Manoeuvre warfare is characterised by an uncertain environment, access to imperfect and incomplete information, and significant barriers to achieving the mission. Sound familiar? As sustainability innovators we are often trying to create new innovative products or services in an environment of extreme uncertainty (policy, science, risks), with access to limited resources and information, whilst dealing with numerous barriers that get in the way of achieving our goals.
Armed conflict has always been a crucible of innovation because the stakes are so high – failing to achieve the mission often has a life or death outcome. Likewise, as sustainability innovators, failing to address some of our biggest social and environmental challenges will have dire consequences for many.
We are often fighting battles in multiple dimensions with opponents both seen and unseen. These opponents to our mission can be institutional (processes, practices, culture), people (stakeholders, managers, colleagues, customers), political, environmental, legal, financial and even technological.
Failing to win these battles means that we cannot achieve the positive social and environmental impacts we know to be so important, it can have negative consequences on our careers and businesses, and we know the future that awaits our kids if we fail to achieve the mission.
Once upon a time when I was younger and had that sense of invincibility that only comes with youth, I was once a soldier and had the privilege to lead Australian soldiers as a Cavalry Officer in the Australian Army.
Cavalry are experts in the execution of manoeuvre warfare which is a military strategy that advocates attempting to defeat the enemy by incapacitating their decision-making through shock and disruption.
Over past 15 years or so, as I worked with some of the worlds brightest minds on projects to develop new innovative solutions to environmental and social challenges, I realised that many of the skills employed in manoeuver warfare can also be a powerful weapon in the arsenal of sustainability innovators because fundamentally these skills are about helping you to succeed in an environment of extreme uncertainty where failure is not an option.
The OODA Loop
A key theory of manoeuvre warfare is a model of individual and organisational learning and adaptation known as the OODA loop which has direct applications for sustainable innovation within organisations.
The OODA loop is a theory developed by US Air Force Lt Colonel John Boyd who flew 22 combat missions in the Korean war and went on the become an instructor at the prestigious fighter weapons school made famous by the movie “Top Gun”.
In the skies above Korea, North Korean and Chinese fighter pilots in Soviet-made MiG-15 planes were no match for their American counterparts, who flew F-86 Sabre jets. Despite the Soviet-made aircrafts superior capabilities in turning, climbing, and acceleration the American pilots shot down ten MiG-15’s for every F-86 lost.
John Boyd wanted to understand why the American pilots were able to achieve this feat despite the technical superiority of the MiG-15 aircraft. Moving from fighter pilot to intellectual he undertook an analysis of the aerial combat outcomes between the US and North Korean and Chinese fighter pilots during the Korean war between 1951 and 1953.
One characteristic that stood out in his analysis was two key advantages that the F-86 enjoyed relative to the MiG-15. The first was that the pilots of the F-86 had better visibility due a bubble canopy that provided a unobstructed view in nearly every direction. The MiG-15 on the other hand sacrificed the pilots field of view for better aerodynamics and performance. With a larger field of view the pilots of the F-86 were able to gather more information, more quickly, leading to better informed decision making.
The second was the F-86’s fully hydraulic flight controls that were highly sensitive to the pilots inputs compared with the MiG-15’s mechanical flight controls which allowed the American pilots faster execution and sequencing of actions as the combat engagement unfolded. In other words, the time between decision and action was faster for the F-86 pilots.
The ability of the F-86 pilots to gather better information through observation, make better more informed decisions, and then act on those decisions faster than the competition led to a decisive outcome for the American pilots despite the technical superiority of the MiG-15 fighter.
He worked to synthesize what he learned to answer the question: How do individuals and organisations win in an uncertain environment?
“He who can handle the quickest rate of change survives.” Lt. Colonel John Boyd
John Boyd synthesised his findings into the OODA Loop which is an acronym that stands for:
- Observe
- Orient
- Decide
- Act
The OODA Loop is an explicit representation of the process that individuals and organisations use to learn, grow, and thrive in a rapidly changing environment — be it in war, business, life or sustainable innovation.
In a competitive environment, the competitor who executes their OODA loop the fastest wins. Once sustainability innovators learn and understand how to employ the OODA loop process the results can be transformational to the success of your innovations.
Lets looks at each stage in a little more detail.
