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

by Chet Richards

Although “mutual trust” gives us all a soft, warm feeling, how does it actually help win? Simply, it speeds execution of OODA loops. The reason? For starters, it permits implicit communication among team members, where very little needs to be written down. Obviously, people can communicate this way much faster than through any form of writing—it’s much quicker not to say something than to spell it out in detail. Implicit communication, with enough mutual experience, can provide more information more accurately as well. A raised eyebrow, a subtle change in inflection, a barely-noticed hesitation—these mean something if you have worked together long enough to read them. You learn when the boss is speaking rhetorically and when s/he is really serious, where you can improvise and where you’d best stick to the straight-and-narrow. And this wealth of information transmits in an instant, but only implicitly. On the other hand, explicit forms are often used not to communicate but to document, not to inform but to protect oneself. You may have been in organizations where everybody documented everything. My guess is that you did not notice much trust.