Defense and the National Interest

Apr.04.2008
4:10 pm
by Chet

OODA “loops” and leadership

Filed in Boyd and Military Strategy, Leadership |

10 Responses to “OODA “loops” and leadership”

1. jaylemeuxon 05 Apr 2008 at 12:55 am 1

   there’s a slide on this depicting the OODA loop that I’ve seen before, and I’ve never understood one thing about it: Why is the arrow that says “while learning from the experience” pointing to decision?

2. Cheton 05 Apr 2008 at 5:46 am 2

   jaylemeux,

   That’s a good question. Most of the time, especially while in an operation, decisions should be made inside Orientation and communicated implicitly via the “Implicit Guidance and Control” link. Any other way would be too slow in a competitive situation.

   There are times, however, when you have to use the (explicit) Decision route (here, I’m assuming that you are the leader). On the negative side, that is, when you can’t use implicit G&C, these include lack of trust, when nuclear weapons are involved — you want to be as explicit as possible — and when accounting for money. “Lack of trust” is rarely a moral issue because you should already have taken action against people who have violated your trust. More often it just reflects insufficient training or not enough experience working together.

   A clue to the positive side of the Decision block is the word “Hypothesis.” Combined with “Test” under Action, this refers to instances when you don’t have an action that can flow from Orientation via the IG&C link — if you did, you would have used it — and need to create one. So you set up a learning situation: try something, see what happens, make changes if necessary, try it again, etc. Eventually, with accurate feedback, the new action can enter your repertoire and be employed via the vastly faster IG&C link. Note that you’re not only learning the action itself, but programming your orientation and establishing the common outlook that enables effective group action via the IG&C link.

   Some learning of this sort also goes on in an operation, but to be effective it has to be made explicit and practiced: You did something, it worked, now what was it?

   Hope this helped. If you think about it and try it out, you’ll undoubtedly come up with more ways to look at and use this concept.

3. jaylemeuxon 05 Apr 2008 at 4:12 pm 3

   Dr. Chet - Thank you. I was confused because I assumed that the arrows feeding back to orientation depicted learning. Even though it’s not pointed to in the diagram, if one is keeping an open loop, learning still takes place when implicit guidance is used, right?

4. MickeyPvXon 05 Apr 2008 at 7:27 pm 4

   It seems to me after reading the presentation that experienced leaders may be running an “OOA” loop and almost skipping the Decision stage via the IG&C link, leaving the Decision stage for, like you said, situations we don’t have an immediate action for.

   Now, what about strategies of deception where an enemy may already know our reaction to certain situations and therefore exploits it to put us at a disadvantage? I would think that this would be a time when we would have to play “catch-up” and reorient ourselves quickly to get back into it. Your thoughts?

   There is a similar decision cycle taught here at the ABM schoolhouse called the ADEPT (Anticipate, Detect, Evaluate, Position, Talk) Principle. I see it more strongly resembling the circular version of the OODA loop, being sequential, and easy to disrupt. I’ve gotten in arguments with a number of classmates and instructors to the tune of, “Why not OODA?”

5. Cheton 05 Apr 2008 at 7:51 pm 5

   jaylemeux –

   Sure, if you survive.

   But even there, you have to extract what you learned and train people in how to use it. A good example is the German adoption of infiltration tactics in the First World War. As Bruce Gudmundsson describes in Stormtroop Tactics, the concept was known to the British and French as well as the Germans, but only the Germans put together a program to train large numbers of troops in how to use the new tactics.

   As for the arrows, they only indicate flows of some sort, or in the case of Action, observable changes in the world. Learning mainly takes place inside Orientation.

   One caution — Boyd was trying to illustrate a model that is useful for triumphing in zero-sum, life-or-death type situations, where learning while you’re in operations against a lethal opponent can be expensive. It is certainly possible to make too much of the OODA “loop” sketch, particularly if you try to apply it to other types of situations, such as engineering, where true cycles like PDCA may provide better results, or business, where the distinction between “training” and “operations” tends to blur. In business, we are always “operating,” so you might argue that a lot more learning occurs via the IG&C link.

   So draw from it what’s useful, but don’t make it into a dogma.

