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August 30 - August 30, 2018
Malcolm Gladwell skillfully demonstrates in his book Outliers,
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Every situation must be considered potentially dangerous, and you must be constantly ready to take action if a threat emerges.
There’s no way to tell from one Marine to the next who will have the keenness of intellect to make good decisions on the battlefield and who will fail. Currently, it’s not entirely based on the training they receive. A Marine’s ability to make decisions is mostly due to his or her life and experiences. The Marine cannot control much of this. Some Marines can quickly identify certain patterns in Afghanistan because they have, for instance, experiences staying safe in dangerous areas of New York or L.A. They have what we call “thick file folders,” a significant amount of relatable experiences
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However, just as BAMCIS simply tells a Marine to begin and complete a plan without teaching them how to plan, OODA states that a decision must be made without explaining how to make that decision or what Marines should be seeking to decide intelligently.
PITFALL OF OODA
The problem for Marines is that analytical decision-making is neither practical nor useful in the high-stress situations encountered while on patrol: whether to shoot or not in a matter of milliseconds, whether to travel a particular stretch of road, whether to go on the alert when passing a group of villagers.
Decision making
A good heuristic decision is made by 1) knowing what to look for, 2) knowing when enough information is enough (the “threshold of decision”), and 3) knowing what decision to make.
Decison making
Gary Klein is a renowned and expert researcher on decision-making and cites the following aspects that experts have the ability to see which novices do not.196 1. Experts see patterns that novices do not detect. 2. Experts see anomalies—events that did not happen. 3. Experts see the big picture (situational awareness). 4. Experts create opportunities and improvisations. 5. Experts have the ability to predict future events using their previous experiences. 6. Experts see differences too small for novices to detect. 7. Experts know their own limitations.
