfectly legal, but outside what the equations of economics predict.
These favors can range from protective tariffs to outright grants (often inserted by pet Congressional representatives into obscure sections of appropriation bills) to program that continue to bleed tax dollars long after any need for them has disappeared. As an aside, this last effect - often called "pork" - is well known to those in defense, and former President Eisenhower warned of it in the Farewell Address (January 1961):
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
These are the soft, political, impossible-to-model but critical aspects of the economy. Any company that attempted to ignore them, to predict in a step-by-step fashion the results of its moves, creates a form of macroeconomic model because it is also predicting effects on at least part of the larger economy. So it will fall victim to the limitations of any such model - including Hayek's information processing arguments and political activities that change the rules. The upshot will be a strategy that works no better for business than did its counterparts for war: A company using such a model would make itself vulnerable to competitors who better understand the real economy.
Page 48
Boyd was famous for browbeating his audiences with the mantra, "People, ideas, and hardware - in that order!" What we have seen so far reinforces Boyd's conclusion. In all the battles and business examples noted in chapter II, as well as in the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks, groups of dedicated people found and exploited weaknesses in their larger and better-financed adversaries.
..
The reason for this reversal, in business and in war, appears to be that these smaller organizations were able to avoid or negate the larger's advantages in size and strength. Somehow they had managed not to become systems in the eyes of their larger opponents. This might lead one to suspect that in any competitive endeavor, if you can be modeled ("sand-tabled, " as Boyd referred to it) you aren't using strategy at all and you can be defeated.
Page 51
After the war, American strategists did get the opportunity to talk at length with many of the practitioners of the Blitzkrieg. Amidst all the war stories, a pattern became clear: The roots of success in 1940 lay in the German system for dealing with people; it was cultural, rather than technical. Here, I am using "cultural" in the sense of "business culture," not as a national trait. From his conversations with the German generals and his study of their experiences and doctrine, Boyd extracted the four concepts shown below as the primary reason for the Germans' success: You don't have to be a tank commander in central Europe to exploit these cultural properties. Boyd called them "an organizational climate for operational success," and the organization can be a business, a political campaign, or, of course, an army.
Key Attributes of the Blitkrieg
- Einehit: Mutual trust, unity, and cohesion
- Fingerspitzengefuhl:Intuitive feel, especially for complex and potentially chaotic situations
- Auftragstaktik:Mission, generally considered as a contract between superior and subbordinate
- Schwerpunkt:Any concept that provides focus and direction to the operation
Page 53/54
Boyd's Maneuver Warfare Handbook :
Both leadership and monitoring are values without trust. The "contracts" . . . of intent and mission express that trust . . . that his subordinates will understand and carry out his desires and trust by his subordinates that they will be supported when exercising their initiative.
If there is a universally accepted truth in the military science, the fundamental role played by cohesion, unity, and trust may be it. Twenty-four hundred years before Fuller, Sun Tzu had concluded that, "He whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious." The Arab historian ibn Khaldun, who is generally credited with writings the first modern analysis of history, echoed this theme in 1377 A.D., "What is in fact proven to make for superiority is the situation with regard to group feeling." The rule is simple: The side with the stronger group feeling has a great advantage.
...
Such an anvil of shared experience appears to be necessary ingredient in forging a bond of trust.
Page 57
This brings us to Schwerpunkt, which is any device or concept that gives focus and direction to our efforts. The world literally translates as "hard/difficult point," but its real meaning is more like center of gravity, focal point, or main focus. It can also mean "emphasis."
The distinguishing characteristic of an effective focus is that all other activities of the organization must support it and that the people conducting these activities understand what the main effort is and know that they must support it. Conversely, subordinates are expected to use their own initiatives to exploit opportunities, even if it means setting aside a previously issued order, whenever they can further the accomplishment of the focusing-and-directing mission (communicating this change back to the commander, of course). As you can see, this is a powerful concept for motivating subordinates, while at the same time harmonizing their energy to accomplish the commander's intent.
...
This notion of "setting-up" activities followed by a knockout punch is as old a concept as mutual trust. Its known roots go back thousands of years, and the ancient Chinese even had expressions for this type of strategy, calling the setting-up, "cheng maneuvers," to be followed at the decisive moment by the "ch'i" knockout punch.
