Commander's Intent: Managing Through Uncertainty
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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.
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Commander's Intent: Managing Through Uncertainty
- 1. Commander’s Intent: Managing Through Uncertainty James Gwertzman, CEO
- 2. 9/3/2015 1 A book review
- 3. 9/3/2015 2
- 4. 9/3/2015 3
- 5. 9/3/2015 4
- 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
- 8. 9/3/2015 7
- 9. “Everybody’s got a plan until I hit them.” – Mike Tyson
- 10. OUTCOMES PLANSACTIONS Basic elements of any business 9/3/2015 9Source: 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
- 12. Usual reactions… OUTCOMES PLANSACTIONS Knowledge gap: More detailed information Effects gap: More detailed controls Alignment gap: More detailed instructions 119/3/2015 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
- 26. Let’s try it out! 259/3/2015
- 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
- 32. THANK YOU.
Editor's Notes
- 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!
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