How to Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act
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Re: How to Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act
#2> “ Notice that the word speed appears twice. This is not the time for committees, study groups or widespread consensus building. Even with imperfect information, the future of your company depends on your ability to make rapid decisions and start acting.”
Yikes. I guess principled decisions have to go? Executive authority!
It reminds me of the president in The Simpsons Movie... “I was elected to lead, not to read.”
Re: How to Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act
#3Some changes in the business environment seem non-intuitive. My cloud migration consulting work (which I thankfully do remotely) has seen a quick uptick. A lot of customers want to migrate to cheaper clouds or reduce their cloud footprint. I was expecting not have much work as many of my startup clients see revenue pressure. But in the short term a few months the opposite may happen.
Re: How to Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act
#4> “ Notice that the word speed appears twice. This is not the time for committees, study groups or widespread consensus building. Even with imperfect information, the future of your company depends on your ability to make rapid decisions and start acting.” Yikes. I guess principled decisions have to go? Executive authority! It reminds me of the president in The Simpsons Movie... “I was elected to lead, not to read.”
A few issues: 1. A decision isn't automatically more principled because it is made by a committee/consensus. Often the opposite is the case. 2. The purpose of the firm is to make money/value for shareholders, not principled decisions. If making principled decisions gets in the way of the goal, principled decisions are what should slip. 3. At least in the US, companies are generally not organized as democracies, so even if executives sometimes choose to delegate their authority to committees, that arrangement is always subject to revocation in extraordinary times.
Re: How to Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act
#5...that and money
Re: How to Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act
#6The title quote "observe, orient, decide, act" is called the OODA loop, and it turns out the OODA loop is significantly more valuable than the article lets on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
The OODA loop was developed by military strategist John Boyd, to explain how to direct one's energies to defeat an adversary and survive. Boyd emphasized that "the loop" is actually a set of interacting loops that are to be kept in continuous operation during combat. Boyd also indicated that the phase of the battle has an important bearing on the ideal allocation of one's energies. Boyd's views on the OODA loop are much deeper, richer, and more comprehensive than the common interpretation of the "rapid OODA loop" idea.
Re: How to Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act
#7> “ Notice that the word speed appears twice. This is not the time for committees, study groups or widespread consensus building. Even with imperfect information, the future of your company depends on your ability to make rapid decisions and start acting.” Yikes. I guess principled decisions have to go? Executive authority! It reminds me of the president in The Simpsons Movie... “I was elected to lead, not to read.”
The OODA loop was invented by Col. John Boyd during the Vietnam War and is being adapted here for the business environment.
The point is for some hard decisions, you will have to act on imperfect or incomplete information. A good leader will make a decision, because doing nothing and hoping you get more info will in fact be worse than making the wrong decision. As you get more information, you can then alter or tailor your decision. This is especially true in a military environment.
For an example in a popular movie, look at 1st Lieutenant Norman S. Dike Jr. in Band of Brothers.
Re: How to Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act
#8The title quote "observe, orient, decide, act" is called the OODA loop, and it turns out the OODA loop is significantly more valuable than the article lets on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop The OODA loop was developed by military strategist John Boyd, to explain how to direct one's energies to defeat an adversary and survive. Boyd emphasized that "the loop" is actually a set of interacting loops that are to…
A great book on applying Boyd's ideas to business is Certain to Win by Chet Richards.
Re: How to Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act
#9In Akamai the mantra is - Stabilize, Adapt, Emerge
Re: How to Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act
#10The title quote "observe, orient, decide, act" is called the OODA loop, and it turns out the OODA loop is significantly more valuable than the article lets on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop The OODA loop was developed by military strategist John Boyd, to explain how to direct one's energies to defeat an adversary and survive. Boyd emphasized that "the loop" is actually a set of interacting loops that are to…
Steve Blank is well aware of that. It seems it was used in the title but not explicitly in the body. He's written about it in the past though:
https://steveblank.com/2015/03/31/hacking-for-defense-in-sil...