Page 58
The ability to rapidly shift the focus of one's efforts is a key element in how a smaller force defeats a larger, since it enables the smaller force to create and exploit opportunities before the larger force can marshal reinforcements. Lind notes, and this is especially relevant to business, that the focus is often a concept rather than a unit, and so shifting it requires a mental as well as a physical change.
Page 60/61
... Boyd decided that the F-86 won because it could generate something he called "asymmetric fast transients." A "transient" is a shift from one state to another, "fast" refers to the time it takes to make the shift (not, as is often thought, the velocity of the aircraft itself), and "asymmetric" means that one side is better at it than the other.
An "asymmetric fast transient," though, is not a traditional maneuver done more quickly, even much more quickly. In business, it should not conjure up an image of doing what you're doing now, just doing it faster. The "transient" is the change between maneuvers. In Boyd's concept, the ideal asymmetric fast transient is an abrupt, unexpected, jerky, disorienting change that causes at least a hesitation and preferably plants the seeds of panic in the other side. It's a "what-the f__k!" change in circumstances, and in the interval when the opponent is trying to comprehend what the f__k is, Boyd would strike. What this described vis-a-vis the MiG and the F-86 is that the American fighter could setup novel and unexpected conditions and exploit them before the Russian could react with his sometimes superior EM capability.
Page 62
After examining many wars, battles, and engagements, Boyd synthesized his no well-known "OODA Loop." A participant in a conflict, any conflict, may be thought of as engaging in four distinctive although not distinct activities:
- He must observe the environment, which includes himself, his opponent, the physical, mental, and moral situation, and potential allies and opponents.
- he must orient himself to decide what it all means. Boyd calls orientation a "many-sided, implicit cross-referencing" process involving the information observed, one's genetic heritage, social environment, and prior experiences, and the results of analyses one conducts and synthesis that one forms.
- He must reach some type of decision.
- He must attempt to carry out that decision. That is, he must act.
Page 63
Since what you're looking for is mismatches, a general rule is that bad news is the only kind that will do you any good.
Page 65
[GOOD OODA DIAGRAM]
Page 66
... Boyd defined "agility" in these terms: A side in a conflict or competition is more agilethan its opponent if it can execute its OODA loops more quickly.
Page 67
Ambiguityis a terrible thing, much more effective as a strategy than deception, with which it is often confused. Deception is correctly described as a tactic: If you are deceived, you will be surprised when you discover the truth, and it is possible that you will be led to do some things, perhaps even fatal things, that you would not have done if you had realized the truth earlier. It can be extremely effective tactic, even though your ability to function as a thinking human being is not at risk. This s exactly what you can attack and destroy using ambiguity.
...
If something vital, such as life itself, is at stake, losing track of deadly threat in the fog of ambiguity can quickly lead to confusion, panic, and terror ...
Page 69/70/71/72
The Army was the first to put the concept of agility into formal written doctrine. In their Field Manual 3-0, Operations the Army tells its soldiers that:
Agility is the ability to move and adjust quickly and easily. It springs form trained and disciplined forces. Agility requires that subordinates act to achieve the commander's intent and fight through any obstacle to accomplish the mission.
Operational agility stems from the capability to deploy and employ forces across the range of Army operations. Army forces and commanders shift among offensive, defensive, stability, and support operations as circumstances and missions require. This capability is not merely physical; it requires conceptual sophistication and intellectual flexibility.
Tactical agility is the ability of a friendly force to react faster than the enemy. It is essential to seizing, retaining, and exploiting the initiative. Agility is mental and physical. Agile commanders quickly comprehend unfamiliar situations, creatively apply doctrine, and make timely decisions.
...
Note the Army omits the time element from operational agility, making it more like "flexibility" than Boyd's concept of agility.
...
[The Air Force's] 1984 Basic Doctrine Manual made it clear what they expected to accomplish:
Timing and tempo allow friendly forces to "dominate the action, remain unpredictable, and create uncertainty in the mind of the enemy."
...
