The document discusses commander's intent and how to effectively communicate it. It advocates keeping the intent concise by focusing on the most important thing to achieve. Subordinates should be given autonomy in how to achieve the intent while alignment is ensured through back briefings where subordinates check their understanding and leaders gain clarity.
6. Sources of friction in On War
GENERIC SOURCE SPECIFIC SOURCE
Imperfect information • Uncertainties
• False information
• Rumors
Imperfect transmitting
of information
• Making judgment based on probabilities
• Stress caused by emotion, including fear
• Stress caused by physical exertion
• The people involved who can cause misunderstanding or delay
• Differences of views, especially between leaders
External factors • Chance (e.g., weather)
• Complexity (reduces chances of success through accumulating risk)
59/3/2015
7. Friction in a workplace
CHAOTIC
ENVIRONMENT
COMPLEXITY
PERSONAL
INTERESTS
EMOTION
& STRESS
HUMAN
FINITUDE
Limited
knowledge
Independent
agents
Independent
wills
Unpredictable
events
Imperfect
information
Imperfect
information
transfer
Noise
Lack of data
Chance
External actorsDifferent
agendas
Different
priorities
Different
interpretations
Misunderstandings
69/3/2015 Source: The Art of Action
11. The problem: 3 critical gaps
OUTCOMES
PLANSACTIONS
Knowledge gap:
The difference
between what we
want to know and
what we actually
know.
Effects gap:
The difference
between what we
expect our actions to
achieve, and what
they actually achieve.
Alignment gap:
The difference
between what we
want people to do
and what they
actually do
109/3/2015 Source: The Art of Action
13. The solution: Directed opportunism
OUTCOMES
PLANSACTIONS
Knowledge gap:
Limit direction to
defining and
communicating the
intent
Effects gap:
Give individuals
freedom to adjust
their actions in line
with intent
Alignment gap:
Allow each level to
define how they will
achive the intent of
the next level up, and
‘backbrief’
129/3/2015 Source: The Art of Action
14. Commander’s Intent: Less is better
FM 100-5, 14 June 1993 states:
“The commander's intent describes the desired end state. It
is a concise expression of the purpose of the operation and
must be understood two echelons below the issuing
commander . . . It is the single unifying focus for all
subordinate elements. It is not a summary of the concept of
the operation.
Its purpose is to focus subordinates on the desired end state.
Its utility is to focus subordinates on what has to be
accomplished in order to achieve success, even when the
plan and concept of operations no longer apply, and to
discipline their efforts toward that end.”
OR:
- Decide what really matters
- Get the message across
- Give your people space & support
139/3/2015
15. Decide what really matters: strategy
COMPETITIV
E
ADVANTAGE
Aims
Do we want to do this?
Opportunities
Is it possible to do this?
Capabilities
Is this something we can do?
149/3/2015 Source: The Art of Action
16. Get the message across: the briefing
Express your intent in terms of what to achieve
and why
Grant autonomy in terms of what to do, and
how to realize the intent.
9/3/2015 15
17. Cascading intent: each level is more specific
LEVEL 1
LEVEL 2
LEVEL 3
Intent
(What & why)
Intent
(What & why)
Intent
(What & why)
Tasks
(How)
Tasks
(How)
‘backbrief’
‘backbrief’
169/3/2015
18. The back brief…
• Team/person being briefed checks
understanding of the direction
• Superiors gains clarification about
the implications of their own
directions (may need to revise as a
result)
• Ensures alignment across the
organization (esp. if everyone back
briefs together)
• Results checked for gaps, overlaps,
and coherence
• Adjustment follows… FM 3-19.4 Appendix C (Back Brief Number 2)
179/3/2015
19. Commander’s Intent Example
UNMIH INTENT:
“The purpose of this mission is to maintain a
secure and stable environment which allows the
government of Haiti to maintain functional
governance, gradually transferring responsibility for
the secure and stable environment to the
government of Haiti. The end state is defined as
the secure and stable environment that allows
social and economic development, free election,
and peaceful transition of responsibility to the
government of Haiti.”
USFORHAITI INTENT:
“The purpose of the operation is to divest Zone V of all
operations in support of the government of Haiti. We will
accomplish this purpose through progressively
transferring all support operations to the government of
Haiti, setting time limits on continued support to
encourage timely transfers. Maintain only enough
presence to detect an impending loss of security or
stability in sufficient time to counteract it. At the end of
the operation the government of Haiti assumes all
responsibility for maintaining the secure and stable
environment. Zone V forces are postured to facilitate and
cover the withdrawal of UN forces and protect key
installations.”
