1. Crisis Management: Operating Inside Their OODA Loops
U.S. Air Force photo/ Senior Master Sgt. Mahmoud Rasouliyan
Crisis Management: Operating Inside Their OODA Loops
Chet Richards J. Addams & Partners Atlanta
April 4, 2008
Adapted from a presentation to the First Adaptive Leadership Symposium, Greenville Technical Institute
March 19, 2008

2. Why we’re here today
Many [homeland security] drills now are command-post type exercises in which participation and decisions are downward-directed, the opposite of how the event will unfold in the real world. The secret to military efficiency has always been solid planning, training and exercising. It has great merit for adoption by others.
“U.S. Has Strategy for Homeland Security, But Are We Ready?” By Lawrence P. Farrell Jr., President, National Defense Industrial Association National Defense, February 2008.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

3. — Bing West and Ray Smith, The March Up, p. 11
According to Boyd, a fighter pilot didn’t win by faster reflexes; he won because his reflexes were connected to a brain that thought faster than the opponent.
— Bing West and Ray Smith, The March Up, p. 11
This is a good summary of what we’ve been discussing.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

4. Using the OODA “loop” to make better decisions faster
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

5. Leadership (a la Boyd)
Appreciation refers to the recognition of worth or value, clear perception, understanding, comprehension, discernment, etc.
Leadership implies the art of inspiring people to enthusiastically take action toward the achievement of uncommon goals.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

6. Appreciation and leadership [Organic Design, Chart 34]
Nature
Appreciation and leadership permit one to discern, direct and shape what is to be done as well as permit one to modify the direction and shaping by assessing what is being done or about to be done (by friendlies as well as adversaries).
What does this mean?
Appreciation, as part of leadership, must provide assessment of what is being done in a clear unambiguous way. In this sense, appreciation must not interact nor interfere with the system but must discern (not shape) the character/nature of what is being done or about to be done;
whereas
Leadership must give direction in terms of what is to be done also in a clear unambiguous way. In this sense, leadership must interact with the system to shape the character or nature of that system in order to realize what is to be done.
Implication
Assessment and discernment should be invisible and should not interfere with operations while direction and shaping should be evident to system—otherwise appreciation and leadership do not exist as an effective means to improve our fitness to shape and cope with unfolding circumstances.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

7. Why are appreciation and leadership important?
The simple answer is that they permit people to:
Operate inside opponents’ OODA loops
Create organizations that can operate inside opponents’ OODA loops
Evolve organizations that become continually better at operating inside opponents’ OODA loops
In military operations, time is everything.
Colonel Arthur Wellesley Despatch June 30, 1800
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

8. “Operate inside opponents’ OODA loops” ???
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

9. “Operate inside opponents’ OODA loops”
Intentions
Probe and test adversary to unmask strengths, weaknesses, maneuvers, and intentions.
Employ a variety of measures that interweave menace-uncertainty-mistrust with tangles of ambiguity-deception-novelty as basis to sever adversary’s moral ties and disorient …
Select initiative (or response) that is least expected.
Establish focus of main effort together with other effort and pursue directions that permit many happenings, offer many branches, and threaten alternative objectives.
Move along paths of least resistance (to reinforce and exploit success).
Generate uncertainty, confusion, disorder, panic, chaos … to shatter cohesion, produce paralysis and bring about collapse.
Become an extraordinary commander.
permits one to
Transients
Observe, orient, decide and act more inconspicuously, more quickly, and with more irregularity
or put another way
Operate inside adversary’s observation-orientation-decision action loops or get inside his mind-time-space.
Patterns of Conflict, 132
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