Observe
The observe step is all about gathering information and knowledge by communicating with the outside world. By taking a proactive approach to observing and taking into account new information about our changing environment, we create an open system rather than a closed one, and we are able to gain the knowledge and understanding that’s crucial in forming new innovative ideas.
Orient
This is the most important step of the OODA loop. Orientation shapes the way we interpret the information and knowledge we have gathered in the observation step and is shaped by the factors that define who you are. Your culture and experiences shape the way you interpret information. As sustainability professionals and innovators our interpretation of data is often biased by our views and training. We interpret information through the lens of carbon emissions or environmental degradation. This bias can blind us to innovative opportunities.
The orient step seeks to update your current reality through a process of “destructive deduction” that forces you to challenge the mental model you are using to understand and explain what you observe. In other words, it forces you to challenge the incumbent way of doing things by questioning why? what if? which means?
Let’s consider a real world example of challenging an existing mental model.
Michelin tyres was facing strong competition in their business with haulage companies from low cost competitors. Michelin believed they had a superior technology but were not able to capture the value from it simply by competing on price. At the same time climate change regulation was impacting Michelin and their customers.
The existing mental model went something like this; we have a superior technology, which means that our customers will get more miles per tyre (less waste tyres) and improve their fuel efficiency which will in turn lead to reduced carbon emissions, therefore they will be willing to pay a higher price for our product because it is better for the environment and we will help them manage climate change risks. But the observed behaviour of their customers didn’t match this mental model because customers would still purchase the lower cost, lower performance tyres.
Michelin then reoriented by challenging the incumbent business model by asking the question, “what if we give our tyres away for free” and then charge the customer a cost per mile, and also bundle additional services to help our customers improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, we can then take back the tyres and recycle them, and we will get more revenue per tyre because they last much longer and we get paid per mile – so the better the tyre the more revenue it will generate. This approach was then validated with actual customers observed signing up to the new model.
This video from our YouTube channel explains this innovation in more detail.
Decide
Many of us get stuck in analysis paralysis in planning our innovations as we try to research every detail we need to remove the uncertainty and risks associated with our idea – what the OODA loop emphasises is that in an environment of uncertainty you will never have the complete picture and it is only by making a decision and acting on it that you will then observe and uncover new information that will lead you to achieving your mission. The faster you make decisions, the faster you learn and the faster you will achieve your mission.
Act
The final step is to act on your decisions with the mindset that this action is with the intent of collecting more information through observation. In innovation, this step is more like a scientist conducting an experiment to test a hypothesis.
If the OODA loop concept seems vaguely familiar to you that is because it has many similarities with concepts like lean innovation, agile project management, lean startup theory, which all emphasise some variation of make an observation, design a hypothesis to explain the observation, test the hypothesis, and then observe the results.
The OODA loop is not just a decision making process but a learning system.
Conclusion
Whilst the OODA loop was developed by the military as a model of individual and organisational learning and adaptation with the aim of defeating an enemy, it can also be a powerful weapon in the arsenal of sustainability innovators to defeat the barriers that get in the way of the social and environmental impact you are trying to create.
It is a model to help you win in an uncertain high stakes environment which is exactly the environment all sustainability innovators are operating in every day.
One final message for you as a member of the Impossible Mission Force (aka Sustainability Innovators)….Your mission should you choose to accept it is to challenge your current way of thinking, make a decision and put into action that idea that you have been thinking about but have never really progressed. This could be as simple as running the idea past a colleague or submitting a business case for project funding. Observe what happens, reorient your idea based on the observation and repeat the process. Before you know it you will have outmanoeuvred all of the barriers you perceived and your idea will have become real. (Please note that this message will not self destruct due to our zero emissions policy 😉
About the author
When his dreams of becoming an ice trucker were crushed by climate change, James McGregor decided to become Chief Sustainability Innovator, Founder and CEO of the Blue Tribe Company helps leading companies and governments to design and implement successful sustainability strategies by unlocking the potential of research innovation.
The Blue Tribe Company is a specialist venture builder that collaborates with Government and Academia to solve challenging social and environmental problems. Their services range from strategy consulting through to the creation of new purpose driven spin-out companies that solve some of our biggest social and environmental challenges.