Iterar mais rapidamente

No início da década de 90 trabalhei com uma empresa japonesa do ramo automóvel no projecto CDW27, que mais tarde seria o Ford Mondeo. O japonês com quem trabalhava gabava-se do cliente Toyota ser muito mais dinâmico que a Ford. Julgo que ele dizia que enquanto a Ford demorava 5 anos a pôr um carro no mercado a Toyota demorava 3 anos, ou então era 7 anos versus 5 anos. Não interessam os números exactos, o que interessa é chamar à reflexão o pensamento de Boyd sobre a vantagem de quem consegue iterar mais depressa, o que tiver o ciclo OODA mais curto:

"The key is the combination — rigor in each step; and getting through more cycles of the OODA Loop faster than the enemy."

Nestes tempos de contexto a mudar a um ritmo alucinante, interrogo-me sobre a vantagem das empresas com um rolling budget versus a que têm um orçamento anual e uma disciplina férrea na sua execução. 

Rapidez, flexibilidade e "amélias"

"In Boyd’s language, the pilot who won in air combat was the one who was able to “go around the loop” faster. The “loop” was a sequence—observation, orientation, decision, and action. Boyd taught that if you could go around this loop faster than an opponent, the opponent would become disoriented and confused and you would win.

...

In business, competition quickness is normally most important in customer responsiveness and in the cycle of new product development and introduction.

...

Boyd’s insight was that being in the lead may be less important than having your opponent believe you are in the lead. Thinking you are behind can induce mistakes. Be oriented to the combat, and be fast to observe, decide, and act."

Ler aquele "In business, competition quickness is normally most important in customer responsiveness and in the cycle of new product development and introduction" e pensar nas "amélias" sempre a mendigar um apoiozinho do papá-Estado.

Trechos retirados de "The Crux - How Leaders Become Strategists" de Richard P. Rumelt.

"há anos em que décadas acontecem" (parte II)

Ao escrever a Parte I cheguei a fazer esta figura que acabei por não incluir no postal:

Um esquema que ilustra o impacte do contexto externo sobre o desempenho das empresas exportadoras portuguesas.

Ontem ao fazer a minha caminhada matinal ao longo do rio Tinto em Rio Tinto sublinhei:

“Colonel John R. Boyd said, “He who can handle the quickest rate of change survives,” in which “quick” does not refer to speed but the amount of time that elapses in transitioning the system from one state to another. Hence, when competitors experience similar challenges, fast transients should be conducted asymmetrically, so as to complete a transition from one state to the next in less time than anyone else. Also, Boyd favored abrupt, fast transients that come as a surprise. Consequently, the antidote to uncertainty is adaptability—not certainty.”

Trecho retirado de "The Root Cause: Rethink Your Approach to Solving Stubborn Enterprise-Wide Problems" de Hans Norden

Aprender e voltar a aprender, rapidamente

Outro legado do meu ano de 2008, a descoberta dos textos de John Boyd.

Ontem li "Why Do Strategy, Anyway?" de onde retirei:

"For me, the case for strategy centers on learning. I believe that doing strategy thoroughly and religiously is the key to gaining a learning advantage over competition.

The way to maximize learning in strategy is to use all your current knowledge to develop a hypothesis as to the most compelling strategy choice, then enact it, and then observe the degree to which things turn out the way you expected, then, based on those observations, develop a next generation hypothesis, which you put into action, and then observe and learn again. And so on. If you repeatedly go through that learning loop rigorously and, importantly, faster than your competitors, you will maximize your chance of ending up on top.

This is, must assuredly, not my idea. It is borrowed from what most insiders would consider the greatest air combat theoretician in history, the late Air Force Colonel John Boyd, creator of the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) Loop. Boyd argued that if a fighter pilot rigorously goes through the OODA Loop faster than his enemy, he will maximize the probability of beating the enemy in air combat. The key is the combination — rigor in each step; and getting through more cycles of the OODA Loop faster than the enemy.

If instead, while your competition is engaging in that learning activity, you wait to see what emerges in order to fast-follow, you will always be playing catch-up on the knowledge necessary to compete, and in due course, per Boyd, you will be shot down."

E volto ao cockpit do avião com uma avaria importante e à sua relação com uma empresa.

E volto à falta de fogo no rabo. 

Covid-19 - Direcção e iteração colaborativa

Quando comecei a trabalhar a ISO 14001, nos anos 90 do século passado, fiquei fascinado com a sua diferença face à ISO 9001.

Ao trabalhar com a ISO 9001 facilmente ficávamos prisioneiros da quantidade de procedimentos obrigatórios que tinhamos de criar. Por isso, os resultados no terreno demoravam a aparecer. Primeiro tinhamos de arquitectar e construir o sistema, traduzi-lo em procedimentos e só depois começar a implementação. A implementação, porque o consultor era tótó, ou porque a gestão de topo só estava interessada na bandeira, ou porque a empresa estava sobrecarregada de trabalho, mais parecia um calvário. O objectivo da implementação era chegar a algo que pudesse ser certificado e uma bandeira atribuída. Uma vez obtida a certificação, a empresa dizia-nos adeus, e raramente havia oportunidade mergulhar na melhoria do sistema.