Naval Command and Control (NDP 6), they state that:
However, the essential lesson of the decision and execution cycle is the absolute importance of generating tempo. Maintaining rapid decision and execution cycles-and thus a rapid tempo of operations - requires that seniors and subordinates alike have an accurate image of the battlespace and a shared vision of what needs to be done. With this common perspective, commanders are able to experience superior situational awareness and make more effective decisions, enabling them to exercise initiative during combat.
...
MCDP1, Warfighting, lays out a concept of maneuver warfare entirely consistent with the ideas of agility that we have been exploring:
By our actions, we seek to impose menacing dilemmas in which events happen unexpectedly and faster than the enemy can keep up with them ... The ultiamte goal is panic and paralysis, an enemy who has lost the will to resist.
Page 75
When discussing the notions of grand strategy, Boyd concluded that: What is needed is a vision rooted in human nature so noble, so attractive that it not only attracts the uncommitted and magnifies the spirit and strength of its adherents, but also undermines the dedication and determination of any competitors or adversaries. Moreover, such a unifying notion should be so compelling that it acts as a catalyst or beacon around which to evolve those qualities that permit a collective entity or organic whole to improve its stature int he scheme of things.
Page 77/78
[Strategy Definitions]
From War:
The art and science of employing the armed forces of a nation or alliance to secure policy objectives by the application of that of military force. US Army Field Manual 100-5, Operations, 1986
Victory is achieved in the way of conflict by ascertaining the rhythm of each opponent, by attacking with a rhythm not anticipated by the opponent, and by the use of knowledge of the rhythm of the abstract. Miyamoto Musashi, samurai strategist, 17th century Japan, Nihon Services Group trans.
From business:
Strategy is a deliberate search for a plan of action that will develop a business's competitive advantage and compound it. Bruce Hnderson, Founder, the Boston Consulting Group.
Strategy isn't beating the competition, it's serving the customer's real needs. Kenich Ohmae, Managing Director, McKinsey & Co, Tokyo Office
From everyday life:
The art of the possible in a world where constraints force us to choose between unpleasant or imperfect alternatives. Retired Pentagon official and long-time Boyd associate Franklin C. Spinney, author of Defense Facts of Life
Page 79
A plan is an intention about how to get from where we are now to where we want to be in the future.
...
The term strategy will be used for higher-order devices for creating and managing plans.
Page 84
Boyd's Definition:
Strategy is a mental tapestry of changing intentions for harmonizing and focusing our efforts as a basis for realizing some aim or purpose in an unfolding and often unforeseen world of many bewildering events and many contending interests.
Page 87 *
... then break the enemy formation into meaningless chunks that didn't know what they were doing .. the way they fought seemed like the only intellegent way ... the only possible way. Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
Page 89
A Simple Example of Agility
Go find the best chess player you can and offer to play for $1,000 under the following conditions:
- Your opponent moves first.
- You move twice for every move of his or hers.
In fact, you can even offer to give up some pieces, to make it more fair. You will find that, unless you are playing somebody at the grandmaster level, you can give up practically everything and still win. Keep the knights and maybe a rook.
This is a graphic illustration of how the smaller side, using agility, can overcome a large disadvantage in numbers. Does it strike you as farfetched and removed from what happens in the real world? Consider that Honda and Toyota can bring out a new model in roughly 2 years, with superb quality, while it still takes Detroit at least a year longer.
Page 91
How to tell you strategy is working in business
- Your competitor's new products are consistently late and lack your features or quality.
- He starts blaming the customer, or insisting that his sales force "educate the customer."
- Personnel turnover is high.
- He becomes even more "Theory X," instituting rigid, explicit controls, frequently in the name of containing costs.
- He launches witch hunts and other ever-intensifying internal searches for "the cause of the problem."
Page 93
To think that you can predict what needs to be done a year from now is sheer arrogance.
Page 94
In this case [LEAN], competitive advantage comes not from better ways to handle inventory, but from fundamental changes that enable a goal of abolishing altogether. This is an exact analogy to the military case, in which conventional strategy glossed over the factors that actually produce victory, like cohesion/trust, and instead considered only numbers and weapon effectiveness.
