Like many in IT, I come from a military background. I spent the better part of the first decade of my career studying military strategy and tactics even as an enlisted. I find it interesting that military strategy ties in closely with modern technology management and organizational change.
Historical technology management followed the standard industrial model. It makes sense as early computers were more hardware than software. Early managers served in World War Two. But, the industrial model with centralized planning was broken long before then. In 1940, the Germans introduced new innovation in maneuver warfare.
The Blitzkrieg took the Allies by total surprise, even having seen it at work in Poland. The force by which it was applied put them into a cognitive stupor, which allowed the Germans to continue to apply force and push capitulation. The results were so surprising that even Hitler could not believe what was happening and slowed his own military; saving the British army and ultimately Germany's defeat by giving Churchill the moral victory of Dunkirk that saved his premiership.
When comparing the German and French militaries, the French commanders were far from the lines and waited for enough information to develop to make a decision to come down from higher command. German commanders, by contrast, were at the front and trusted to make decisions at the tactical level with an awareness of the strategic commander's intent.
Dennis Bakke in his book Joy at Work discusses the same concept: decentralize decision making and use executive managers as coaches and consultants who manage the strategic intent. Former USCIS CIO Mark Schwartz offers the same advice in A Seat at the Table. The Toyota Way concept of genchi genbutsu (go see it) is a concept in maneuver warfare.
John Boyd, American military strategist, developed the modern understanding of maneuver warfare in the late 1970s. He delivered his findings in hundreds of presentations throughout the Pentagon. By that stage in his career, he had twice transformed combat aviation by first documenting modern fighter dog fight tactics (something his peers thought impossible), and by developing the Energy-Maneuverability theory which transformed how fighter aircraft were designed.
Holes in his E-M theory emerged during the bake off between what became the F-16 and F-18. The F-18 was supposed to be superior according to E-M, but demonstrations showed the reverse was true. His foray into maneuver warfare theory identified the gap. The F-16 gave the pilot better situational awareness and its fly-by-wire controls allowed its pilot the ability to react quicker.
John's research drove him deep in to history. He interviewed the remaining Wehrmacht division commanders who participated in the Battle of France. This resulted in the OODA Loop, which in essence says you need to develop and retain a fluid understanding of your surrounding and capabilities than your competition, and execute decisions with greater rapidity.
Those who have read Lean Startup or Startup Way should recognize that movement's focus on developing and retaining a clear understanding of your customer's value proposition and execution of fast releases that meets and enhances your product. The Business Model Canvas is a central tool as it gives you a comprehensive view of your business and your assumptions, and it empowers you to plan to clarify those assumption.
There was a secret ingredient the German commanders had that the French did not. That ingredient was not local decision making, nor was it genchi gembutsu. It was trust. The only way for decentralized decision making to work is that the senior managers must trust their junior leaders, and the juniors must trust their seniors. Daniel Coyle discusses building trust in The Culture Code.
It is important to understand how maneuver warfare works. The commanders develop a "fingertip feel" for the current situation. They have an intuitive sense of how to respond based on experience; which was learned by senior leaders who intentionally gave their subordinates small-scale, relatively safe opportunities (like task forces and working groups) to build that experience and broaden their understanding of the organization. The modern US Marine Corps embraced this as discussed in Freedman's book Corps Business.
But, maneuver warfare is moral warfare. Building a faster decision/execution cycle than your opponent develops greater certainty in you, and greater uncertainty in them. Successfully employed, your opponent will become more stressed, more emotional, and will begin to execute rash decisions that destroys trust and undermines their strategic intent. "Culture" or the bureaucracy will do this to the lone innovator because the bureaucrats have a fingertip feel for how to use the bureaucracy, while the lone-nut is trying to figure it out. The bureaucrats trust that their fellow bureaucrats will execute local decisions that fit into the bureaucracy's strategic intent of maintaining the status quo. They don't even need to confer with one another to do so.
To deliver on Organizational Change, you have to recognize that you are essentially at war with the bureaucracy and the culture. The tactics you employ (incremental or transformation) are important, but far more important is developing a strong strategic intent, building the tools that convey situational awareness (information radiators like dashboards, knowledge bases, etc.), and strong trust between the lone nut, his executive champion, and the supervisors in that chain and his peers.
