Tools For Execution: QMN077
There are a few key practices that help significantly improve the execution of plans - practices that non-military organizations can adopt to become more effective over time.
(This week’s report is a 9 minute read)
BLUF: Combat operations have a low tolerance for failure - the result of bad decisions and mistakes is often loss of life. Because of this, military organizations focus on performance in executing their plans much more than others. There are a few key practices that help significantly improve the execution of plans - practices that non-military organizations can adopt to become more effective over time. Sharing information in a timely manner is a big part of nearly each practice - and having a standardized practice to make sure everything important is covered helps out considerably. Chances are that you’re already carrying out some variation of a couple of these practices - but taking the time to learn and institute each one is guaranteed to have an effect on your bottom line over time.
Brady here. Business leaders often say they create great plans, but that their plans fail in execution. According to Wharton Business School’s Knowledge@Wharton Blog, firms achieve only 63% of the expected results of their strategic plans - making planning a seemingly trivial task. These leaders often look toward the US military to help them with execution - with the idea that there are some practices that can be adopted to improve execution overall. The US military doesn’t handle execution perfectly every time, but there are indeed a number of things that the US military does that help guide execution on missions that have a low tolerance for failure. I’ll list out six of these this week with some references to show some common-sense approaches that can be transferred.
Planning - Include those who will carry out the plan:
I once had a strategy professor, also an Army combat veteran, who had a long and successful post-military career as a management consultant. He said that if there’s any one major problem with modern business plans and strategies it’s that the plans are made without the involvement of the employees who will need to carry them out. When leaders and their staffs take ideas into a corner and “plan in a vacuum” they usually cease to reflect reality. Goals become unrealistic, metrics become wishful or irrelevant, and day-to-day actions don’t drive toward success. A Special Forces ODA, simply by the nature of its small size and the relatively short timelines by which thy need to develop plans, have to include every member of the team in the planning process. The truth is that I’ve taken part in, and led, planning in both kinds of environments - where the planner or leader comes up with the concept on their own, using their own knowledge and experience - and an ODA where I had to include everyone who’d carry it out. For me it was a tougher task to coordinate and coach the input of everyone and make sure we were all following the right process, but in the end I had a more realistic and workable blueprint for execution. What’s more, it was backed by the extensive experience of some of the more senior members of the team, and engendered a sense of ownership in everyone else.
Green Berets assigned to 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) watch as Côte d’Ivoire Special Forces Soldiers conduct barrier drills during Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire on November 11, 2019. Photo by Sgt. Andrew Adaire
Communicating the Plan - Explain Commander’s Intent:
Colin Nagy and I harped on the importance of communicating Commander’s Intent in our discussion at 4As Stratfest - and for good reason. Perhaps the most important part of any Five-Paragraph Operations Order is Commander’s Intent: positioned between the mission (what we’re doing) and concept (how we’re doing it) is the “why we’re doing it.” In it the Commander expands upon the purpose of the mission and identifies key tasks and an end state (in a military context the end state is explained in terms of friendly, enemy, terrain and civilian considerations). It’s the commander’s opportunity to clearly express “this is why we’re doing what we’re doing, here are a handful of things that absolutely must be accomplished if we’re going to be successful, and here’s what I need things to look like when we’re done.” This part of the order is so important that I’ve known high-level leaders who will quiz those at the lowest level of the organization on the Commander’s Intent. If they can’t demonstrate an understanding of a mission’s Commander’s Intent, communication in that organization is deemed to have failed. Why is this so important? When the plan fails as so many do, knowing the Commander’s Intent allows leaders to make quick decisions until an approved change to the plan is communicated. More than anything a clear Commander’s Intent allows senior leaders to push decision making to the lowest level - keeping your organization quick and agile while maintaining a level of unified effort.
Confirming the Plan - Rehearse:
Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse, and keep it as realistic as possible. Don’t believe me? Check out one of the reasons why SEALs were so successful in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Just as in sports or a symphony orchestra, realistic rehearsals help ensure top performance for everyone involved. And conducting realistic rehearsals serves multiple purposes that lead to better execution: it allows those rehearsing to visualize themselves in execution and to internalize their part in the wider operation and it allows leaders to find out where there may be gaps or conflicts in a complex plan and iron them out in advance. Overall it creates a level of understanding that’s hard to recreate otherwise. Unfortunately in many planning processes, when timelines are constrained, rehearsals are the first activity to get cut, and performance suffers. I’ve found that the most experienced leaders and planners I’v worked with protect rehearsal time because they know it’s value.
The Changing Situation - Update Leaders with Standard Reports:
No matter how smart, experienced or connected they are, leaders can’t know everything that’s going on everywhere as the operation is underway. They rely on information from team members to update them on changes to the situation on the ground, and good updates can help fulfill Priority Information Requirements that really shape the plan going forward. In order to be effective, the information need to be quick and accurate - so much like Battle Drills, Standard Reports and given in the moment often with memorized formats. Here are a few examples:
ACE Report: Used at the tactical level, this is where individuals report their team’s status to their leader after a firefight. Standing for Ammunition, Casualties and Equipment, it lets a leader know how poised the team is for another firefight and what they might need to request (like a medical evacuation or a resupply) in order to be effective again.