Entretanto, na minha cabeça remoía um artigo de 1992 na HBR - "Successful Change Programs Begin with Results"

Ao trabalhar com a ISO 14001 descobria a possibilidade de desenhar um sistema de gestão virado para atingir resultados. Um sistema de gestão como um portfolio de projectos:

Acabei por publicar um livro onde explicava a metodologia. (BTW, um projecto interessante que nunca foi pago pela editora)

No ano passado descobri mais uma norma ambiental, confesso que não a conhecia, a ISO 14005:2019 - Environmental management systems — Guidelines for a flexible approach to phased implementation.

Esta norma apoia a implementação faseada de sistemas de gestão ambiental. O que é que isto quer dizer? Em vez de começar por montar um sistema de gestão ambiental completo, com todos os ésses e érres, começar por um desafio concreto, um desafio específico. Por exemplo, melhorar a eficiência energética, ou reduzir a produção de resíduos perigosos.

Por que escrevo sobre isto agora? Porque o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras pôs-me a ler este livro, "The Lean Strategy" de Michael Ballé, Daniel Jones, Jacques Chaize, e Orest Fiume.

"Lean thinking starts with acting: solving immediate problems to better understand the deeper issues. It differs radically from the mainstream approach.
...
Lean thinking starts with find, in the real world, by identifying immediate problems right now, moves to face as we grasp which problems are easy to solve and which aren’t, what our deeper challenges are, then to frame these challenges in a way others will understand intuitively both (a) the problem we’re trying to solve and (b) the generic form of the solution we’re looking for, and then form the specific solutions through repeated try-and-see efforts with the people themselves until we, all together, build a new (often unforeseen) way of doing things
...
Effectively, the idea is that to learn anything, we first have to change something and then carefully check the results to evaluate the impact.
...
"Don’t look with your eyes. Look with your feet. Don’t think with you head. Think with your hands.”
...
The point is that running experiments and experiencing consequences is an ongoing process. It is more to accelerate the learning cycle—to learn and respond, then grasp with the current situation, then adjust again—than it is to establish large-scale goals and compare our progress to them on an occasional basis rather than as a constant state. Companies must use meaningful metrics to understand meaningful actions."

Entretanto, ontem ao folher um livro, "Managing Crises: Responses to Large-Scale Emergencies" de Arnold Howitt e Herman B. Leonard. Encontrei estes trechos:

"[Moi ici: As emergências podem ser de dois tipos, as de rotina e as de crise. As de rotina são aquelas para as quais as organizações se preparam e testam. São aquelas para as quais existem planos de resposta. Já a pandemia em curso é uma emergência de crise... não há plano, não houve preparação prévia] This is not a routine emergency. There are no scripts or templates—guides, check-lists, and norms that dictate the set of things that need to be done, their order, the way they are organized, and so on. An authority-driven command and control hierarchy is a good organizational form for producing the efficient execution of known and practiced routine actions.
...
This is a Crisis Emergency. This emergency has significant elements of novelty that organizations were not prepared for. The presence of significant novelty as the defining feature of crisis emergencies creates an array of distinctive challenges, requiring significantly different approaches, techniques, and processes by those engaged in them. Novelty comes in many forms and from many different sources.
...
During a crisis, leaders must relinquish the belief that a top-down response will engender stability. In routine emergencies, the typical company can rely on its command-and-control structure to manage operations well by carrying out a scripted response. But in crises characterized by uncertainty, leaders face problems that are unfamiliar and poorly understood. A small group of executives at an organization’s highest level cannot collect information or make decisions quickly enough to respond effectively. Leaders can better mobilize their organizations by setting clear priorities for the response and empowering others to discover and implement solutions that serve those priorities. To promote rapid problem solving and execution under high-stress, chaotic conditions, leaders can organize a network of teams." 

E ao chegar aqui ... recuo ao Natal de 2007 e a Boyd e à blitzkrieg (parte I e parte II):

"Give lower-level commanders wide freedom, within an overall mind-time-space scheme, to shape/direct their own activities so that they can exploit faster tempo/rhythm at tactical levels yet be in harmony with the larger pattern/slower rhythm associated with the more general aim and larger effort at the strategic level."

Como diz o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras: uma pena as empresas não estarem a aproveitar esta crise para encontrarem uma plataforma de comunicação real com os seus trabalhadores... sim, o primeiro ciclo de Senge:

"when speed is low, development requires big investments"

O meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras enviou-me o link para este artigo "Six ingredients of agile organizational design" com o comentário:

"Só agora associei o Scrum como uma resposta para planeamento do Mongo!"

Caro amigo... até apetece exclamar: Duh!!!

Li o artigo duas vezes e das duas vezes sublinhei este trecho:

"Nowadays, a company’s chances of survival are low if it takes too long to create (new) products. Our company becomes slow if we need a number of teams, each producing a part of the product, to be able to create possible customer value. The specialised team approach creates many dependencies between teams when we try to create customer value. We only know if our product (or change) is successful after releasing it in the hands of the customer because that is when we get real feedback and our assumptions are validated. The slower our company is, the longer it takes before we get customer feedback, i.e. return on investment (if any). That’s why when speed is low, development requires big investments." 

E sorri ao relacionar com a série "Acerca da rapidez" e com as novas regras de xadrez. Mongo tem tudo a ver com rapidez, flexibilidade e personalização.

E acerca de:

"Some teams do not even know what value they are creating from a customer point of view: the workers have never seen a real customer or they don’t have one because they deliver so-called “products” to another department."