10. Why worry about OODA loops?
Intentions
Probe and test adversary to unmask strengths, weaknesses, maneuvers, and intentions.
Employ a variety of measures that interweave menace-uncertainty-mistrust with tangles of ambiguity-deception-novelty as basis to sever adversary’s moral ties and disorient …
Select initiative (or response) that is least expected.
Establish focus of main effort together with other effort and pursue directions that permit many happenings, offer many branches, and threaten alternative objectives.
Move along paths of least resistance (to reinforce and exploit success).
Generate uncertainty, confusion, disorder, panic, chaos … to shatter cohesion, produce paralysis and bring about collapse.
Become an extraordinary commander.
permits one to
Transients
Observe, orient, decide and act more inconspicuously, more quickly, and with more irregularity
or put another way
Operate inside adversary’s observation-orientation-decision action loops or get inside his mind-time-space.
Change the situation before:
Customers get bored
Competitors think of something more attractive
Opponents figure out what’s going on
The “situation” changes itself in ways you may not like
Patterns of Conflict, 132
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

11. Tom Peters on Boyd
Confuse and confound the “enemy” by your speed, per se. While the Champions of Inertia are busy scheduling the next “planning review,” you swiftly get the job done … and go public with it. (Re-imagine! P. 219)
So, you wonder how many companies today have anything about them that is worth studying for years in order to “deeply understand.” In addition to genchi genbutsu, Toyota employees at all levels also study, practice, and attempt to master gemba, nemawashi, hansei, hoshin kanri, and of course, hourensou. And that’s just for the “Way” in general. If they are in production, for example, there’s more to master: kaizen, kanban, jidoka, heijunka, mura, muri, muda, single piece flow, pull system, standardized work, and so on. They take this obligation very seriously, which is why Toyota is consistently the most profitable car company in the world.
This may seem like a lot, but ask any member of a top military unit, such as the Marines or a member of a special operations force or other elite unit, what they have to master over the course of a career. Now compare that again with what your company requires.
And it’s not just elite units. I added up the formal training I had during a typical (and decidedly non-elite) AF Reserve career:
(Army) ROTC - 8 academic semesters plus a 6-week summer camp at Ft. Bragg, NC
(Army) Engineer Officer Basic in residence, Ft. Belvoir, VA - approx. 10 weeks
Air Force Squadron Officer School (Correspondence) – about 6 months
Air Command and Staff College (Correspondence) - took about a year
Six weeks intelligence cross-training in residence at Lowry AFB, CO
Air War College (Seminar) - took about 18 mos. to complete, including 2 research papers
Reserve Attaché Course - 4 weeks in residence, plus 6 weeks rotation in selected offices at DIA
Six weeks in-residence Arabic at DLI and 2 years of Basic and Intermediate Arabic via tapes, workbooks, correspondence, and weekend seminars
The OODA loop is “the real nub of competitiveness.”
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

12. So, what is an “OODA loop”????

13. The OODA “Loop” Sketch Observe Orient Decide Act Action (Test)
Implicit Guidance & Control
Implicit Guidance & Control
Unfolding Circumstances
Cultural Traditions
Genetic Heritage
New Information
Previous Experience
Analyses & Synthesis
Observations
Feed Forward
Decision (Hypothesis)
Feedback
Action (Test)
Feed Forward
Outside Information
Unfolding Interaction With Environment
Unfolding Interaction With Environment
This is the only picture of the OODA “loop” that ever appeared in any of Boyd’s presentations.
Feedback
Note how orientation shapes observation, shapes decision, shapes action, and in turn is shaped by the feedback and other phenomena coming into our sensing or observing window.
Also note how the entire “loop” (not just orientation) is an ongoing many-sided implicit cross-referencing process of projection, empathy, correlation, and rejection.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

14. Why can’t we use this one?
Orient
Observe
Decide
This is how Boyd originally explained it.
Act
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

15. Why can’t we use this one?
Orient
It doesn’t work very well in crises:
Sequential
Slow
Easy to disrupt
Quality and quickness trade off
Sometimes good for engineering-type applications (no human competition)
Observe
Decide
Act
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

16. So let’s use the real one (It’s actually not that complicated)
Observe
Orient
Decide
Act
Implicit Guidance & Control
Implicit Guidance & Control
Unfolding Circumstances
Cultural Traditions
Genetic Heritage
New Information
Previous Experience
Analyses & Synthesis
Observations
Feed Forward
Decision (Hypothesis)
Feedback
Action (Test)
Feed Forward
Outside Information
Unfolding Interaction With Environment
Unfolding Interaction With Environment
Feedback
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