Historical technology management followed the standard industrial model. It makes sense as early computers were more hardware than software. Early managers served in World War Two. But, the industrial model with centralized planning was broken long before then. In 1940, the Germans introduced new innovation in maneuver warfare.
The Blitzkrieg took the Allies by total surprise, even having seen it at work in Poland. The force by which it was applied put them into a cognitive stupor, which allowed the Germans to continue to apply force and push capitulation. The results were so surprising that even Hitler could not believe what was happening and slowed his own military; saving the British army and ultimately Germany's defeat by giving Churchill the moral victory of Dunkirk that saved his premiership.
When comparing the German and French militaries, the French commanders were far from the lines and waited for enough information to develop to make a decision to come down from higher command. German commanders, by contrast, were at the front and trusted to make decisions at the tactical level with an awareness of the strategic commander's intent.
Dennis Bakke in his book Joy at Work discusses the same concept: decentralize decision making and use executive managers as coaches and consultants who manage the strategic intent. Former USCIS CIO Mark Schwartz offers the same advice in A Seat at the Table. The Toyota Way concept of genchi genbutsu (go see it) is a concept in maneuver warfare.
John Boyd, American military strategist, developed the modern understanding of maneuver warfare in the late 1970s. He delivered his findings in hundreds of presentations throughout the Pentagon. By that stage in his career, he had twice transformed combat aviation by first documenting modern fighter dog fight tactics (something his peers thought impossible), and by developing the Energy-Maneuverability theory which transformed how fighter aircraft were designed.
Holes in his E-M theory emerged during the bake off between what became the F-16 and F-18. The F-18 was supposed to be superior according to E-M, but demonstrations showed the reverse was true. His foray into maneuver warfare theory identified the gap. The F-16 gave the pilot better situational awareness and its fly-by-wire controls allowed its pilot the ability to react quicker.
John's research drove him deep in to history. He interviewed the remaining Wehrmacht division commanders who participated in the Battle of France. This resulted in the OODA Loop, which in essence says you need to develop and retain a fluid understanding of your surrounding and capabilities than your competition, and execute decisions with greater rapidity.
Those who have read Lean Startup or Startup Way should recognize that movement's focus on developing and retaining a clear understanding of your customer's value proposition and execution of fast releases that meets and enhances your product. The Business Model Canvas is a central tool as it gives you a comprehensive view of your business and your assumptions, and it empowers you to plan to clarify those assumption.
There was a secret ingredient the German commanders had that the French did not. That ingredient was not local decision making, nor was it genchi gembutsu. It was trust. The only way for decentralized decision making to work is that the senior managers must trust their junior leaders, and the juniors must trust their seniors. Daniel Coyle discusses building trust in The Culture Code.
It is important to understand how maneuver warfare works. The commanders develop a "fingertip feel" for the current situation. They have an intuitive sense of how to respond based on experience; which was learned by senior leaders who intentionally gave their subordinates small-scale, relatively safe opportunities (like task forces and working groups) to build that experience and broaden their understanding of the organization. The modern US Marine Corps embraced this as discussed in Freedman's book Corps Business.
But, maneuver warfare is moral warfare. Building a faster decision/execution cycle than your opponent develops greater certainty in you, and greater uncertainty in them. Successfully employed, your opponent will become more stressed, more emotional, and will begin to execute rash decisions that destroys trust and undermines their strategic intent. "Culture" or the bureaucracy will do this to the lone innovator because the bureaucrats have a fingertip feel for how to use the bureaucracy, while the lone-nut is trying to figure it out. The bureaucrats trust that their fellow bureaucrats will execute local decisions that fit into the bureaucracy's strategic intent of maintaining the status quo. They don't even need to confer with one another to do so.
To deliver on Organizational Change, you have to recognize that you are essentially at war with the bureaucracy and the culture. The tactics you employ (incremental or transformation) are important, but far more important is developing a strong strategic intent, building the tools that convey situational awareness (information radiators like dashboards, knowledge bases, etc.), and strong trust between the lone nut, his executive champion, and the supervisors in that chain and his peers.
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Ben
In tenebris solus sto