189/3/2015
20. Commander’s Intent Example
TASK FORCE BAYANIHAN
COMMANDER’S MISSION
STATEMENT:
“Assist the Disaster Response Task
Groups (DRTGs) in Visayas and
Mindanao in the conduct of large scale
humanitarian assistance and disaster
response in regions 6,7,10 and 13, in
order to save lives, protect property and
minimize damage.”
TF BAYANIHAN COMMANDER’S
INTENT:
“My intent is to support the Armed Forces
of the Philippines in HA/DR operations in
the affected areas of the Central
Philippines. We will conduct HA/DR
combined operations and rehabilitation
efforts. In other words, we will provide all
available assistance to alleviate human
suffering and restore normalcy.”
199/3/2015
21. Mission Statement as CI?
“I can teach you the secret to
running this airline in thirty seconds.
This is it: We are the low cost
airline. Once you understand that
fact, you can make any decision
about this company’s future as well
as I can.”
– Herb Kelleher, CEO Southwest Airlines
209/3/2015
22. Tips on writing a good intent
• The CI never specifies so much detail that it risks being rendered
obsolete by unpredictable events.
• Commander’s Intent manages to align the behavior of soldiers at all
levels without requiring play-by-play instructions from their leaders. When
people know the desired intention, they’re free to improvise, as needed, in
arriving there.
• A commander could spend a lot of time enumerating every specific task,
but as soon as people know what the intent is they begin generating their
own solutions.
9/3/2015 21Source: Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath
23. Keep it short, to the point,
yet with enough information that
subordinates can take
it and run when things
get confused.
22
Makes sense?
9/3/2015
25. Strategy briefing template
• CONTEXT – what is the situation?
• HIGHER INTENT – one level up, two levels up
• MY INTENT – what are we trying to achieve and why?
• MEASURES – how do we know if we succeeded?
• IMPLIED TASKS, RESPONSIBILITY, TIMING
• What is the main effort?
• BOUNDARIES – freedoms & constraints
249/3/2015
27. Lesson Learned: Understand intent
Problem:
• Lengthy business directions often
focus on items that are beyond the
current scope
• Intent should complement what your
team needs to know and focus on
key elements
Techniques:
• Make sure you derive the single most
important thing you need to have done
during the business evolution (current
operation) and make this the focal point
of your intent
• Have your team take the time to
understand your intent
269/3/2015
28. Lesson Learned: Achieve focus
Problem:
• Lengthy and vague intent
statements make it difficult to focus
on what is important
Technique:
Complete the following sentences:
• If we do nothing during tomorrow’s
mission, we must
__________________________.
• The single, most important thing we
must do tomorrow, is
__________________________.
279/3/2015
29. Lesson Learned: Make your statements concise
Problem:
• Lengthy convoluted intent
statements are often due to
conflicting and divergent
assignment missions
Techniques:
• Ask the simple question: What is
the single most important thing to
accomplish during this operation?
• If you give people multiple missions,
then help them prioritize them to
succeed
289/3/2015
30. A framework for operations
Remember:
• An intent statement provides a
framework for the operation. It doesn’t
tell your staff what to do. If gives them
the overall picture of what you say the
company needs to accomplish to be
successful.
• By making your intent a clear and
concise focused statement, you
increase the chance that you staff will
continue the mission even when the
operation doesn’t go as planned.
299/3/2015
31. • When you communicate the core
concept to your staff the
probability of success increases
• As a leader when you are vague
or fail to communicate the core
idea to your staff failure is
inevitable
30
Can you explain it to your grandmother?
9/3/2015
Six months ago, I found myself at a dinner party, sitting next to a former British Special Forces officer. He’s now an executive coach, which I found pretty interesting, since, like all of you, I’m always looking to improve as an executive myself. So I figured, you know, free advice, and I asked him, “What’s the most useful lesson you find yourself teaching the executives that you work with?” Without even thinking, he answered “Commander’s Intent”. “What’s that?” I said.
“Read this book”, he said.. So I did. And sure enough, it changed how I think about execution at PlayFab, enough that I’m here today sharing these lessons with you.
Lots of this is common sense… but that’s okay.
It all starts with this guy, Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian general and military theorist.
Has anyone ever tried to read his most famous book, On War? It’s slow going. I tried once, and only got a few pages in. Yet despite being published in 1832, it’s still one of the most influential books ever written on warfare, with huge influence even today. One of the key concepts he introduces is the idea that the “fog of war” introduces “friction” that makes it much more difficult for any order to get carried out effectively.
We gamers, of course, are very familiar with “fog of war” – it’s a key feature in virtually every RTS or strategy game ever made.
