Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business

by Chet Richards

In any case, what’s the big deal about meeting or missing a goal? A goal is an intention at a point in time. It is, to a large extent, an arbitrary target, whether you set it or someone above you assigns it. And we all know that numerical goals can be gamed, like banking (delaying) sales that we could have made this quarter to help us make quota next quarter. Unlike a Schwerpunkt, which gives focus and direction for chaotic and uncertain situations, what does a goal tell you? Just keep your head down and continue plugging away?

“We set directions rather than goals.”138

Organizations should tread near the edge of the future, making it up as they go along, with as much sensitivity, awareness, knowledge, compassion, feeling, and beauty as they can muster.139

Basically, I would say that because of our evolutionary concept, whatever we were doing becomes the benchmark for what we do next. We hold onto what we were doing so that it becomes maintainable and it is the new steady state.140

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.143

Schwerpunkt: Summary However you define the Schwerpunkt for your organization, here are some ideas for you to consider: • It has to actually provide focus and direction. It has to give real and actionable guidance in situations where there is no formal direction. This is what distinguishes a Schwerpunkt from a “vision statement.” • It must contribute to an outward focus, towards the customer and the marketplace. The last thing you need is another device that drives your attention inward, which is the problem with so many “goals.” Always keep in mind: “We will crush, squash, butcher, slaughter, etc. Yamaha!” and “The length of time between when a customer orders a Toyota and when s/he receives it.” • Your focus should reinforce mutual trust. You must make sure that it flows down to every member of your organization. This makes it a powerful tool of “control” in the best sense of helping people make the right decisions, in turbulent times, without destroying their initiatives. • Finally, people in every organization at every level within the company must understand the concept and use it to run their affairs. As I’ve said so many times, the key is: study it, believe it, and then promote those who use it and remove those who do not, and this starts at the top.

individual and work up (Boyd always did prefer the bottom-up approach.) Individuals

A garden analogy may help summarize implementing Boyd’s operational climate. The duty of senior managers is to design the garden, decide what they want to grow, and prepare the proper conditions. Obviously to do this well, they must be highly experienced gardeners, with a sure feel for the soil conditions, the nature of their plants, the climate, and the local rabbit population. Once conditions are right and seeds are in the ground, the plants grow themselves—bottom up, as Boyd used to emphasize. With seeds planted, and favorable climate and soil conditions, the “system” implements itself. The gardeners must work the plot, checking the condition of the plants, and always ensuring that conditions for growth are as favorable as possible—even a moment’s inattention can mean disaster. And most important, weeds must be removed, no matter how tall they grow.154

Delta Airlines’ slogan for many years was, “Delta gets you there.” One should certainly hope so, placing this curious marketing pitch into the category of pure cheng. So let’s pick on the airline industry. If you’re a high roller with some airline, call your 1-800 telephone number to make a reservation. Try your web site. Stand in line to check in. Check a suitcase. Fly coach. Try to change a reservation. What do you think? Excited by your own stuff? Any sign of magical pizzazz there? Any reason anybody with a choice would do it again? And while you’re back there in coach, talk to people. Don’t limit your observations to fishing for what’s wrong, since that’s a shortfall in meeting their expectations. Important stuff, but cheng, not ch’i. You have to be much more subtle and creative. Somewhere there’s a spark, some “Eureka!” that will cause people to choose you over Continental or even Southwest and pay more to do it.

Boyd called this, “building snowmobiles,” from an observation that a snowmobile is made up from pieces of other things (treads from a tractor, engine from an outboard motor, etc.) that someone in a spark of creativity visualized could be ripped apart and put back together to serve this new purpose. His final “Metaphorical Message” was that A winner is someone (individual or group) that can build snowmobiles, and employ them in an appropriate fashion, when facing uncertainty and unpredictable change.