6. Cheton 05 Apr 2008 at 8:18 pm 6

   MickeyPvX,

   Yeah - absolutely. If you’ve made yourself predictable, you can bet a thinking, resourceful, and determined opponent is going to exploit it. This is why you need a repertoire of potential actions that can flow smoothly from Orientation via the IG&C link (Boyd emphasizes this in his last briefing, The Essence of Winning and Losing). Sun Tzu advises that if you try something and it doesn’t work, don’t try it again. Boyd quoted Gen Hermann Balck as saying that if you try something and it does work, don’t try it again.

   If the opponent is operating inside your OODA loop, as you describe, you’re in deep trouble. Basically, they have the initiative and you have to seize it back, which can be difficult if they continue to exploit.

   It takes a brilliant commander, like Patton in North Africa or Hackworth in Vietnam, to pull this off. I think this is why people who use these techniques, like martial artists, work so incredibly hard to make sure that they never lose the initiative. Musashi even suggests that if you do find yourself in this position, you withdraw from the fight because otherwise there’s a very good chance you’re going to die.

7. Duncan Kinderon 05 Apr 2008 at 11:46 pm 7

   If the opponent is operating inside your OODA loop, as you describe, you’re in deep trouble. Basically, they have the initiative and you have to seize it back, which can be difficult if they continue to exploit.

   It seems to me that, human skill aside, there are other factors - such as the Russian Winter - that can strip one’s initiative.

   More generally, Darwinian evolution would suggest that, if OODA loops were the sole means of success, then all organisms would manifest highly charged OODA behavior. Yet this demonstrably is not the case. There are many sluggish, unresponsive creatures - e.g. the turtle, the sloth - many of which have survived for millions of years despite apparently failing to manifest any capacity to get inside anything’s OODA loop. Apparently they therefore prevail upon some other basis.

   Which suggests that there may be stranger things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in Boyd’s philosophy.

8. Cheton 06 Apr 2008 at 12:16 pm 8

   Dear Duncan –

   Thanks. Environmental factors, such as weather, affect both sides and so can’t “strip” one’s initiative. The Russians didn’t seem to have any problems with it.

   The evolutionary question is a good one and comes up a lot in various guises: Why aren’t all companies lean? Why don’t all militaries adopt maneuver warfare? etc. I’m not an evolutionary biologist, so I can’t comment on that subject, other than to point out that the great white may be the most fearsome predator in the sea, but not all shark species grow to 30 ft. Also, I’m not sure that the ability to win individual competitions is the major factor in survival of a species.

   Limiting ourselves to competition between human organizations, which is what the OODA “loop” model concerns, there appear to be three primary reasons why organizations don’t keep trying to increase their abilities to operate inside competitors’ OODA loops (which I’ll call “agility”):

   1. You can be really bad, OODA-loop-wise, and still survive — if your competitors are worse. Think of the Detroit auto industry until about the mid-1970s.
   2. There are alternative strategies that work in some competitive niches. Size is a good example, although as GM, Sears, and Bear Stearns learned, it may not protect you if the environment changes — or is changed for you — too quickly.
   3. But perhaps the most significant reason is that there are costs to adopting an OODA/lean/maneuver strategy. This provides a barrier that many organizations can’t or won’t surmount. Think, for example, about how hard martial artists train. As Taiichi Ohno observed, companies often won’t adopt these methods until they realize that they don’t have viable alternatives (by which time it’s often too late).

   So a combination of comfortable with what they have, no strong pressure to become more agile, and reluctance to pay the price of adopting agile strategies keeps most organizations locked into whatever they’re doing today.

9. Cheton 06 Apr 2008 at 5:55 pm 9

   Gentlepersons,

   This has turned into a most interesting thread on the general theory of OODA loops. So I’m going to move it over to my Boyd Theory blog at http://www.chetrichards.com.

   The link to this thread is:

   http://www.chetrichards.com/c2w/2008/04/06/more-ooda-loop-theory-from-dni/

   I’m closing this thread for comments, so please join us at the other blog.

10. Project White Horse » RC#9 Adaptive Leadership - Symposium Updateon 12 Apr 2008 at 9:59 am 10

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