Fez-me recordar um texto citado aqui no blogue recentemente:

"Leaders who connect employees with end users motivate higher performance, measured in terms of revenue as well as supervisors’ ratings.
...
Customers, clients, patients, and others who benefit from a company’s products and services motivate employees by serving as tangible proof of the impact of their work, expressing appreciation for their contributions, and eliciting empathy, which helps employees develop a deeper understanding of customers’ needs."

Acerca da rapidez (parte I)

No Le Figaro de hoje um artigo interessante "La montée en gamme des marques chinoises". Assim que o comecei a ler recordei o OODA loop de Boyd. Antes de mergulhar no artigo, convido a ler um excerto de "Parte II: OODA loops, a agilidade, o partir pedra e o xadrez," escrito em Janeiro de 2009:

"Procure o melhor jogador de xadrez que conseguir e ofereça-se para jogar com ele sob estas condições:
O seu adversário faz a primeira jogada;
Você faz duas jogadas por cada uma das que ele fizer.
.
De facto, até pode oferecer-se para abdicar de algumas peças, para que o jogo seja mais justo. Descobrirá que, a menos que esteja a jogar com alguém de nível muito elevado, pode desistir de praticamente tudo e ainda assim ganhar. Mantendo os cavalos e talvez uma torre.
.
Esta é uma ilustração expressiva de como o opositor materialmente mais fraco, usando a agilidade, pode ultrapassar uma grande desvantagem numérica.”
.
Please rewind and read again."

Percebem porque fico doente com a falta de fogo no rabo?

Voltemos ao artigo:

"Les marques chinoises ne font plus fuir le consommateur chinois. Au contraire. En à peine dix ans, l'étiquette « made in China », auparavant synonyme de mauvaise qualité et d' arnaque au consommateur, est devenue dans beaucoup de cas symbole de fierté nationale, et même recherchée par un public entièrement digitalisé, avisé, exigeant et difficile à fidéliser. Aujourd'hui le millennial chinois - cible phare des marques à la fois chinoises et internationales - s'attend à ce qu'une marque anticipe ses besoins et rende l'expérience d'achat la plus pratique possible. Véritable témoin de la montée en puissance de la Chine sur la scène internationale, il n'hésite pas à acheter chinois, contrairement à la génération précédente qui peine encore à sauter le pas.
...
Au-delà de la qualité qui est au rendez-vous, les marques chinoises connaissent leur marché et sont plus flexibles et rapides à s'adapter que leurs concurrents étrangers. Elles ont su ajuster leur management, valoriser le branding et segmenter leur offre. Mais surtout, la vraie valeur ajoutée est leur compréhension des enjeux de la digitalisation et de l'e-commerce. Ce sont avant tout des entreprises technologiques comme le sont par exemple Ofo (vélos connectés) ou VIP Kids (éducation en ligne). « Une marque chinoise peut sortir un produit en six mois contre deux ans pour une multinationale. En plus, beaucoup sont nées lors de l'ère digitale, ce qui leur donne un avantage pour innover, notamment dans la vente en ligne » , selon Chris Reitemann, directeur géné-ral Chine pour Ogilvy." 

Continua.

"Specifying too much detail actually shakes confidence and creates uncertainty "

Uma delícia estes textos de von Molkte, escritos em 1869 e tão actuais.

“In 1869, von Moltke issued a document called Guidance for Large Unit Commanders. It was to become seminal, laying out principles of higher command which remained unchanged for 70 years, by which time the Prussian Army had become the German Army. Some passages are echoed in the doctrine publications of US and NATO forces to the present day. It contains von Moltke’s solution to the specific problem he identified in the Memoire, and directly addressed the general problem posed by the greatly increased scale of modern warfare: how to direct an organization too large for a single commander to control in person. As such, it is probably the first document of modern times to define the role of the senior executive in a large corporation.
...
What is of interest here is the approach to command and control. The emphasis is on the former rather than the latter
...
With darkness all around you, you have to develop a feeling for what is right, often based on little more than guesswork, and issue orders in the knowledge that their execution will be hindered by all manner of random accidents and unpredictable obstacles. In this fog of uncertainty, the one thing that must be certain is your own decision… the surest way of achieving your goal is through the single-minded pursuit of simple actions
...
There are numerous situations in which an officer must act on his own judgment. For an officer to wait for orders at times when none can be given would be quite absurd. But as a rule, it is when he acts in line with the will of his superior that he can most effectively play his part in the whole scheme of things.
...
not commanding more than is strictly necessary, nor planning beyond the circumstances you can foresee. In war, circumstances change very rapidly, and it is rare indeed for directions which cover a long period of time in a lot of detail to be fully carried out.
.
Specifying too much detail actually shakes confidence and creates uncertainty if things do not turn out as anticipated. Going into too much detail makes a senior commander a hostage to fortune, because in a rapidly changing environment,
...
In any case, a leader who believes that he can make a positive difference through continual personal interventions is usually deluding himself. He thereby takes over things other people are supposed to be doing, effectively dispensing with their efforts, and multiplies his own tasks to such an extent that he can no longer carry them all out.
.
The demands made on a senior commander are severe enough as it is. It is far more important that the person at the top retains a clear picture of the overall situation than whether some particular thing is done this way or that.
...
The higher the level of command, the shorter and more general the orders should be. The next level down should add whatever further specification it feels to be necessary, and the details of execution are left to verbal instructions or perhaps a word of command. This ensures that everyone retains freedom of movement and decision within the bounds of their authority."

