This is a new category that I am really excited about here at FJ. Colonel John Boyd is highly inspirational not only to me, but to thousands out there that are into radical thought processes and winning the fight. He also was able to change the Pentagon from the inside out with his ideas, which says a lot about his ideas. So in celebration of his ‘building snowmobiles’ concept, I will try to find the various idea people out there that are putting the pieces together to win.
Also, if you want to get a good sense of what Boyd was about, there are several videos and audio recordings of him and his briefings. Just click here to check them out.
This article below, is a prime example of an idea guy ‘building snowmobiles’ out of Boyd’s OODA Loop. In the future, I will seek out individuals who are creating new ideas out of the various pieces out there. How this applies to the security industry, is that we are always trying to assemble the pieces in our area of operations and put them together to find solutions to defeat the enemy. To us, winning is protecting our client.
In a larger sense, security companies are also building snowmobiles by winning bids on contracts. They do this by constantly constructing plans and strategies within their own organizations to be more efficient and cost effective than the next guy. And companies are constantly reworking their capabilities(building snowmobiles) and doing their best to deliver excellent services so they can keep those contracts.
On a personal level, we as security professionals are constantly evolving. We must never say we are an expert, because that would imply that we know everything there is to know about a subject. Instead you should always have the mind frame of having a firm foundation with the concepts, but always willing to look outward and inward and learn. To continue to learn about yourself and to learn about your enemy. And we are always taking all of this information and assembling it into what we are and how we do business or basically building snowmobiles. –Head Jundi
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(This is the break down of the building snowmobiles thought experiment by one of Boyd’s associates.)
On to the experiment. Imagine four scenarios: someone skiing, someone power-boating, someone bicycling, and a boy playing with a toy tank. Break down each domain into its component parts: For skiing, there would be snow, chairlifts, skis, hot chocolate, and so on. Within their domain, the parts have directly identifiable relationships with one another. But scramble together the parts from the four domains, and suddenly it’s hard to determine any relationships at all. We are thrown into chaos.
Now, Spinney instructs, take one part from each scene: From skiing, select the skis; from power boating, the motor; from bicycling, the handlebars; and from the boy with his toy tank, the treads. What do these elements have to do with one another? At first, seemingly nothing — because we still think of them in terms of their original domains. But bring the parts together, and you’ve used your creative pattern-recognition skills to build … a snowmobile! “A winner,” Boyd concluded, “is someone who can build snowmobiles … when facing uncertainty and unpredictable change.”
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OODA Loop and You
February 24, 2007
by Robert Greene
A few weeks ago I gave a talk at a company convention in southern California. This company has offices worldwide, is very successful in its line of work, but on the horizon are some dangers. They brought me in to address those dangers. The specifics here do not matter much, only to say that, like a lot of companies that were successful in the 80s and on up to the present, they have come to rely upon a particular business model that is part circumstance and part design.
Loosely put, their upper-tier employees operate more like entrepreneurs, each one out for him or herself. Each office tends to think of itself as an island, competing with the other branches across the globe. This works to some extent, as these entrepreneurs are very motivated to expand the business. On the other hand, it makes it very difficult to create an overall esprit de corps.