17. The trick is to start with Orientation
Feed
Forward
Observations
Orientation
Cultural
Traditions
Genetic
Heritage
New
Information
Previous
Experiences
Analyses/
Synthesis
Implicit
Guidance &
Control
Action
Decision
“Orientation” was Boyd’s concept for taking our interactions with the outside world and deciding what they mean. You could think of it as creating a mental model for what’s happening externally. It involves factors that can change at various rates, and some, like genetic heritage, not at all.
This is why change can be difficult. It always seems to require a destructive phase, where previous experiences (reflected in things like existing processes and practices) are broken up and become less relevant.
“Correction of error cannot always arise from new discovery within an accepted conceptual system. Sometimes the theory has to crumble first, and a new framework be adopted, before the crucial facts can be seen at all.” Stephen Jay Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, 127. (emphasis added - for “framework,’ substitute “orientation.)
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

18. Orientation On-going process, not a picture
Building snowmobiles – new concepts and ideas – using analyses and synthesis
By taking what we’ve learned and what’s going on now
And coming up with new strategies, plans, and actions that match up better with reality
In a conflict environment – where somebody else is trying to do this to you!
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

19. Key points
The side whose orientation best matches up with reality will find opportunities to:
Operate inside customers’ and competitors’ OODA loops
Seize the initiative
Pump up own morale and hurt opponents’
Think up, test, and exploit (or drop) ideas for new products, services, tactics, and other responses while they are still likely to be effective
In other words: Understand a fast-developing world while there’s still time to do something about it
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

20. Implication
We need to create mental images, views, or impressions, hence patterns that match with activity of world. [Organic Design, chart 16]
In business, this means that our orientation needs to stay better matched to reality than competitors’ and customers’
Which means that often we have a good idea of what customers want before they do
In crisis management and armed conflict, the meaning is pretty obvious!
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

21. Implication
We need to create mental images, views, or impressions, hence patterns that match with activity of world. [Organic Design, chart 16]
In business, this means that our orientation needs to stay better matched to reality than competitors’ and customers’
Which means that often we have a good idea of what customers want before they do
In crisis management and armed conflict, the meaning is pretty obvious!
In Boyd’s universe, conflict is a competition between novelty-generating systems, or equivalently, learning systems.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

22. What about “action”?
The idea is that the vast majority of the time, actions should flow smoothly from orientation via the “implicit guidance and control” link.
This is the purpose behind the years of training that elite military units and martial artists undergo – building something the Germans called Fingerspitzengefühl.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

23. Douglas Fraser Knight’s Cross
Rommel believed that in the subsequent unpredictable fighting, the training of his troops and his own quickness of mind would bring victory.
Douglas Fraser Knight’s Cross
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

24. A little about Observation
It is an active process:
Probe and test adversary to unmask strengths, weaknesses, maneuvers, and intentions (POC 132)
Nothing is more important:
Without clear observation, you won’t be able to spot mismatches before customers and competitors do
And correct your orientation
And take action to exploit the new situation
While there’s still time to do something meaningful
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

25. When your objective perception is clear, you don’t miss one out of ten thousand.
Zen Master Shoju Rojin, quoted in Thomas Cleary, The Japanese Art of War, p. 36.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

26. Then, what are “decisions”?
So actions flow smoothly from orientation
Most decisions must be made here – intuitively
Observations
Action (Test)
Cultural Traditions
Genetic Heritage
New Information
Previous Experience
Analyses & Synthesis
Feed Forward
Implicit Guidance & Control
Unfolding Interaction With Environment
Feedback
Decision (Hypothesis)
Outside Information
Unfolding Circumstances
Observe
Orient
Decide
Act
And communicated implicitly
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

