Doctrine and Strategy - A Symbiotic Relationship

Background

My belief is that if an organisation rushes in to develop its strategy, or worse – jump straight into budgeting as most do – without it being founded on proper doctrine, it is doomed to failure, or at best less than proper implementation.

During my consulting interventions I’ve also been quite amazed by the fact that relatively few organisations understand what doctrine is. So let’s interrogate the concept a bit further.

It seems as if the initial use of the term may have had a religious connotation from centuries back, during the development of the primitive church. It shares its roots with concepts like dogma and didaskalia – the sum of teachings (Greek). The principle manifestation of the concept in its religious application may be found in the belief system surrounding The Holy Trinity.

The Modern Context

Fast forward 2000 years or so, and we find that there is still some similarity between how the concept finds expression nowadays compared to ancient times, especially as far as the issue of teaching is concerned.

That authoritative source, Wikipedia, defines doctrine as: "…a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief system."

The US Army’s take on the concept is as follows: "Doctrine is validated principles, tactics, techniques, procedures, and terms and symbols that the force can apply."

The Unites States and South African Air Power doctrines (the latter which I had a hand in developing) suggest that "doctrine is a body of central beliefs concerning the use of air power capabilities. It guides the application of air power resources in support of warfighting objectives. Doctrine is derived from past experience, but it must be written with an eye towards future changes. Although authoritative in nature, doctrine is a guide – not a prescription – and requires judgment in its use." (Some parts of this definition may be paraphrased, and also apply to some other Air Forces).

Doctrine therefore describes how a job should be done in the pursuit of organisational goals (as defined). It suggests the best way to operationalise strategy. But doctrine and strategy are really two sides of the same coin, because while doctrine outlines how a job should be done, strategy defines how it will be done.

But why is this? Because of the following rationale:

• Strategy is composed of Ends (Objectives), Ways (How), and Means (Resources).
• Doctrine, on the other hand, rests on three legs – Experience (Practice), Theory, and Technology - see Figure below for a schematic of the Doctrinal Triad.
• It should be clear that matters related to Experience (the Strategy Context), Technology, and Theory are fundamental issues that need to be explored when Strategising in any organisation. In fact, these normally form part of the strategic assumptions formulation part of strategising, especially as far as investigating developments within the well-known PESTLE dimensions.

Let us further illustrate the synergies by means of a practical example – the development of Air Power Doctrine.

• Da Vinci already had more than a passing idea (Theory) that man could fly, but technological limitations of the day militated against that becoming a reality. It was only when Technology (thanks largely to the industrial revolution) had caught up, that the Wright brothers could make this a reality in 1903. After that, experimenting (Experience) with different types of technology and contexts (like the First World War) rapidly allowed for new Theories about how air power could be utilised.
• These theories were tested in war and other conditions, and the experiences obtained reinforced ideas (Theory) about how air power could, or should be utilised, which eventually became reality (new Experiences through breakthroughs in Technology). The rest, as they say, is history.

So Doctrine equates to best practise. And we would all like to implement best practise in our organisations. The only problem is that best practise can be very expensive. So economic realities prevent many organisations from strategising for best practise (doctrinal) implementation, although they may be aware of what it is. They therefore cut their cloth accordingly.

But not having a doctrine severely limits the integrity of the strategising process, because there is really no benchmark against which to measure own ambitions, even if you are not going to implement it per se.

Finally, from a doctrinal point of view - within the new interconnected and fluid business world, there is a requirement to think differently, and whatever is done needs to subscribe to five primary tenets:

• It needs to be fully networked (Technology);
• It needs to be effects-based/oriented (Theory);
• All capabilities need to be tied into a coherently joint framework, not operating in silo-like fashion (Theory and Technology);
• It needs to optimally employ knowledge-centric principles, i.e. employing the concepts of knowledge management, leveraging the unique skills and knowledge of all relevant role-players (Theory and Experience), and
• It needs to take Lessons Learned (Experience) into account, and mould its strategy accordingly.

So doctrine is a cardinal starting point for strategising. During planning the following are the relevant Intellectual Exercises, and related Outputs, that really are non-negotiable for proper strategy implementation: