Teamwork Archives - Page 18 of 32

The OODA loop

John Boyd, a US Air Force colonel, built a model of decision-making out of his experience of air combat: observe, orient, decide, act, then repeat. His central claim was about speed — that cycling through the loop faster than your opponent is what wins, because it leaves them reacting to a situation that has already changed. As a Weapons School instructor he was nicknamed Forty Second Boyd, for his standing bet that starting from a position of tactical disadvantage he could defeat any student pilot within forty seconds.

The model spread from the Air Force into American business and sports coaching. It is a formal argument that acting quickly beats acting correctly.

Disciplined initiative

US Army doctrine, ADP 6-0, defines it as action in the absence of orders, when existing orders no longer fit the situation, or when unforeseen opportunities or threats arise. Mission orders are defined as directives that emphasize to subordinates the results to be attained, not how they are to achieve them.

The Army writes into doctrine a duty to act when nobody has told you to.

At-will employment

The default rule across almost all US states is that either party may end the employment relationship at any time, for any reason that is not illegal, without notice. Whatever else it does, it makes staffing decisions fast. A manager who wants to change a team can change it this week.

Ready, aim, fire

The correct sequence exists in English and is used mainly to mock people who follow it too literally. Analysis paralysis names the failure state, paralysis by analysis is the older form, and both treat thinking as a thing that can go on too long and become a disease.

Action items

The American meeting produces action items, and a meeting that produces none is described as having gone nowhere. Not conclusions, not understandings, not positions. Items — countable, assigned, with a name next to each.

Bias toward action

Named as a virtue and used in hiring and promotion. Amazon lists it among its leadership principles: speed matters in business, and many decisions are reversible and do not need extensive study. The word bias is chosen deliberately — it concedes that the tendency is not neutral, and recommends it anyway.

The 80 percent solution

American military and business usage: a good plan executed now beats a perfect plan executed later. The claim is not that 80 percent is acceptable, but that the remaining 20 percent costs more in delay than it returns in quality.

Paralysis

Analysis paralysis. Overthinking it. Navel-gazing. Spinning your wheels. Stuck in the weeds. American English has an unusually large vocabulary for the failure of thinking too long, and no comparable vocabulary for the failure of acting too soon. The second failure is described, when it happens, in ordinary words.

Moneyball

The Oakland Athletics, working with one of the smallest payrolls in baseball, used statistical analysis to identify undervalued players and won more games than teams spending several times as much.

The scouts hated it. The methods were unorthodox, the reasoning was unfamiliar, and it produced wins — which ended the argument.

Batting average

A number carried to three decimal places, quoted from memory by ordinary fans, and applied outside baseball to anything from hiring to sales calls. The unit of judgment is what actually happened, divided by how many times you tried.