SALUTE Report: Standing for Size, Activity, Location, Unit/uniform, Time, and Equipment, a SALUTE Report is given after any sight of or contact with the enemy. It gives leaders and intelligence staff members the ability to understand where the enemy actually is - providing an improved level of certainty where none existed before. It can also help confirm whether an adversary is carrying out an expected plan or not.
Situation Report or SITREP: In a good organization where trust levels are high, nothing trumps the experiences and assessment of a junior leader on the ground in the middle of the operation. That leader’s assessments are included in a SITREP - which explains what’s gone on in the previous 24 hours, what’s planned for the next 24 hours, and the leader’s take on what’s happening overall. Experienced and proficient senior leaders can read dozens of these a day, but they provide accurate and timely assessments of what’s actually developing as the plan is being carried out.
These are examples of concise but thorough report formats that are expected on a regular basis to ensure leaders know what’s going on. Finding or developing your own and putting them into action will improve communication considerably.
Keeping a Pulse and Pivoting - The Battle Update Brief:
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq created a working environment for US forces where they’re working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for up to 15 months at a time. This means that senior leaders need to monitor the progress of operations on a continuous basis. In order to do this in an orderly and thorough manner, they’ve adopted a model called a Battle Update Brief (BUB) where the entire organization meets (often major parts of the team do so over radio or teleconference) to go over the last 24 hours of operations as well as the plans for the next 24 hours. Much like a more-detailed “morning huddle,” all attending get briefed on changes to the situation, review key metrics for the tasks at hand, get synchronized on upcoming operations, and have an opportunity to voice problems that have come up. This is a mandatory call - there is almost no reason short of an ongoing firefight to miss a BUB. The most effective BUBs I’ve taken part in end with a review of top priorities to reiterate to the team what still needs to be accomplished.
Changing the Plan - The Fragmentary Order:
As Mike Tyson famously said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." It goes without saying that events on a battlefield or in a business environment are going to quickly affect the applicability or effectiveness of the original plan that was created. This means the plan needs to change - and the way to do this is with a Fragmentary Order or FRAGO. It starts with taking the original Five-Paragraph Operations Order (OPORD) and finding the parts that no longer apply due to circumstances. The format for a FRAGO is that portion of the standing OPORD that has to change. Leaders make their adjustments and send out the FRAGO to the different parts of the team, which generally include a reason for the change as well. This ensures in a verifiable way that everyone knows what’s changed and why, and allows leaders to check up on progress.
From what I’ve seen, the most successful operations are the ones that accomplish the larger goals and leave the team well-positioned for upcoming operations. This comes from relatively simple, clearly communicated plans that are grounded in reality. The good plans allow the team to shift with circumstances and don’t hold them rigidly to a concept that might no longer apply. In the end, good planning simply sets the stage and positions resources, and the practices above make success happen no matter what goes on afterward. Keep in mind that nearly all of these practices require a certain level of trust and accountability in team members - so it’s safe to say that developing a culture of accountability is the prerequisite. (BJM)
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TRUTH HURTS: Hyten Leading JROC Reform Process To Speed Decisions (5 min) “One of the arenas where this risk avoidance culture has most harmed the US military, Hyten explained, is in the area of software development — at a time when software has become the foundational element in almost every new modern weapon system. “If you go to the commercial software business and watch how they build software, it’s just amazing. They go so fast,” he said, stressing the US commercial firms like Google, Amazon and Microsoft lead the world in rapid software development. By contrast, he said, “Have you ever walked into a defense contractor and watched how they build software? It’s just a nightmare. And if you look across every one of our military software programs, it’s a nightmare across the board.” The JROC requirements process has to be changed to allow rapid software development, he said. “The JROC is an industrial age model, not an information age model. We have to change it.”” (BJM)
PRO TIPS: Three Steps To Get Up To Speed On Any Subject Quickly (6 min) “As Maltz sees it, a hotline to experts is one shortcut to getting up to speed. But there are key insights experts can’t reveal. The most valuable insights often come from people who are are closest to a product, policy, or service but outside your sphere. "Many people only look at a problem from their point of view—that’s a terrible way to do things," Maltz says. Knowledge often comes not only from asking the right questions, but meeting with the right people.” (BJM)
METHOD OF LOCI: Don't Forget: You, Too, Can Acquire a Super Memory (7 min) “After training, the experimental subjects improved significantly at memory tasks (whereas neither control group improved) yet did not exhibit any structural brain changes. Their brain-connection patterns during resting-state and task-based fMRI scans, however, became more similar to those of memory champs, a change that correlated positively with memory improvements. “I think the interesting part is that not only can you boost memory in a similar way behaviorally in normal subjects compared with memory athletes,” Dresler says, “but on the brain level you see a reflection of that behavioral increase, and you drive the brains of naive subjects into the patterns of the best memorizers in the world.”” (BJM)
Remarks Complete. Nothing Follows.
KS Anthony (KSA) & Brady Moore (BJM)