If you have read my previous columns you have by now heard of the late, Col. John Boyd, one of America’s most brilliant and influential thinkers and strategists. Boyd’s works and the works of those dedicated to expanding his ideas continue to permeate the fields of military training, business strategy, and personal development. Of course, his most familiar work is the storied “OODA Loop” now integrated into business, law enforcement and military strategy throughout the world. In short, Boyd’s tool for winning in any arena of competition from war to selling soap is, in its abbreviated form, “Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act”. While deceptively simple, the concept of the OODA Loop is as deep as the deep blue sea, and volumes have been written about it while untold hours have been spent describing and teaching it to millions of people. It has proven to be supremely effective in war, business, and leadership development. Boyd was savvy enough to realize that “today’s doctrine becomes tomorrow’s dogma”. So, he was reluctant to commit his ideas to ponderous tomes and, instead, preferred to deliver oral briefings supported by visual slides and an energetic “back and forth” with his audiences. Too many times what is written today becomes set in stone, and rather than continue to think and develop new ideas we draw our lines in the sand and fight over what THE BOOK SAID. If a team becomes enamored with, say, a particular manual or doctrine a savvy competitor can adapt and improve on it and quickly get the upper hand assuring an eventual victory. I’d bet you a dollar you personally have experienced a situation in which someone has asked, “Why do we have to do it that way?”, and the answer has been, “Because that’s what’s in the manual, and we’ve always done it that way”. While we’re fussing about the way it’s always been done, someone else is coming up with a different way to do it, leaving us in the dust both literally and figuratively.
That brings us to the fundamental and absolutely essential process which Boyd himself repeatedly stressed was the key to winning by successfully utilizing OODA Loops: Orientation, the Big O. Boyd said it was the “decisive point” in the Loop. His description of orientation is also simple but deep, and like most things with deep meaning it works best to eat it in small bites. Boyd described orientation as “…the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences”. Let’s pause and chew on that a minute. When we receive and process information in any form and under any circumstances we inevitably “filter” it through our own eyes or “tint it”, so to speak. It’s as if we see the world through our own unique tinted lenses, and EVERYTHING we experience must pass through our personal “lenses”. To borrow a lyric from the band, “Chicago”, we color our world. It matters not what color the information began as, we are going to recolor it even if ever so slightly. Thus, our perception of things most often is not as things “really are”. Most of the time it doesn’t matter that much, and we effectively process slightly tinted information, integrate it, and respond to it.
However, when we receive information while we are competing for a personal or professional win, or we are battling for our lives and the very existence of our way of life, the “re-tint” process can determine our ultimate success or defeat, our observations, decisions and actions have been affected by less than real perceptions. In reverse order of Boyd’s explanation of orientation, let’s consider “previous experiences”. Prior to a current competitive situation all our previous experiences have gradually influenced and tinted the way we perceive, process, and respond to things. From personal experience I can say without a doubt my personal experiences have heavily tinted my eyes of understanding, so much so that someone can say something and for a moment I’m no longer really hearing them but instead hearing someone else from my past. It just happens as a fact of life. A gesture, a phrase, a particular situation, a tone of voice, just about any prior experience can affect or “tint” our current perception. Without factoring in “genetic heritage and cultural tradition” and focusing only on previous experiences it should be obvious that having our eyes of understanding affected by those prior experiences is significant when we use “tinted” information during the processes of evaluation and decision making. It’s as if while charting a course of action we’re using an outdated or blurred map! What matters as much the true color of a situation is that we realize we are re-colorizing it. Boyd in his wisdom warned that success or failure can be determined by our awareness or unawareness of how tinted our perceptions are and how essential it is that to survive and thrive we operate in a constant state of re-examination and re-orientation of the lenses through which we perceive the world. Truly, the eyes have it!
Originally published in Beaumont Business Journal, Heat And Humanity Column