27. The key idea is to emphasize implicit over explicit in order to gain a favorable mismatch in friction and time (i.e, ours lower than any adversary) for superiority in shaping and adapting to circumstances. [Organic Design, 22]
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

28. “Either you will lead the enemy …
Intuitively
“Do not forget that actual combat is extremely fast and demands that you act and react without thinking. ‘Moving with the enemy’ means not permitting him to gather his thoughts when in retreat.
“Either you will lead the enemy …
Or he will lead you.”
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

29. Then, what are “decisions”?
So actions flow smoothly from orientation
Most decisions must be made here – intuitively
Observations
Action (Test)
Cultural Traditions
Genetic Heritage
New Information
Previous Experience
Analyses & Synthesis
Feed Forward
Implicit Guidance & Control
Unfolding Interaction With Environment
Feedback
Decision (Hypothesis)
Outside Information
Unfolding Circumstances
Observe
Orient
Decide
Act
And communicated implicitly
Explicit (stated) decisions are needed if:
You don’t have the mutual trust/common outlook for implicit decisions
You can’t use implicit decisions (e.g., nuclear weapons)
You’re trying things (experiments) - note Boyd’s alternative labels - or in training
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

30. A hint to future leaders
Research shows that when dealing with a new, complex, and confusing situation, good leaders (and effective teams):
begin by carrying out lots of small experiments (decisions / actions) at a high tempo (see Dörner, 1996),
Explicit part of the loop - through the Decision/Hypothesis and Act/Test boxes
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

31. A hint to future leaders
Research shows that when dealing with a new, complex, and confusing situation, good leaders (and effective teams):
begin by carrying out lots of small experiments (decisions / actions) at a high tempo (see Dörner, 1996),
Explicit part of the loop - through the Decision/Hypothesis and Act/Test boxes
The Prius is … the result of a development system that tries out many approaches to every problem, then gets the winning concept to the customer very quickly with low engineering cost, low manufacturing cost, and near perfect quality. (Jim Womack, WSJ 2/13/2006)
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

32. Wrapping up the OODA “loop”
Observe
Feed Forward
Implicit Guidance & Control
Observations
Unfolding Circumstances
Outside Information
Quickly understand what’s going on
Know what to do
Orient
Unfolding Interaction With Environment
Act
And be able to do it
Action (Test)
Feedback
Implicit Guidance & Control
Decide
Decision (Hypothesis)
Feed Forward
While learning from the experience
Feedback
IF action is flowing smoothly and (nearly) instantaneously from orientation, as it should the vast majority of the time, then the speed that counts is the speed to reorient in response to changing external and internal conditions. That speed is symbolized by one of the most adept practitioners of maneuver warfare, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. There is no case where slower is better.
Given that your orientation is well-matched to reality, you must have actions available to influence the situation, and these actions must flow smoothly and rapidly from orientation. Otherwise you hesitate (perhaps in endless rounds of meetings and conferences) and provide an opportunity for the enemy to figure out what you’re up to - to operate inside your OODA loops.
Obviously, this requires extensive practice and unit training.
Note some of the components of “implicit guidance and control.” The “decision / hypothesis” link is also used when you must control explicitly. Against a well-prepared opponent, explicit control should be rare, since it is always much slower than implicit control.
Note also that in the original concept of the OODA loop (the O to O to D to A variety), speed and accuracy of decisions will tend to trade off. That is, you improve one only by shortchanging the other. This doesn’t happen in the OODA loop that Boyd actually drew.
Key Points:
When you’re doing OODA “loops” right, accuracy and speed improve together; they don’t trade off.
The main function of leadership is to build an organization that gets better and better at these things.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

