Example – US forces playing the enemy in war-games
In Blink, Malcom Gladwell talks about meeting a solider who helped prepare the US army for the second US war in Iraq. His name was Paul Van Riper. His job was to play the opposition in a war game; a war game that he ended up winning against the best of the US army. During the preparation for the war game, Van Riper taught his subordinates to think independently, giving them objectives, and telling them that during the attack, he would not be able to communicate easily with them. He also, unexpectedly, went on the offensive. In the war-game, he trounced the US forces. In the July-August 2005 Harvard Business Review, called “Learning in the thick of it“, Marilyn Darling, Charles Parry and Joseph Moore detail how this might not actually be a fluke occurrence. Instead, it happens regularly when the U.S. Army conducts training exercises. A brigade of 2,500 called Opposing Force, OPFOR, is thrown against a technically superior and larger numbered Blue Force, or BLUFOR. BLUFOR are the troops being trained. OPFOR usually wins. There is, of course, a lot that goes into explaining why OPFOR succeeds so often, but one of the main reasons appears to be the way in which the senior commanders of OPFOR communicate with their junior commanders and the degree to which the senior commanders encourage the junior commanders to act independently. OPFOR uses a highly structured way of communicating strategy called the “operational orders”. It has four components: Task, Purpose, Commander’s Intent, and desired End State. Effectively, it breaks down to this:
- This is what I want you to do.
- This is why I want you to do it.
- If you cannot accomplish what I asked, here is the big picture of what we as a team are trying to accomplish. Either figure out another way to get your job done, or come to me with ideas about how we can accomplish the strategic goals.
- This is what our final strategic goal is.
The most interesting thing about OPFOR’s approach is that the senior commanders are relinquishing tactical control to their junior commanders. However, before they do this, they give the junior commanders all the information necessary to get the job done, and especially, all the information and independence necessary to react to changing circumstance and still develop innovative solutions.
There is a good chance that Van Riper was using OPFOR’s approach. Certainly, the success he derived from working to encourage his subordinates to act independently is very similar.
The useful thing about OPFOR’s approach, and Van Riper’s approach, is that it is easy to mimic.
I read “Blink,” and liked it… but found much of it to be self-contradictory. That being said, I very much enjoyed the part about the army’s war games you discuss in this post.
Innovation and creativity have always been like a fulcrum in many competitive equations, whether they be in business, sports or warfare. The side with the best ideas often vanquishes the side with the bigger army, budget, defensive line.
Some military historians focus on technology, to the exclusion of tactics, when they discuss innovation. It’s an easier discussion, and often more entertaining. There are certainly better visuals on “The History Channel.” But there are many, many times throughout the centuries where the difference in a battle, war or between two competing cultures came not from a better weapon… but from a better “way.”
Creativity… innovation… is the way of finding the ways.
Great blog. Keep it up.