think about hypotheticals

Gareth Tennant argues that in recent years companies have become overenamoured with predictive analytics, trying to make precise forecasts about the direction of markets. Instead, they should get involved in war-gaming, where they can discuss ideas that push the boundaries of what is possible. “The more we think about hypotheticals, the less space there is for unknown unknowns,” he says, echoing that well-known American strategist (and ex-defence secretary), Donald Rumsfeld. Corporate executives know their own business really well. But when the environment changes, experience counts for less. The answer is to apply a test and adjust the process, in a feedback cycle.

"What the armed forces can teach business." The Economist. Oct. 24, 2020

centralised/decentralised command

Soldiers regularly have to deal with the four forces dubbed VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). In particular, Mr Gareth Tennant [formerly of the Royal Marines] cites the concept of mission command which developed during the Napoleonic wars. Armies found that, by the time messages had arrived at the front, the military situation had changed. The lesson was to establish what the army was trying to achieve before the battle and allow junior commanders to use their initiative and take decisions as the situation demanded.

The ideal command structure is not a rigid hierarchy, he argues, but a sphere, where the core sets the culture and the parts of the organisation at the edge are free to react to events outside them. In effect, the contrast is between centralised command and decentralised execution.

"What the armed forces can teach business." The Economist. Oct. 24, 2020

when we have a vision of what we can become

How do we develop desires? Few will have the kind of crisis that motivated Aron Ralston, but his experience provides a valuable lesson about developing desires. While Ralston was hiking in a remote canyon in southern Utah, an 800-pound (360 kg) rock shifted suddenly and trapped his right arm. For five lonely days he struggled to free himself. When he was about to give up and accept death, he had a vision of a three-year-old boy running toward him and being scooped up with his left arm. Understanding this as a vision of his future son and an assurance that he could still live, Ralston summoned the courage and took drastic action to save his life before his strength ran out. He broke the two bones in his trapped right arm and then used the knife in his multitool to cut off that arm. He then summoned the strength to hike five miles (8 km) for help. What an example of the power of an overwhelming desire! When we have a vision of what we can become, our desire and our power to act increase enormously.

Dallin Oaks

"Desire," General Conference. April 2011

performance / health

Performance is what an enterprise does to deliver improved results for its stakeholders in financial and operational terms. It's evaluated through measures such as net operating profit, return on capital employed, total returns to shareholders, net operating costs, and stock turn (and the relevant analogs to these in not-for-profit and service industries)... A more memorable way to think about this is through the lens of a manufacturing company in which performance-oriented actions are those that improve how the organization buys raw materials, makes them into products, and sells them into the market to drive financial and operational results. 

Health is how effectively an organization works together in pursuit of a common goal. It is evaluated in levels of accountability, motivation, innovation, coordination, external orientation, and so on. A more memorable way to think about health-related actions is that they are those that improve how an organization internally aligns itself, executes with excellence, and renews itself to sustainably achieve performance aspirations in its ever-changing external environment. 

Make no mistake, leaders have a choice when it comes to where they put their time and energy in making change happen. The big idea in delivering successful change at scale is that leaders should put equal emphasis on performance and health-related efforts....

Short-term gains can be made without tending to health, but they are unlikely to last.

Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger

Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large-Scale Change. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2019

 

vision/action

Workplaces that are characterized by any or all of competing agendas and conflict (no alignment on direction), politics and bureaucracy (low quality of execution), and where work is "just a job" (low sense of renewal), aren't just unhealthy for sustainably delivering bottom-line results - they are unhealthy for the human soul. As the Japanese proverb goes, "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare."

Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger

Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large-Scale Change. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2019