33. In summary: The OODA loop is a model for manipulating time.
With a time advantage you can:
Try more things
Recover from mistakes and learn more quickly
Make opponents react to you
Shape the situation
Improve quality and cost, simultaneously
Make size irrelevant
This is key. It is what distinguishes maneuver from, say, attrition warfare.
The term “maneuver” may be confusing, with some distinguished military analysts still wanting to confuse it with “movement.” But there is also a lot of movement in attrition warfare, primarily to position firepower or to avoid the enemy’s. “Maneuver,” on the other hand, has the connotation of “maneuvering someone out of position” or “out of their comfort zone.” It is concerned with creating surprise, ambiguity, panic, breakdown of cohesion, and so on. If you look up “maneuver” in a good dictionary, you’ll see that it has the connotation of something skillful and intended as part of a stratagem.
The USMC advance on Baghdad in March – April 2003 is (rightfully) considered as a masterpiece of maneuver warfare, but if you work the numbers, it averaged about 1 mph from crossing the Kuwaiti border to downtown Baghdad.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

34. A time-compressed company does the same thing as a pilot in an OODA loop … It’s the competitor who acts on information faster who is in the best position to win.
One of Stalk and Hout’s conclusions on how Honda managed to make it happen. Notice their claim that it’s competitor who acts on new information faster. This implies, of course, that he or she must understand the new information and what it means. This is very close to what Boyd called “operating inside a competitor’s OODA loop” – changing the situation (“acting on the information”) before the competitor can understand what’s going on. And changing it again, and again.
— George Stalk & Tom Hout, Competing Against Time, pp
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

35. Military analysts say we [US Navy SEALs] are becoming skilled disciples of John Boyd. That is, we execute the Boyd Loop—observation, orientation, decision, action (OODA)—far better and far quicker than our enemies.
— Dick Couch, The Finishing School, p. 258
Dick Couch commanded a SEAL platoon in Vietnam. He also wrote The Warrior Elite, which details the experiences of SEAL Class 228 in their initial SEAL training, BUD/S. The Finishing School describes the second phase of SEAL training, SEAL Qualification Training, where they actually earn their SEAL Tridents. Only one out of every five applicants accepted into BUD/S becomes a Navy SEAL, and it’s not that easy to get into BUD/S in the first place.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

36. What type of organizations operate at rapid OODA loop tempos?
The answer is: Organizations whose leaders have, over time, imbued certain qualities into the fiber of their very being.
Here are four of these qualities 

37. A climate for growing and focusing creativity and initiative
Fingerspitzengefühl - Superb competence, leading to a Zen-like state of intuitive understanding. Ability to sense when the time is ripe for action. Built through years of progressively more challenging experience. Magic.
Einheit - Has the connotation of "mutual trust" and implies a common outlook towards business problems. Built through shared experience. Fingerspitzengefühl at the organizational level.
Boyd’s “Principles of the Blitzkrieg,” which came partly from established German doctrine and partly from extensive interviews during the 1970s, provide a framework for creating competitive cultures. According to this scheme, any culture or leadership climate will work if it advances these four attributes.
John didn’t like the term “Principles of the Blitzkrieg” because of its connotations. He preferred to call these four, “An Organizational Climate for Operational Success,” thereby tying it to any type of organization.
Another important point: Since this “climate” permeates the organization, it tends to accelerate OODA loops (particularly reorientation time) from top to bottom. This is far more likely to produce a competitive organization than trying to identify OODA loops one at a time and then devising new processes to speed them up. In any case, under the mission/Auftrag concept (next chart), if people can figure out how to shorten and simplify something, or eliminate it entirely, they just do it. One foolproof way to tell that people have “taken ownership” of a process is that they’re spending time and energy to improve it.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

38. A climate for growing and focusing creativity and initiative
Schwerpunkt - Any concept that gives focus and direction to our efforts. In ambiguous situations, answers the question, "What do I do next?” Key function of leadership.
Auftragstaktik – Convey to team members what needs to be accomplished, get their agreement to accomplish it, then hold them strictly accountable for doing it - but don't prescribe how. Requires very strong common outlook.
The most important idea is that in order to use mission orders (Auftragstaktik) successfully, the other three elements must be in place. You earn the right to use Auftragstaktik, after you do the hard work of establishing the other three elements of the culture.
“A practice of breeding and cultivating a culture in which there is an unending quest for perfection. It is ingrained throughout both teams, starts at the top, and pervades every level of the chain of command.” “The ‘Birds & Blues’ embody the pursuit of excellence,” editorial, AviationWeek, March 21, 2005, p You would be surprised, or perhaps not, at the number of managers who believe this describes their companies, although they have done nothing to create such an organization. The AvWeek article gives some idea of what is required, as does even a cursory look at the training of elite military units.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

