Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business

I’ve been a devotee of Boyd and the OODA Loop as a key strategic concept for a while, the basic premise that by executing “asymmetric fast transients”, a fighter can create a fog of ambiguity and fear, blind and disorient their enemy, and ultimately disorient, disable, and kill their foe, even if they are notably weaker and smaller on paper. The broadest principle, that we are in a struggle to survive, and the ability to adapt without losing your essence is the only permanent strategy, made immediate and intuitive sense.

What did not make sense was the application to civilian life, at least until such time as someone hands me command of a Marine Expeditionary Unit. Dr. Richards makes a brave attempt to translate Boyd’s briefings into the language of management consulting. As such this is an “applied” book, next to Osinga’s book of intellectual theory and Coram’s biography (with the caveat that I haven’t yet read Hammond’s The Mind of War.)

The first, and fundamental step is to think about and apply the Four German Words.

1. Einheit: Mutual trust, unity, and cohesion

2. Fingerspitzengefuhl: Intuitive feel, especially for complex and potentially chaotic situations

3. Auftragstaktik: Mission, generally considered as a contract between superior and subordinate

4. Schwerpunkt: Any concept that provides focus and direction to the operation

By doing so, you create an organization that is resilient and flexible, that is capable of spotting and exploiting opportunities at all levels and following through on good ideas without unnecessary friction. The two hardest parts are Einheit, mutual trust, because so much managerial bullshit actually destroys it—I think conventional wisdom is that demoralized drones are easier to manage, even if they produce worse results. Schwerpunkt, the concept that energizes and drives the organization, is also somewhat opaque in application. Richards corrects this in the second to last chapter, where he introduces cheng, the obvious approach (quality, value, performance) with ch’i, the quality of delight or wonder that separates a mundane business from the best performing ones.

That is not to say that it is a perfect book. It is somewhat repetitive, and maneuver warfare concepts are ultimately military in origin. Is disorienting the enemy and dazzling customers truly the same thing? Some of the hardest questions go unanswered, like crafting a schwerpunkt from imperfect information about a field, or how to pick which 25%-40% of your managerial staff to cut in this process of becoming Boydian. Richards is also hung up on Toyota as the ideal manufacturing system and Southwest as the ideal airline (caveat: I greatly prefer to fly Southwest whenever I have a choice). But I think Richards is right in saying that the first law of competition is that you cannot be measurably smarter or harder-working than the people you’re going up against, and that the only way to be certain to win is to be more agile, to find asymmetric advantages wherever you can.