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

"a willingness to show independence of mind and challenge authority"

O meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras começou por me dizer, logo no primeiro almoço, que desafiava as pessoas da sua equipa a desobedecer a ordens, a descobrirem que há uma forma alternativa de fazer melhor.

Entretanto, os prussianos aprenderam:

“Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia, the nephew of the future Kaiser Wilhelm I, and a practicing soldier. In a series of essays published in the 1850s and 1860s, he reinforced the growing idea that what made the Prussian officer corps distinctive, and gave it an edge, was a willingness to show independence of mind and challenge authority. In an essay dating from 1860 entitled “The Origins and Development of the Spirit of the Prussian Officer,” he tells the story of a staff officer dutifully carrying out an order without question, only to be pulled up short by a high-ranking general with the words: “The King made you a staff officer because you should know when not to obey.” In contrast to other European officer corps, Prince Friedrich Karl comments, the Prussians do not allow themselves to be hemmed in with rules and regulations, but give rein to the imagination and exploit every opportunity opened up by unexpected success. Such behavior would not be possible if senior commanders were to demand full control over every unit.”

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”. iBooks.

Tudo a conjugar-se para asneira da grossa (parte II)

Parte I.

“A gap in knowledge prompts the collection of more data. ... Seeking to improve its information-gathering and processing capability, the company became more complex, adding committees and overlays, some permanent, some ad hoc. ... So it pumped more data through its existing systems. No one took a decision to do so. It was just the natural result of how the organization as a system was programmed. ... the data flow paralyzed decision making, because no matter how much there was, there was always more to obtain. Meetings were about analyzing problems rather than resolving them.
...
A gap in alignment is often indicated by top-level frustration and lower-level confusion. ... Top-level managers felt increasing pressure to specify exactly what they wanted people to do. They began to stress actions rather than outcomes, in the one case by spelling things out “in painful detail” and in the other through SOPs and central processes.
...
A gap in effects is typically responded to by an increase in control. The favorite control mechanism is metrics. As time goes on, the emphasis is switched from outputs to inputs, so that in the end everybody’s actions are detailed, analyzed, and controlled by a few people who look to everyone else as if they are seeking to become omniscient about the world outside and omnipotent in the world inside. Controls have a cost. Overhead builds up around the controllers, and the reporting burden increases for the controlled.
...
These natural reactions do not simply fail to solve the problem, they make it worse. Because the cause-and-effect cycles are systemic and reciprocal, all three reactions interact with and exacerbate each other."

Quantas empresas caem nesta armadilha?

Lembram-se dos relatos dos bombeiros em Monchique, parados enquanto populares combatiam fogos a poucos metros? Parados porque não tinham autorização superior para agir!

Há muitos anos ouvi falar em Blitzkrieg, como "Guerra Relâmpago", e sempre pensei que tinha a ver com surpresa e velocidade. Só há cerca de 10 anos aprendi com Boyd o que estava por trás da Blitzkrieg. A origem da Blitzkrieg assenta lá atrás no tempo, quando os exércitos de Napoleão limparam o sebo ao exército prusfsiano, uma eficaz máquina de combate da guerra anterior.

Uma catástrofe militar tem o poder de acabar com direitos adquiridos e colocar como objectivo número um a sobrevivência da comunidade. Isso, liberta as pessoas para colocar tudo em causa, até a impossibilidade de militares do povo poderem subir na hierarquia militar até ao topo por não serem de boas famílias.

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

Ainda o Schwerpunkt

Recordar:

• Schwerpunkt
• Schwerpunkt (parte II)

"O Schwerpunkt fornece focalização e orientação para que toda a organização se concentre e se empenhe nesse objectivo ou propósito."(fonte)

A propósito de "Top Ten Strategy Tricks: #10 Schwerpunkt":

"In the busi­ness world, schw­er­punkt is typ­i­cally imple­mented in the form of visions and mis­sion state­ments. And here I have to give Herb Ruben­stien credit; he says a strat­egy
should always be some­thing you can state in one sen­tence. That sen­tence is your schwerpunkt."

 Quando penso em schwerpunkt penso logo na blitzkrieg e no flash que foi chegar a Paris em 3 dias. Este trecho é importante:

"Sim­ply com­mu­ni­cat­ing the schw­er­punkt to every­one par­tic­i­pat­ing in the strat­egy allows them to use their own judg­ment in how their respon­si­bil­i­ties align to the schw­er­punkt. And it is the tar­get used to deter­mine pri­or­i­ties and rel­e­vance of efforts. If your using resources in such a way that don’t point towards your schw­er­punkt, why are you using them?"

Em Schwerpunkt (parte II):

"Schwerpunkt represents a unifying concept that provides a way to rapidly shape focus and direction of effort as well as harmonize support activities with combat operations, thereby permit a true decentralization of tactical command within centralized strategic guidance—without losing cohesion of overall effort.
.
or put another way
.
Schwerpunkt represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to diminish friction and compress time in order to generate a favorable mismatch in time/ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances."

