Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

by Robert Coram

Aerial combat is brutally unforgiving. To come in second place is to die, usually in a rather spectacular manner. Most casualties never know they are targets until they are riddled with bullets, covered with flames, and on the way to creating a big hole in the ground.

Great description

the airplane for its true purpose: a gun platform. There is nothing sophisticated about sneaking up on someone and killing him. Aerial combat is a blood sport, a knife in the dark. Winners live and losers die. Boyd instinctively knew this and his flying was, from the beginning, that of the

“You gotta challenge all assumptions. If you don’t, what is doctrine on day one becomes dogma forever after.” Boyd wanted

when doctrine turns to dogma

judge people by what they do and not what they say they will do. The

Great Rule

And when managers lead an army it is their nature to cast blame rather than to accept responsibility. The senior

This is true of all business

that whoever can handle the quickest rate of change is the one who survives.

“You must have inductive thinking,” he said again and again to the Marines. “There is not just one solution to a problem,” he said. “There are two or three or five ways to solve a problem. Never commit to a single solution.”