John Boyd and the Boyd Cycle

Col. John Boyd was a pilot, instructor, and military strategist.  He is credited with writing the first air combat manual for Air Force pilots.  He wrote the manual after exhaustive study and the model for air combat that he developed was elegant in its simplicity.  He wrote that there were four basic steps involved in a dogfight (aerial combat between airplanes).  The pilot must observe what’s happening around him.  He must then make sense of what he sees, in other word, orient himself to the situation.  He must then decide what to do.  In the fourth step, he has to act on his decision.  Then the process starts again.  Boyd proposed that the pilot who effectively cycle through this process faster than his opponent would ultimately gain a lethal competitive advantage.

This cycle of Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act became known as the Boyd Cycle or the OODA loop. Over time it became clear that the implications of his theories reached well beyond air combat into any competitive situation.   Eventually Boyd’s thinking was adopted by many American businesses as a lens through which to consider the competitive marketplace.  Its simple elegance has given it durability as well as applicability for turning people into fierce competitors.

For more information visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)

At Syntient, we use Col. Boyd’s thinking to help turn your organization into a more successful competitor.  To increase your competitiveness your whole organization needs to learn to think together.  It starts by using all of what you observe.  Think of it as gathering and disseminating intelligence.  Whether it is your sales force in the field, customer service people interacting with your customers or your marketers surveying the competitive landscape, your people have knowledge and experience that needs to be fed into the organization’s thinking.  Too often, too much of this is lost.   However, the company that clearly sees what’s happening in its environment is best positioned to capitalize on early trends and developing conditions.  This doesn’t just happen.  Your people must be led to develop these skills and use these insights in a coordinated way.

Once the observations have been captured, they must be interpreted in relation to your business plan.  The fewer people who understand your plan the lower are the odds that your organization can orient itself to this new information.   This requires work far beyond a planning retreat.   Done well, it turns your plan into a living document which allows adaptation to changing circumstance as they affect your plans.

To be a great competitor, you must be able to make quick and sound decisions based on what it knows as soon as it knows it.   You must be able to decide what to do, and to be able to ensure that those decisions are on target.  This involves helping your organization learn to think collaboratively and from an enterprise perspective.  It doesn’t just happen.

Finally, your organization needs to quickly and effectively execute the decisions that you make.  You must act in an organized, purposeful way.  You must act forcefully.  The organization must act in a focused, coordinated way to outdo your competition.

Syntient can help you turn your organization into a fierce competitor rather than staying just one of the crowd.