Page 96
There is nothing wrong with conducting post-mortem investigations into your success and failures and you should do this as a matter of course. Problems arise when you change strategies after every one. Management theorists call this tendency to chase the last data point the "Nelson Funnel."
Page 114
Communications is the bottoms-up aspect of command and control, and the Marines define "control," to be this stream of information:
Control takes the form of feedback = the continuous flow of information about the unfolding situation returning to the command - which allows the commander to adjust and modify command action as needed.
Page 121
Futurist James Ogilvy simply denouned managing through goal setting as "bunk." Instead, he recommend that:
Organizations should tread near the edge of the future, making it up as they go along, with as much sensitivity, awareness, knowledge, compassion, feeling and beauty as they can muster.
Page 124/125
[Boyd]
Schwerpunkt represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to diminish friction and compress time in order to generate a favorable mismatch in time/ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances.
Page 129/120
[GOOD DIAGRAM - how the core concepts integrate/example]
Page 132
... the use of time as a shaping and exploiting mechanism, and the emphasis on a culture/organizational climate that makes this possible - apply equally well to both.
Page 133
To Read - Boyd Briefing: Organic Design for Command and Control. Google Power Point
Page 149
The key to understanding cheng and ch'i in looking carefully at the nature of the terms themselves rather at their specific applications in war. One of the main themes of this book has been that the essence of Boyd's strategy in buisness competition is ot shape ourselves and the marketplace to improve our capacity for independent action - to survive on our terms - generally at the expense of our competitors. The nature of war is to shape the enemy. Detect a connection? The nature of cheng / ch'i, in both cases as it will turn out is not "frontal versus flank" but something more fundamental: "shaping" using orthodox (expected) in conjunction with the unorthodox (surprising). Engage with the cheng and win with the ch'i, in business as in war.
Page 154/155
Musashi is clear at many places in his book that although such expected excellence is essential, it is not the key to victory. You cannot become so technically proficient that you are asured of winning every fight: If you achieved a 97% chance of winning a fight, which would be spectacular against people who train just as hard as you do, you odds of surviving 25 fights is less than 50%. Musashi won 60 duels, so clearly he was not thinking of taking that kind of risk. He wanted no risk at all.
For that, one needs to develop an ability to do the unexpected and then exploit its results quickly. The key to this strategy is a different type of training, where students practice generating ch'i and using it with cheng as instinctively as they previously practiced manipulating the sword.
...
Boyd insisted that "ch'i" and "Schwerpunkt" are essentially the same, that is finding an exploiting the magical element should be what gives your enterprise focus and direction.
...
In warfare, one purpose of using cheng/ch'i is to generate the jerky, abrupt, unexpected and disorienting changes that Boyd called "asymmetric fast transients."
Page 162/163
What You Really Do With OODA LOOPS
...
- Uncover, create, and exploit many vulnerabilities and weaknesses, hence many opportunities, to pull adversary apart and isolate remnants for mop-up or absorption
- Generate uncertainty, confusion, disorder, panic, chaos ... to shatter cohesion, produce paralysis and bring about collapse
- Destroy the moral bonds (of the enemy) that permit an organic whole to exist
- Create moral bonds that permit us, as organic whole, to shape and adapt to change
With a strategy this powerful, your aim is not to respond to but to create the market conditions that you want.
Page 166
The need for a change in underlying assumptions is what distinguishes maneuver conflict in all its forms from activities like "business process reengineering." As a result of implementing maneuver conflict, many of the existing processes and the relationships between them are going to disappear, and so it would be a waste of time and money to "improve" them. This breaking of relationships ("shattering of domains," as Boyd referred to it) is a prerequisite to implementing maneuver conflict, which is one reason why all successful implementing have eliminated roughly 25-40% of management positions, since those reflect the existing processes and relationships.
Page 168
The weakness in the book is that there is no recognition that the TPS is based on a deeper set of principles that do apply to other human activities, like warfare. The index is devoid of such basic terms as trust, cohesion, initiative, or even "maneuver," which was adopted as official USMC doctrine seven years before Lean Thinking appeared so was hardly esoteric when that book was written. Without a climate like the one I have described in this book you will find it difficult to create a company capable of employing the ideas Womack and Jones present.