Giving a team enough structure to carry out a mission but enough flexibility to respond to changing circumstances is called commander’s intent—a military term first applied to the Germans who were trying to defeat Napoleon. If you’ve ever been on the inside of a business where employees can’t take action until everything is approved by their boss, you’re seeing what happens without commander’s intent. There’s a single point of failure. If something happens to the boss, the business and mission fail. Commander’s intent empowers each person on a team to initiate and improvise as they’re
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