O “Mendelian executive” - a intencionalidade na busca de uma resposta (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II. e parte III.

"Mattis reads Roman writers like Marcus Aurelius, but he is no stoic. Decade after decade he is touring some front or another, starting a million affectionate conversations. “How’s it going?” “Living the dream, sir,” is how those conversations begin. He trusts his Marines enough to delegate authority down. He clearly expresses a commander’s intent in any situation and gives them latitude to adapt to circumstances. [Moi ici: Recordar a importância da "commander's intent" (aqui, aqui e aqui)]
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Love is a motivational state. It propels you. You want to make promises to the person or organization you love. Character is forged in the keeping of those promises. If, on the other hand, you are unable to love and be loved, you’re never going to be in a position to make commitments or live up to them. You’re never going to forge yourself into a person who can be relied upon.
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Much of the work is intellectual. He thought the second Iraq war was a crazy idea, but when he was ordered to command part of it, he started reading Xenophon and ancient books about warfare in Mesopotamia.
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“If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you,” Mattis and West write."[Moi ici: Daqui - "Aprendemos com o que reflectimos, com o que vemos/lemos e com o que experimentamos.]

Trechos retirados de "The Man Trump Wishes He Were"

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.

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

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""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.
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Many armies fail because they put all their emphasis into creating a plan that becomes useless ten minutes into the battle."
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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.