Don’t think about how hard it is to turn a large ship.
You’re the pilot of a jet fighter, moving forward in a straight line significantly faster than the speed of sound. But, in aerial combat, how quickly and how sharply could you turn?
The ability to do just that, to maneuver, is certainly a function of the pilot’s training and experience. But unless the aircraft was designed for high maneuverability, as opposed to simply for forward speed, even the best training and the best experience would not be enough to guarantee an advantage.
The late Air Force Col. John Boyd was instrumental in advocating that jet fighters be made maneuverable. At the time, the thinking was that maneuverability was outdated; in favor was a design (eventually the F-15) for a plane that was near twice as fast but also much heavier and, as a result, far less maneuverable.
Over time, Boyd’s thinking prevailed and became an important element in future fighter plane design, even if not completely implemented.
The underlying rationale is equally applicable to you as a medical group leader.
Boyd wasn’t a technician, an aeronautical engineer. He was a strategist, considered by many to be the second greatest military strategist to have lived, right behind Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War.
Maneuverability was key to Boyd’s strategic thinking, represented most famously by his concept of the OODA loop.
In simplified form, the loop consists of observing, orienting, deciding and acting. (The OODA loop is actually much more complex with various internal feedback mechanisms). The point, however, is that the competitor who can cycle faster through the loop gains a tremendous strategic advantage over its opponent.
The concept is used, well, should be used, in all negotiations and it’s certainly used in connection with litigation, at least by those who understand the concept and the tremendous advantage it provides. Let the other guy fly by the seat of his pants and you can beat the pants off of him.
Similarly, unless your business in general is set up to take advantage of faster cycling through the loop, it’s a prisoner of its current direction. That necessitates that decisions, quick decisions, be made by one or a very small number of leaders – there’s no time to take a vote or seek a consensus.
As we come out of the economic crisis resulting from the pandemic, use the opportunity to redesign your group to take advantage of OODA loop thinking.
Don’t, by lethargy, dismissiveness, or delusion, be a jet fighter limited to using speed to combat an enemy, a dragster trying to navigate a Formula 1 course, or, dare I say it, a large cruise ship attempting to avoid an iceberg.