Estratégia = Alinhamento na acção

"2. Strategy Execution definition.
There are quite a few different strategy execution definitions. When I define what strategy execution, I like to start from a famous Mintzberg quote.
Professor Henry Mintzberg is an internationally renowned strategist. He has written more than 150 articles and 15 books on business and management. One of Mintzberg’s insights, “Strategy is a pattern in a stream of decisions,” helps us to better understand how to define strategy execution.
.
A long time ago, I learned this phrase by heart—but it took me 5 years to really grasp the point of it. The trick I use to understand Mintzberg’s cryptic statement is to approach decisions in 2 steps. First, there’s the overall decision - the big choice - that guides all other decisions. To make a big choice, we need to decide who we focus on - our target client segment - and we need to decide how we offer unique value to the customers in our chosen segment. That’s basic strategy stuff. But by formulating it this way, it helps us to better understand the second part, the day-to-day decisions - the small choices - that get us closer to the finish line. When these small choices are in line with the big choice, you get a Mintzberg Pattern.
.
So if strategy is a decision pattern, strategy execution is enabling people to create a decision pattern. In other words, strategy execution is helping people make small choices in line with a big choice. That’s my strategy execution definition.
.
This notion requires a big shift in the way we think about execution. As a strategist looking at strategy execution, we should imagine a decision tree rather than an action plan. Decisions patterns are at the core of successful strategy journeys, not to-do lists. To improve execution speed and accuracy, we should shift our energy from asking people to make action plans to helping them make better decisions."[Moi ici: É claro que uma estratégia, IMHO, precisa de ser convertida em planos de acção, em iniciativas, em acções a desenvolver , por quem, até quando. No entanto, a caminho do futuro desejado, durante a viagem, surgem imprevistos, surge a necessidade de enfrentar situações não previstas, situações novas, situações difíceis. Aí, a rapidez de actuação é fundamental... Blitzkrieg, Schwerpunkt (parte I e parte II)]

Trechos retirados de "Strategy Execution - The definitive guide" de Strategy Jeroen De Flander

Estratégia em tempos de incerteza

Olha-se para o título "Is Strategy Dead? 7 Reasons The Answer May Be Yes" e, só pelo título fazemos logo o enquadramento do que aí vem.
.
Mesmo assim, disponibilizamos-nos para o ler e ... às primeiras linhas a coisa descarrila logo:

"Webster’s defines Strategy as “a careful plan for achieving a particular goal over a long period of time.” 

Mais do que um plano ou antes de um plano, estratégia é algo mais a montante, são escolhas sobre o que fazer, sobre o que não fazer e sobre o que vir a ser.
.
Ao escrever isto a minha mente recuou até ao blitzkrieg e a Boyd e tentou recordar-se de... schwerpunkt!!!
.
Porque o mundo está cada vez mais cheio de incerteza é impossível ter uma estratégia, porque a realidade muda e precisamos de mudar o plano, para a acompanhar, essa é a narrativa do artigo:

"In the end, your company’s strategy is nothing more than the collective actions of all of your employees, and these actions are being guided less by strategies thoughtfully crafted within wood paneled conference rooms, and more by speed, unpredictability and sweeping change occurring on a dynamically evolving battlefield."

Mas se a realidade competitiva está a mudar constantemente, segundo um bailado que não se pode prever, e é preciso agir rapidamente, o que dará consistência a essas acções que têm de ser decididas cada vez mais perto do terreno, como na blitzkrieg?

"Schwerpunkt represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to diminish friction and compress time in order to generate a favorable mismatch in time/ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances."

 Continuo a preferir a leitura de Roger Martin sobre a estratégia em tempos de incerteza e recordar "Strategy and the Uncertainty Excuse":

"The danger, of course, is that while we are using uncertainty as an excuse to put off making strategic choices, the competition may be doing something else entirely. They may be strategizing their way to first mover advantages and positions that leave few if any attractive options in the market.
...
Without making an effort to ‘do strategy,’ though, a company runs the risk of its numerous daily choices having no coherence to them, of being contradictory across divisions and levels, and of amounting to very little of meaning. It doesn’t have to be so. But it continues to be so because these leaders don’t believe there is a better way."

Liberdade no terreno

Recordar o exemplo do desempenho da Wal-Mart em Nova Orleães no pós-Katrina em "Lições de 2012":

"Os funcionários superiores da Wal-Mart concentraram-se em estabelecer metas, avaliando o progresso e mantendo as linhas de comunicação com os empregados nas linhas da frente e com agências oficiais quando podiam. Por outras palavras, para lidar com esta situação complexa não emitiram instruções. As condições eram demasiado imprevisíveis e estavam sempre a mudar. O trabalho deles era assegurar que as pessoas falavam umas com as outras."

E comparar com a mensagem de David Marquet em "Turn the Ship Around":

"Specifying to the crew that the true objective was to put the fire out as quickly as possible was a mechanism primarly for competence. Specifying goals, not methods is a mechanism for competence"  

E comparar com o sucesso da Blitzkrieg:

"Tell team members what needs to be accomplished, get their agreement to accomplish it, then hold them strictly accountable for doing it - but don't prescribe how. Requires very high levels of mutual trust." 

E recordar "Schwerpunkt":

"Schwerpunkt represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to diminish friction and compress time in order to generate a favorable mismatch in time/ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances."

Commander's Intent versus Conformidade com os procedimentos

Continua a minha reflexão sobre a função dos procedimentos documentados e sobre o grau de pormenor a neles incluir, através da discussão mental desencadeada pela leitura do livro "Complexity and Management - Fad or radical challenge to systems thinking?" de Ralph D. Stacey, Douglas Griffin e Patricia Shaw.

