Originally, the term refers to the implicit guidance and control link from orientation to observation, which then loops back into orientation. That loop can become locked, so that we only see what we want to see, thereby reinforcing our original orientation.

More generally, it refers to Boyd’s comment at the bottom of Chart 3 of The Essence of Winning and Losing (the infamous OODA “loop” sketch):

Note how orientation shapes observation, shapes decision, shapes action, and in turn is shaped by the feedback and other phenomena coming into our sensing or observing window.

Problems can arise when we limit the range of phenomena so that we don’t detect mismatches in time to do anything about them. Here’s an interesting example, from “What Martial Arts Have to Do With Atheism: An interview with Sam Harris about self-defense and the seduction of faith,” by Graeme Wood at Atlantic.com.

First, an aikido master demonstrating the technique of the “touchless takedown/no-touch knockout” with a group of his students:

And then what happens when he confronts a master who is not one of his students:

[I can’t vouch for the authenticity of either of these. Read the article and decide for yourself.]

Along those same lines, here’s a recent piece in the New York Times that refers to David Freedman’s summary of John Ioannidis’s paper on why so much published, peer-reviewed scientific research is wrong, in that it cannot be reproduced or is contradicted by more precise studies later on. As Freedman’s original article notes:

Simply put, if you’re attracted to ideas that have a good chance of being wrong, and if you’re motivated to prove them right, and if you have a little wiggle room in how you assemble the evidence, you’ll probably succeed in proving wrong theories right.

This is an extremely difficult habit for leaders to break because it requires you fire sycophants (who may be long-time friends or even family members), promote unorthodox or unpleasant employees who habitually tell you the truth, and establish robust ties to the eternal world, even when others inside the organization complain that you’re stepping on their toes.

You’re already doing all this? Oh, really?

I met Jonathan Brown at the last Boyd Conference in Quantico, back in October, and we spent quite a lot of time discussing the role of stress in Boyd’s framework.

Boyd thought of stress as an offensive weapon. On chart 132 of Patterns of Conflict, for example, he lists one of the intentions of operating inside opponents’ OODA loops as:

Generate uncertainty, confusion, disorder, panic, chaos … to shatter cohesion, produce paralysis and bring about collapse.

Which seems like a reasonably good definition of “stress” to me. He also used to say that it was OK to be confused, so long as your opponent is more confused. Probably the same thing is true of stress.

In this new book, now available on Amazon, Brown takes Boyd’s famous definition of the goal of human activity — to survive on our own terms — and melds it with the latest research on the causes of stress.

I think you’ll find it most interesting, not to mention practical, and it might even provide new insights into Boyd’s work.

By the way, the publisher is listed as “A.L.P. Limited (Publishing), The Old Bakery, Tunbridge Wells, Kent.” The Brits still have a way about these things, don’t they?

Somewhere in the middle of new employee orientation, more years ago than I shall admit, I suddenly jerked awake when the briefer very slowly enunciated that “It is a fireable offense for employees to discuss their salaries.”

Tom Peters once insisted that in a capitalistic society, where we reward according to performance, why not post the scores? The answer, quite obviously, is that we often don’t reward according to performance, despite what we say. What companies get from such a policy is mistrust, with rumor replacing fact.  As the WSJ reported in an article today (paywall), even ostensibly well-run companies like Apple would sometimes rather play games than build a more powerful organization.

The article makes an important point: Don’t kid yourself — people will find out the truth. And some of the better performers will feel betrayed.

Like many readers of this blog, I come from a military background, where you can look at people’s uniforms and know to within a few dollars a year how much they make. And not coincidentally, the best military organizations make a fetish out of building Einheit.

In Boyd’s framework, Einheit is what defines the organization: We strive to improve it within our organization, and one of your primary goals is to destroy Einheit in your opponents. If you build an environment where internal politics flourishes, you’re doing your opponents’ jobs for them.

As the Journal article observes: “So one way for employers to head off internal politics: Be even more transparent.”  It would seem logical. Showing that you have nothing to hide is a step towards building trust.

Surprise.

You may recall that he did not like programs like “employee of the month” for a couple of reasons. If they truly recognized superior performance, then your small group of superior performers would win every month. And if you ensured that “everybody had a fair chance” at winning, then you’re rewarding poor performance.

New research at Washington University in St. Louis confirms this, and adds another point: employees will game the system to give themselves the best chances of winning. So you end up rewarding those who are good at winning contests, not necessarily those who contribute to achieving the organization’s objectives:

• “The researchers show that two types of unintended consequences limit gains from the reward program. First, employees game the program, improving timeliness only when eligible for the award, and strategically calling in sick to retain eligibility.
• “Second, employees with perfect pre-program attendance or high productivity suffered a 6 percent to 8 percent productivity decrease after program introduction, suggesting that awards for good behavior they already exhibited de-motivated them.”

Note that “timeliness” is a performance metric and like all such metrics is susceptible to gaming.

What the second bullet indicates is that programs like this destroy Einheit.

John Boyd coined the term “OODA loop” some 25 years ago, but it’s always fun to watch a pundit, particularly a business guru, breathlessly discovering this amazing new strategy.

Here’s the latest one I’ve found, “What a Fighter Pilot Knows About Business: The OODA Loop,” on Forbes.com.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a firm believer that anyone who writes about the OODA “loop” and credits Boyd (as this article did) is doing good work. Once people start down the path, a few will look deeply enough to make Boyd’s framework a powerful strategic tool.

Having said that, how much trouble would it be for authors such as this one, to Google “John Boyd” and learn a little about what he actually wrote?

For example, the article insists that:

4. Action refers to business process management (BPM). The right actions may require workflow or process orchestration, whether manual or via software, to control the flow of work and to trigger the execution of human (or automated activities) at the right time.

Does this, perhaps, give you a top-down flavor? People are “triggered” and presumably sit around with their thumbs up their you-know-whats in the interim. Boyd, by contrast, is all about creativity and initiative.  For example, on chart 74 of Patterns of Conflict, he wrote:

A common outlook possessed by “a body of officers” represents a unifying theme that can be used to simultaneously encourage subordinate initiative yet realize superior intent.

Nobody in an organization run according to Boyd sits around waiting to be “triggered.”

Oh well. As I said, anybody who spells Boyd’s name right is doing good.

[If you’d like to know what Boyd actually wrote about the OODA “loop,” I modestly recommend my paper, “Boyd’s real OODA loop,” available on our Articles page.]