39. Before ending this presentation, I’d like to highlight one last aspect of Boyd’s organizational climate, a different way of looking at Einheit – oneness/cohesion.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

40. Common Outlook / “Similar Implicit Orientation”

41. — Boyd, Patterns of Conflict, 74
The “common outlook”
Message
According to General Gunther Blumentritt, such a scheme presupposes a common outlook based upon “a body of professional officers who have received exactly the same training during the long years of peace and with the same tactical education, the same way of thinking, identical speech, hence a body of officers to whom all tactical conceptions were fully clear.”
Furthermore, a la General Blumentritt, it presupposes “an officers training institution which allows the subordinate a very great measure of freedom of action and freedom in the manner of executing orders and which primarily calls for independent daring, initiative and sense of responsibility.”
Point
Without a common outlook superiors cannot give subordinates freedom-of-action and maintain coherency of ongoing action.
Implication
A common outlook possessed by “a body of officers” represents a unifying theme that can be used to simultaneously encourage subordinate initiative yet realize superior intent.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008
— Boyd, Patterns of Conflict, 74

42. — Boyd, Patterns of Conflict, 74
The “common outlook”
Message
According to General Gunther Blumentritt, such a scheme presupposes a common outlook based upon “a body of professional officers who have received exactly the same training during the long years of peace and with the same tactical education, the same way of thinking, identical speech, hence a body of officers to whom all tactical conceptions were fully clear.”
Furthermore, a la General Blumentritt, it presupposes “an officers training institution which allows the subordinate a very great measure of freedom of action and freedom in the manner of executing orders and which primarily calls for independent daring, initiative and sense of responsibility.”
Point
Without a common outlook superiors cannot give subordinates freedom-of-action and maintain coherency of ongoing action.
Implication
A common outlook possessed by “a body of officers” represents a unifying theme that can be used to simultaneously encourage subordinate initiative yet realize superior intent.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008
— Boyd, Patterns of Conflict, 74

43. Einheit: Common Outlook
Composed of four main elements:
Shared code of moral and ethical behavior
Agreed framework for how things are done
Base of experience working together
Common appreciation of leadership’s overall goals (“commander’s intent” / Schwerpunkt) and progress towards reaching those goals
Values
Doctrine
Teamwork
Mission
“But at the core of the Linux and Toyota communities are rules about three entirely different things: how individuals and small groups work together; how and how widely, they communicate; and how leaders guide them toward a common goal.”
— Philip Evans and Bob Wolf, Collaboration Rules, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2005., 3
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

44. What you do with Einheit [Organic Design, Chart 23]
Suppress tendency to build‑up explicit internal arrangements that hinder interaction with external world.
Instead
Arrange setting and circumstances so that leaders and subordinates alike are given opportunity to continuously interact with external world, and with each other, in order to more quickly make many‑sided implicit cross‑referencing projections, empathies, correlations, and rejections as well as create the similar images or impressions, hence a similar implicit orientation, needed to form an organic whole.
Why?
A similar implicit orientation for commanders and subordinates alike will allow them to:
Diminish their friction and reduce time, thereby permit them to:
Exploit variety/rapidity while maintaining harmony/initiative, thereby permit them to:
Get inside adversary’s O‑O‑D‑A loops, thereby:
Magnify adversary’s friction and stretch‑out his time (for a favorable mismatch in friction and time), thereby:
Deny adversary the opportunity to cope with events/efforts as they unfold.
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

45. Doctrine
Teamwork
Values
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

46. Doctrine
Teamwork
Mission
Values
(c) Chet Richards, 2008

47. T
(c) Chet Richards, 2008