.

Esta leitura em curso, encaixa-se perfeitamente com o sentido deste texto retirado do livro "Made to Stick" de Chip Heath & Dan Heath:

.

""The trite expression we always use is No plan survives contact with the enemy," says Colonel Tom Kolditz, the head of the behavioral sciences division at West Point.
…
Many armies fail because they put all their emphasis into creating a plan that becomes useless ten minutes into the battle."
…
Colonel Kolditz says, "Over time we've come to understand more and more about what makes people successful in complex operations." He believes that plans are useful, in the sense that they are proof that planning has taken place. The planning process forces people to think through the right issues. But as for the plans themselves, Kolditz says, "They just don't work on the battlefield." So, in the 1980s the Army adapted its planning process, inventing a concept called Commander's Intent (CI).
CI is a crisp, plain-talk statement that appears at the top of every order, specifying the plan's goal, the desired end-state of an operation.
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The CI never specifies so much detail that it risks being rendered obsolete by unpredictable events. 'You can lose the ability to execute the original plan, but you never lose the responsibility of executing the intent," says Kolditz.
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Commander's Intent manages to align the behavior of soldiers at all levels without requiring play-by-play instructions from their leaders. When people know the desired destination, they're free to improvise, as needed, in arriving there.
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I could spend a lot of time enumerating every specific task, but as soon as people know what the intent is they begin generating their own solutions."
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Estamos a falar da actuação de um exército, paradigma do respeito pela hierarquia, em que falhar é, muitas vezes, morrer.

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A mim, pessoalmente, isto deixa-me a pensar...

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BTW, este conceito de "Commander's Intent" fez-me recordar Boyd e o que aprendi sobre o blitzkrieg.

• "Schwerpunkt"
• "Schwerpunkt (II)"
• "Auftragstaktik" ("Auftragstaktik encourages commanders to exhibit initiative, flexibility and improvisation while in command. In what may be seen as surprising Auftragstaktik empowers commanders to disobey orders and revise their effect as long as the intent of the commander is maintained.")
• "Parte I - os alicerces da guerra relâmpago (Blitzkrieg)"

Julgo que Seth Godin escreveu qualquer coisa como "Os líderes têm seguidores, os gestores têm empregados". Tom Peters volta e meia escreve no twitter "Os líderes não criam seguidores, geram novos líderes"

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(1)"The German army leaders “consciously traded assurance of control for assurance of self-induced action.”
These leaders developed a military cultural norm that supported and expected decisive action by subordinates in the face of uncertainty or ambiguity.

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Fundamental to the success of Aftragstaktik in the German doctrine was trust. Silva writes: “Trust between superior and subordinate is the cornerstone of mission-oriented command. The superior trusts his subordinate to exercise his judgment and creativity, to act as the situation dictates to reach the maximum goal articulated in his mission; the subordinate trusts that whatever action he takes in good faith to contribute to the good of the whole will be supported by his superior.”"

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Os líderes geram seguidores, partilham a intenção, comungam do propósito e, geram novos líderes, pois sabem que é impossível ao Grande Planeador tudo prever.

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Isto exige confiança, exige conhecimento, exige competência, exige motivação, exige responsabilidade.

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Quando facilito a descrição e documentação de um processo gosto de reflectir sobre a finalidade: Qual a finalidade do processo?

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A finalidade é o mais importante, é a razão de ser do processo. Costumo dizer que de nada serve sermos honestos e cumprirmos o procedimento se a finalidade não puder ser cumprida, seremos como os músicos do Titanic.

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(2)"“The commander’s intent describes the desired endstate. It is a concise statement of the purpose
of the operation and must be understood two levels below the level of the issuing commander. It must clearly state the purpose of the mission. It is the single unifying focus for all subordinate elements. It is not a summary of the concept of the operation.
Its purpose is to focus subordinates on what has to be accomplished in order to achieve success, even when the plan and concept no longer apply, and to discipline their efforts toward that end."

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Trechos (1) e (2) retirados de "Communicating Intent and Imparting Presence".

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Do texto "Evolution of Commander’s Intent in the US Military" retiro ainda "The decision-making process requires making assumptions, establishing estimates, developing possible solutions, analyzing and comparing possible solutions, and selecting the best situational solution." e agora imaginar uma realidade em constante mutação plena de incerteza, ambiguidade e de assimetria na informação recolhida e processada.

Agilidade e estratégia (parte II)

“de notar que a pergunta como conciliar agilidade e estratégia tem como premissa que as duas representam conceitos opostos, ou seja estratégia seria algo rígido que indica para onde vamos e agilidade seria a capacidade de mudar rapidamente de caminho. (Moi ici: Não concordo, estratégia e agilidade não são conceitos opostos. Os postais que referi, com a interpretação que Boyd fez sobre a blitzkrieg, demonstram isso. O estado-maior alemão tinha uma estratégia. Depois, de a comunicar aos seus oficiais, gente competente e treinada, deram-lhes liberdade para agir. Estes, porque eram competentes e porque conheciam a estratégia, foram ágeis em desenvolver tácticas variadas e adaptadas ao terreno e ao feedback que iam recebendo. Como eram livres tacticamente, dentro do espartilho da estratégia definida, arrasavam os inimigos que estavam à espera de uma actuação uniforme e centralizada. Há, no entanto, uma situação em que a estratégia pode começar a “plissar”: Henry Mintzberg escreveu, adoptar uma estratégia é como colocar palas aos cavalos, permite concentrar os esforços numa direcção, mas de vez em quando temos de tirar as palas, para confirmar que os pressupostos continuam válidos, sob pena de ela ter deixado de ser útil e razoável, e chocarmos violentamente contra a realidade, como tentámos explicar aqui.)

