Commander’s Intent and Trust
Originally, I’ve gleaned inspiration for this article as I read the book called “Ideas Made to Stick”. The workflow of the military is featured there as an example of how important it is to make messages as concise as possible to accomplish tasks, and I saw a connection with the principles of lean production and agile methodology, only in the military context.
The evolution of the military strategy with dates and sources is not a subject of this blog, per se, so with no extra details, here’s the core of the point I’m trying to make:
Historically, the Army was all into ensuring that every single action is planned down to the smallest details. But, as they found out, “enemy bears no plans”. An unexpected move could destroy the whole set-up so “all king’s horses and all king’s men” could not make the Army function again. Effectively, I mean.
So, they reverted to something looking very similar to the agile technique of creating user stories: Commander’s Intent. Commander’s Intent is “the commander’s stated vision which defines the purpose of an operation, the end state with respect to the relationship among the force, the enemy and the terrain; it must enable subordinates to quickly grasp the successful end state and their part in achieving it” (quoted from the book). And, here’s how they’ve dubbed the Commander’s Intent catch phrase in the context of agile methodology. To my ear, this sounds a lot like the agile principles of engaging people and encouraging their creativity to achieve one common goal.
Indeed, it appears that the agile way of working on projects does imply a certain Commanders’ Intent as it requires genuine responsibility and engagement from the team. Plus, there’s another chunk of food for thought here: the challenge of “under-specifying” vs. “over-specifying” the actions and the requirements. Does the Commander trust their soldiers enough to treat them as team players capable of evaluating “the force, the enemy and the terrain” based on their culture and rational judgement… or has the Commander misrepresented their soldiers’ abilities by rigidly writing out all their actions and reactions, to the tiniest bit possible, thus showing that they have no trust in them?
The military — since they must act in a pragmatic and in an efficient manner — have been following the principles of organizing work in an agile manner since time immemorial, and I’ve been inspired to revisit this earlier article after re-watching a remarkable documentary series about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Making role models out of the military statesmen is out of trend these days. But, because of how Andrew Roberts, the author/presenter tells the story, we see Napoleon rather as a charismatic leader who has risen from the humble beginnings, and not as a war monger. And, since this world is desperately lacking in charismatic leaders, on all levels, it seems like there’s nothing left to do but to watch documentaries about the charismatic leaders of the past, and regard them as role models.
Actually, as an anti role-model, I recall another, lesser known, historical figure who lost it all big time as he misjudged the way things work with his people and his troops because of this exact “ordering it all out” vs. “trust” dichotomy. I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to apologize for this reference.. but I just can’t help referencing things that scream for a connection! And, I’ve seen enough articles about leadership and organizing teams that are plain boring to read, because many of them are made of the cliches that produce no emotional response with the readers, and hence do a poor job of getting their point across! We are humans, and we love stories, not instructions, and that’s why — maybe unconsciously — we are starving for more stories about leaders, and not for cookie-cutter instructions.
Point is, I’ve been an avid DIY student of history for many years, that’s why the connections come to my mind easily. The historical figure I’m talking about is Paul I, a Russian emperor, who was the son of Catherine the Great (and, since the HBO TV network has just aired the 1st episode of the TV mini-series a few days ago, one can probably expect a spike of popular interest towards her as well). I can talk for hours about the history of the 18th century Europe and about Catherine the Great in particular because her story is even more remarkable than the one of Napoleon. For the sake of this article, I’ll highlight just one aspect of her life: she was born a German princess, and never supposed to be a ruler of Russia. However, she became so mingled with the country’s culture, that everyone loved her. The people, the aristocracy, the military. And, she knew how to act and what to do because she embraced the culture of the nation to which she became a ruler genuinely. I’m speaking based on my own research of many hours over many years, on and off, where I looked into the original historic documents and references. And, I suspect that HBO hasn’t done their research homework well enough based on what I saw in the mini-series preview so far. Anyway, Catherine was loved by the nation, and after 34 years of reign, her death was deeply mourned. Her son, Paul, on the contrary, was a fan of all things… Prussia. Back in the 18th century, the Prussian military customs were all about the rigid guidelines, within which the soldiers have mostly been treated like marionettes. And, when he re-established some of the Prussian customs… the Russians didn’t like it. Paul has won himself not friends, but foes, by ignoring the implications and nuances of the cultural background in which he was operating (more on the military terminology side). Eventually, he was assassinated in a coup.
This example from history just begs to be referenced when I scan my memory for the worst-case scenarios of a commander’s cultural misjudgment + giving no trust to their soldiers by over-specifying the instructions. In the world of tech start-ups, on the contrary, we’ve seen it a lot how people have been loose about the instructions and guidelines. Naturally, the balance will eventually somehow level into more orderly ways of working and doing. I just want to caution against dumping baby along with the bathtub water. If anything, the culture of start-ups is about camaraderie and trust. And, there’s a fine line between maintaining discipline while keeping the treasures of trust intact.
Related:
Decision-Making and Rusty Tinman
Further reading/watching:
Commander’s Intent — A way to deal with incomplete or changing requirements
This story is loosely based on an earlier article.
