POSTS
Reading notes on The Art of Action
Was positively surprised by the Art of Action by Stephen Bungay.
The book explores the delicate balance of plans, actions and results in larger organisations.
One of the interesting points is that in certain aspects military thought and tradition is surprisingly more advanced than the business one - having to deal with large scale coordination 1-2 hundred years ahead of the corporations (napoleonic wars v 1970’s for the corporate world). In this sense, the bigger corporations trying to stay lean and agile should rather take the lessons from the advanced military institutions rather than try to emulate the inappropriate “startup” mentality.
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Alignment doesn’t contradict autonomy. They’re on the different axes. Actually, you need more alignment to allow more autonomy in a constructive way.
One of the most important subjects in the Prussian Military Academy was an art of writing directives:
- Starts with the context. What are the knowns and unknowns.
- Continues with the intent.
- Based on intent, explicit tasks [to subordinates] with the borders of deviation - as broad as possible.
- Concise and clear. A common academy exercise was to write a minimal directive that would not be readable with any of its words taken away. The importance of the context and the intent, is that when the context is changes, the recipients of the directive can chose to deviate from the defined tasks based on their judgement of what follows the intent. A Prussian officer wouldn’t pass exams if obeyed all orders blindly.
(p 138)
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Importance of the backbriefing - a feedback loop from lower to higher tiers of the organisation.
Each (business) unit … writes operational plan … not needed for the control purposes - but for the alignment.
(p 199)
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The technique of the strategic staircase in building capabilities - global focus on a current step with no loss of previous capabilities (p 113)
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One should act in limited info rather than wait for the comprehensive info to arrive - always too late. [in the situation of uncertainty about the counterpart position/moves] act as competitor does the best option unless proven the opposite. Adjust. Don’t expect to follow the plan. (p 93)
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The executive trinity: Directing (intellectual), Leading (moral), Managing (physical). Rarely combined in one person - usually needs balancing by different members of the organisation. Beware charismatic leaders missing the rest of the aspects. (p 227)
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In a conflict between structure and strategy, structure always wins.
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Strategy is about fighting the right battles, Operations - winning them.
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“Having no problems is the biggest problem” - Ohno, (p 197)
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Morale drops if an organisation wastes people’s time - the only crucial stake that every employee is putting into the enterprise.
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“In the longer run, those who enjoy good luck usually deserve it” (p 94)