claro que posso estar a misturar 2 planos diferentes aqui, ou seja, provavelmente poderia dizer que posso ser suficientemente ágil para mudar a forma como estou a operacionalizar a minha estratégia (que continuaria a mesma) e aí poderia dizer que a agilidade era uma ferramenta para melhor executar a estratégia (Moi ici: A agilidade é uma ferramenta fundamental para executar a estratégia… convém é que a estratégia seja e continue válida.)

mas onde queria chegar mesmo tinha a ver com o facto de alguns decisões no sentido de agilizar processos e que por vezes passam pela desformalização (retirada de formalismos) de processos, aceitação de maior número de falhas potenciais (que podem não ser concretizadas) ou seja assumir maiores riscos, serem, parece-me, mal vistas por gestores que encaram a estratégia como algo mais rigido” (Moi ici: IMHO estratégia não tem necessariamente a ver com mais ou menos formalismo. Se a estratégia é preço, como no McDonalds, aí o formalismo é crítico, para uniformizar comportamentos. Se a estratégia é inovação, Tom Peters perguntaria, tem gente suficiente maluca na sua empresa? Não?! Então como vai ter produtos Uau!!!!??? Já escrevi algumas vezes no blogue sobre o perigo, para uma empresa que aposta na inovação e que adopta práticas adequadas ao negócio do preço, como aconteceu com a 3M e a implementação dos 6Sigma.)

Agilidade e estratégia

Como conciliar as duas?

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Julgo que uma boa sugestão para conciliar a ponderação necessária a uma estratégia com a agilidade e rapidez no terreno passa pelo estudo da blitzkrieg, como é que os alemães chegaram a Paris em três dias no início da II Guerra Mundial.

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Recorro aos ensinamentos e reflexão de Boyd que escrevi em tempos neste blogue: Schwerpunkt I e Schwerpunkt II.

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Neste postal explica-se o ciclo OODA "Não fugirás às dores do parto"

Blitzkrieg contra a incerteza

Há dias perguntava: Como se combate o aumento da incerteza?

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E a resposta foi: Aumentando a flexibilidade!

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E como se aumenta a flexibilidade?

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Haverá maior sinónimo de incerteza do que o início de uma batalha?

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Reflectindo sobre Boyd em tempos escrevi estas reflexões Schwerpunkt I, Schwerpunkt II e Auftragstaktik.

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O exército alemão que praticava a blitzkrieg começava primeiro por assegurar que o propósito da missão era claro e compreendido por todos, depois, dava liberdade táctica para que no terreno, perante as oportunidades encontradas, os operacionais decidissem o que fazer.

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Sabendo qual é a estratégia assegura-se a coesão do grupo, unidade teleológica. Liberdade de acção assegura decisão-acção e feedback rápido e a contra-actuação pelo inimigo não é clonável, por que um outro grupo de operacionais com que se defronte pode actuar tacticamente de forma diferente.

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Voltando ao último postal de Don Sull que comentei "Guest blog: John Brown on leadership in turbulence" destaco:

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"Strategy matters: Leaders need to understand their competitors want to do and what they might do. Every business model has strengths and weaknesses, and leaders must establish and maintain a high level of awareness of the competitive landscape and their own vulnerabilities. (Moi ici: Estabelecer uma unidade de propósito, o terreno onde queremos combater, a nossa strategic landscape: quem são os clientes-alvo; qual a nossa proposta de valor; qual o nosso mapa da estratégia, qual o nosso modelo de negócio.)

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Explain the “Why”: Employees should understand explicitly how their actions support their team’s objective and how their team supports the organization. Without this knowledge, people stand around and wait for orders. (Moi ici: Boyd diria, without this knowledge como aspirar a responder rapidamente às mensagens de resposta às nossas acções no terreno? E sem resposta rápida, existe flexibilidade? Só sabendo o porquê das coisas podemos aspirar a ter mais sensores alinhados a perscrutar o terreno.)

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Delegate: Teams must develop the habit of letting junior people make decisions and be held accountable for them in periods of relative calm, because when things heat up, the team will win or lose based on the quality of their snap judgments. (Moi ici: cá está a aposta no desenvolvimento da intuição - Kleine e Zaltman). Boyd escreveu: ""Give lower-level commanders wide freedom, within an overall mind-time-space scheme, to shape/direct their own activities so that they can exploit faster tempo/rhythm at tactical levels yet be in harmony with the larger pattern/slower rhythm associated with the more general aim and larger effort at the strategic level."

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"A medium to realize superior intent without impeding initiative of many subordinates, hence a medium through which subordinate initiative is implicitly connected to superior intent.

Implication

Schwerpunkt represents a unifying concept that provides a way to rapidly shape focus and direction of effort as well as harmonizesupport activities with combat operations, thereby permit a true decentralization of tactical command within centralized strategic guidance—without losing cohesion of overall effort.

or put another way

Schwerpunkt represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to diminish friction and compress time in order to generate a favorable mismatch in time/ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances.""

