Productivity Hacks: Is Your Organization in a Fighter’s Stance?

This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers share their secrets to being more productive. See all their #productivityhacks here.

The military is, ultimately, a massive pool of human capital. That human capital must be recruited, trained, equipped, housed, fed, deployed, and given clear plans to execute. Doing each of those things is complex, but they all have one variable in common: they each take time. In the 20 century, gaining efficiency in all of these steps was the goal, and the world’s dominant militaries had these processes honed to scientific perfection. As I moved up the ranks, I became more and more capable of factoring time into any broader military context: I understood the time it took to create a qualified Ranger; the time between budget approval and new equipment arrival; the time to fully train a platoon for a combat deployment – all of this was measured and optimized.

But in the post-9/11 environment, something changed. As the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, I realized that the complexity of variables for which we needed to account, and the rate at which those variables were changing, had outstripped our advantages of efficiency. Gone almost instantly were the days of identifying a requirement on the battlefield, then surging forces or resources to fill the gap. Of course, this was still part of the process, but a myriad of other issues needed to be considered as well. What were the tribal dynamics in the region? Did Al Qaeda hold influence there? How were American military units, the State Department, aid groups, and others interacting? Even more critically, when all of those factors shifted—which they did, rapidly and continuously—how could we keep up?

All the tools I was using to solve problems were the same ones I had used my entire career—the best trained forces in the world, operating with the same highly efficient processes I knew well. But we quickly found ourselves moving from crisis to crisis and from near-term target to near-term target. It consumed my personal focus. When I was pulled into the minutia of the fight, I was unable to shape our efforts at a strategic level. I was spending the bulk of my time “putting out fires.”

Since retiring and spending time with leaders in other sectors, I have seen the same pattern unfolding. Leaders in every space can get thrown off course due to a crisis. They can lose sight of their strategic priorities as the day-to-day fight to survive takes hold. But every decision taken by a leader burns resources, the most important of which is time. Given the constant change facing today’s businesses, deploying two-dimensional optimization processes can still lead to wasted time.

So how can leaders maintain strategic focus? For our special operations forces in Iraq, one key was to establish a Battle Rhythm— a steady cadence for the organization. This involved holding a repeating series of constantly refined key communication forums for information sharing and decision-making; but each focused around and specifically aligned against our strategic objective of defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The meetings occurred without fail. At first blush, a Battle Rhythm might appear to be the height of inefficiency – meetings for meetings’ sake. It is anything but that. Our battle rhythm became the breath of our organization. In the body, during crisis, oxygen continues to feed brain and muscle functions. (If you had to force yourself to think about making your heart beat and your lungs breathe, it would be difficult to tackle your other problems). A good Battle Rhythm helps an organization maintain its "fighter's stance," providing stability and balance, allowing it to constantly assess and react to the inevitable challenges that arise. If nothing else, a Battle Rhythm gave our organization plentiful, predictable opportunities to align on a common objective. There may have been days where it would have been more efficient to cancel our daily, hours-long Operations and Intelligence Update, but repetition made that meeting an institution unto itself, an investment of timethat improved our ability to align and adapt.

With a battle rhythm established, my team developed a critical productivity tool: the Synchronization Matrix (or “Sync Matrix” as we called it). The Sync Matrix was an enterprise-wide Gantt chart-like display, onto which we plotted all of our “Battle Rhythm events.”

But instead of simply tracking linear processes and sequencing them in time, we used our Synch Matrix to pull in all of the new variables that made the environment so complex. Political cycles, key historic dates, and important religious remembrances were displayed—anything we thought would help us apply pressure to the enemy. Against the backdrop of our deeply-internalized Battle Rhythm, future requirements or conflicts for potential resources would be highlighted. We used the tool to rank different efforts in descending order of importance, and matched them to resources, milestones, and manning requirements. We were able to visually highlight the effects of any change of focus. Grasping information from the Sync Matrix became intuitive to any observer, not just its creators.

While a Battle Rhythm might seem merely like a strict calendar or meeting schedule, in reality it is far more, and that the necessity for it inhered in the complexity and fluidity of our operations. Likewise, the concept of the Sync Matrix seems basic. But it isn’t just a calendar visualization. We now work to design Battle Rhythms and Synch Matrixes for civilian and business organizations with which we work; in every case, the practices only become truly valuable when they are used to mesh an organization’s operations along with the layers of factors and flux in its environment, enabling accurate prioritization and de-confliction over time.

Operating on a Battle Rhythm and using a Synch Matrix require one core ingredient: discipline. In today’s world, these sorts of practices are necessary. To reclaim their time, leaders need to adapt to the information age. Developing your own Battle Rhythm and Sync Matrix can be your way of moving beyond a culture of crisis, to a culture of strategic success – and put your organization in its fighter’s stance.

Photo: Ultimate Boxing Bags / Flickr