But what he really meant was how chaotic real warfare is, with unexpected developments unfolding all the time, especially in the face of incomplete, dubious, and often completely erroneous information and high levels of fear, doubt, and excitement.
This fog, then causes friction. It’s common sense, really. In battle, you have all these sources – rumors, fear, stress, chance, etc, and it all adds up to make it much more difficult to get anything done.
So what does all that have to do with us? Because this idea of the fog of war and friction doesn’t just apply on the battlefield… it also applies in the workplace. There are just as many factors in business, making it difficult to get anything done, as there are in war. This is a diagram I lifted from that book the Art of Action, but you could easily add your own. At least for now, the workplace is made up of humans, and humans are messy. Communications are messy. The environment is messy. Our work is complex. Mistakes happen.
So why do we care about friction? Because it makes it harder to get things done.
It was a later Prussian General, Vol Moltke, who gets credit for the concept of commander’s intent –
if you take friction to its logical conclusion, you get the famous quote “no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”
Or, as Mike Tyson puts it, “everybody’s got a plan until I hit them”
Consider these 3 basic elements of any business… you have plans, you have actions, and you have the outcomes --- which in turn, generate new plans.
If there was no friction, things would be perfect. Perfect execution.
But there is friction, and so you end up with gaps between these…
Knowledge gap: gap between what you want to know, and you actually know
Alignment gap: gap between what you want people to do, and what they actually do.
Effects gap: gap between what you expect actions to achieve, and what they actually achieve.
Who here has experienced one of these? Examples?
Knowledge gap: I wish I knew exactly how much I should charge for my product
Alignment gap: Working on a fund-raising powerpoint
Effects gap: The actual running code versus my design doc
We’ve all experienced these. So what do we do about them?
These are the usual reaction…
Knowledge gap: demand more knowledge, more reports, more information gathering.
Alignment gap: give ever more detailed instructions. Leave nothing to the imagination.
Effects gap: set up even more limits on what people can and can’t do
In short, become a micro-manager. A control freak. Try to control everything as much as possible.
Guess what --- it doesn’t work. Not on the battlefield, and not at work.
Especially because situations change – and what should you do if the reality doesn’t match your instructions?
So what’s the answer?
The answer, then, is the whole topic of this talk today – the idea of commander’s intent. As the boss, realize you can’t control everything. Instead, push decision making down as far as you can.
Solve the knowledge gap, by communicating the intent down – what it is you’re trying to accomplish – and don’t insist on gathering more information than you need
Solve the alignment gap by letting each level figure out for themselves how they will achieve the intent, and communicate it back up
Solve the effects gap by allowing individuals freedom to change their actions to satisfy the intent
The military has codified this idea as commander’s intent… Originally a concept driven from the Army (but executed better by other branches like the Navy) Commander’s Intent is defined as part of the Field Manual 100-5. You can summarize it as:
Decide what the mission is and what really matters
Communicate that to your people – and give neither too much nor too little information
Give your people space & support to carry it out
An important point here about communication: if your message was misunderstood it was because you hadn’t clearly expressed it, not that the other person was willfully misunderstanding it. So a lot of training goes into how to write effective orders.
Let’s go through each of these…
First, we have decide what really matters.
As the boss, then, the key thing we need to do is figure out what exactly our intent is!
We can’t communicate our intent down if we don’t know what it is ourselves
We need to visualize the end-game, determine exactly what we want to have happen, and then communicate it clearly
Then, we need to get the message across.. This is the briefing part. And this is often the hardest part.
We clarify what to achieve and why
We give freedom around what to do, and how
This is especially important in a multiple level organization. The “how” from each level cascades down as the intent for the next level down.
The backbrief is a key part – that’s where you relay back your plan and have a chance to tweak
This is critical – this is the part that is often neglected. I know I do.
METT-T is a military acronym that helps commanders understand and prioritize important mission parameters. It stands for Mission, Enemy, Troops & Time Available. Here is a short except that provides all levels of command factors they can continually analyze while considering factors of METT-T.
The decision-making process is as detailed, or as simple, as time permits. The commander plays the central role in this process, with the staff providing advice and information related to their respective areas. The process is primarily downward, beginning at higher echelons and progressing down the organization. Its effectiveness requires continuous interaction and bottom-up feedback.
As we will see in a few minutes we can adopt this type of worksheet to use in our business to solve very real problems.
Move to the practical exercise
The US Army teaches all levels to use the following technique:
Complete the following sentence:
If we do nothing else during tomorrow’s mission, we must ________________
The single most important thing we must do during tomorrow is ______________
By answering these questions you have basically written your intent!