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Purge the Jerks: Bullying managers may get results in the short term, but their behavior retards the flow of information, destroys initiative, and pushes capable people away. Tolerating jerks practically guarantees failure in an environment of sustained turbulence.”" (Moi ici: como escreveu Robert Sutton "The No Asshole Rule")

Small Wins

Karl Weick, neste artigo de 1984, “Small Wins”, chama a importância para as pequenas vitórias.
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Algo que comecei a aprender com Robert Schaffer no seu livro “The Breakthrough Strategy” e que consolidei com o uso do acrónimo SMARTa para apoiar a redacção de objectivos.
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Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Responsibility
Time-framed
aligned
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Os projectos têm de ser atingíveis, têm de ser manejáveis, para isso, têm de ter uma dimensão adequada.
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O mesmo Robert Schaffer, e Harvey A. Thomson, escreveram um fabuloso artigo para a revista Harvard Business Review (Janeiro-Fevereiro de 1992), “Successful Change Programs Begin with Results”. Segundo os autores, a maior parte dos esforços de melhoria têm resultados neglicenciáveis , porque se concentram nas actividades a realizar e não nos resultados a atingir, e porque não existe nenhuma relação entre acção e consequências. Ao dedicarem-se a pequenos projectos, os gestores podem não só ver os resultados mais rapidamente como também determinar mais rapidamente o que está a resultar ou não.
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Muita gente prefere dedicar-se a grandes, a grandiosos e ambiciosos projectos. Projectos que se tornam, por isso, muito grandes, demasiado grandes e muito provavelmente monumentos à treta (parte I e parte II). (talvez uma consequência do empurrar em vez do puxar, do PDCA em vez do CAPD associado ao CASD)
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Boyd ao explicar como funcionou o conceito de blitzkrieg chamou a atenção para o conceito de schwerpunkt (parte I e parte II):
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“Schwerpunkt represents a unifying concept that provides a way to rapidly shape focus and direction of effort as well as harmonize support activities with combat operations, thereby permit a true decentralization of tactical command within centralized strategic guidance—without losing cohesion of overall effort.

or put another way

Schwerpunkt represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to diminish friction and compress time in order to generate a favorable mismatch in time/ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances."
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Horst Rittel escreveu:
“· Simple problems (problems which are already defined) are easy to solve, because defining a problem inherently defines a solution.
· The definition of a problem is subjective; it comes from a point of view. Thus, when defining problems, all stake-holders, experts, and designers are equally knowledgeable (or unknowledgeable).
· Some problems cannot be solved, because stake-holders cannot agree on the definition. These problems are called wicked, but sometimes they can be tamed.”
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Assim, tudo se encaminha para o mesmo propósito, apostar em pequenos projectos, projectos que podem ser resolvidos rapidamente, projectos que podem fornecer resultados palpáveis rapidamente, projectos que podem ser mais facilmente geridos.
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Karl Weick chama a atenção para a as pequenas vitórias associadas a pequenos projectos:
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“To recast larger problems into smaller, less arousing problems, people can identify a series of controllable opportunities of modest size that produce visible results and that can be gathered into synoptic solutions.”
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“The following analysis of small wins assumes that arousal varies among people concerned with social problems, but tends to be relatively high, which affects the quality of performance directed at these problems.”
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“Sometimes problem solving suffers from too little arousal. When people think too much or feel too powerless, issues become depersonalized. This lowers arousal, leading to inactivity or apathetic performance.
The prospect of a small win has an immediacy, tangibility, and controllability that could reverse these effects.”
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“A small win is a concrete, complete, implemented outcome of moderate importance. By itself, one small win may seem unimportant. A series of wins at small but significant tasks, however, reveals a pattern that may attract allies, deter opponents, and lower resistance to subsequent proposals. Small wins are controllable opportunities that produce visible results.”
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“Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win. When a solution is put in place, the next solvable problem often becomes more visible. This occurs because new allies bring new solutions with them and old opponents change their habits. Additional resources also flow toward winners, which means that slightly larger wins can be attempted.
It is important to realize that the next solvable problem seldom coincides with the next "logical" step as judged by a detached observer. Small wins do not combine in a neat, linear, serial form, with each step being a demonstrable step closer to some predetermined goal. More common is the circumstance where small wins are scattered and cohere only in the sense that they move in the same general direction or all move away from some deplorable condition.”
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“A series of small wins can be gathered into a retrospective summary that imputes a consistent line of development, but this post hoc construction should not be mistaken for orderly implementation. Small wins have a fragmentary character driven by opportunism and dynamically changing situations. Small wins stir up settings, which means that each subsequent attempt at another win occurs in a different context. Careful plotting of a series of wins to achieve a major change is impossible because conditions do not remain constant.”
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“Small wins provide information that facilitates learning and adaptation. Small wins are like miniature experiments that test implicit theories about resistance and opportunity and uncover both resources and barriers that were invisible before the situation was stirred up.”

Parte VII - Percorrer os ciclos OODA rapidamente

Continuado daqui: Parte I, Parte II, Parte III, Parte IV, Parte V e Parte VI.
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"The only sustainable competitive advantage is your ability to learn faster than the competitor"
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Arie de Geus, "The Living Company".