Operation Black Tornedo

We are living in VUCA world . VUCA is the new normal.

I got my answers when I observed and analyzed the way the Indian Armed forces operates.

Be it first contact with the enemy, floods, earthquake, child going into the borewell , Army does it all.

Today, with the help of a case study I would like to share some insights of how this prestigious 125 year old organization called indian Army operates , lead in VUCA situations.

Let me share some of my observations about this 125 years old organization that has been producing true agile squads and operates in truly agile fashion

.26/11

Now, let me take a case study of one of the missions of Indian armed forces to share my learnings and observation further.

Let me take 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, India as a case study

This is core action group drawn out of Indian Army.

How one of the Indian special action force called National security Guard ( NSG) dealt with this super VUCA situation 

NSG commandoes work on deputation basis, that means Commanding officer along with 60-70 percent of team members were completely new to each other.

Before they have taken the charge they were asked to be on hot standby that lasted after 14 hours. That means they have to be on their toes for fourteen hours as they can be launched into the mission at any moment. That means in these fourteen hours they cannot move a bit for any other activity but patiently wait for further instructions

When they were launched into the mission it was told to NSG commandos that it is not one mission but three different missions of equal priority to be executed in parallel.

Till then, they were trained to operate in one mission at a time. But as situation demanded, they split into three different teams and operated simultaneously despite of the fact that they were structured in command and control manner, all processes and communication equipment etc. designed for executing one mission at a time.

They were not trained for operating inside buildings like Hotel Taj & Oberoi . It was completely unfamiliar terrain for them. They were not familiar with the floor plan and design of the building, they followed empirical approach by experimenting each and every step / approach and inspecting and adapting on the fly in real time.

Now , point to be noted here is, in any of these hotel rooms there can be tourist, there can be terrorist and there can be tourist with terrorists. Commandos have got split of a second to decide whether to shoot or not. Just imagine the degree of difficulty, caution and alertness they have to face in order to open each and every room one after the other.

If we add up all such room opening drills across the world in last 2 decades, we won’t match what NSG commandoes accomplished during that operation. They conducted room opening drill into more than 1000 rooms during that operation in 72 hours flat.

This is considered to be a text book operation in the history of Room opening drills and search and rescue operations where there was not a single civilian casualty or collateral casualty happened after NSG took over.

However two commandoes lost their lives, one of them was commissioned officer who lost his life while saving his subordinate. That also shows the leadership qualities being inculcated within these forces so that a leader leads from the front and on the ground. A Leader dies first before any of his team member dies. Leaders do not exist in cabins and boardrooms, they exist on the ground. 2:1 ratio

Various combat teams from more than 25 countries have visited India till date to study about how this operation was done in state of the art manner.

Let me share some of the Essential principles that Indian army teaches to their young officers in order to prepare them for battle and deal successfully with any VUCA situations:

Principle One - How to assume orders when there are no orders:

Every team member must know the strategic intent of the mission they are into, so that in worst case when there is no commander to provide orders they should be able to assume orders and execute mission successfully.

Principle Two - Every team member should be able to do one level up :

You should be trained as you should be for your regular book of work , but you should also be trained to be able to command one level up.

So a section commander who commands 10 men should also be trained to command platoon of 40 men. A platoon commander who commands 40 men should also be trained to command company of 180 men. Similarly a company commander to battalion commander to brigade commander and so on and so forth.

Principle Three - Develop Muscle memory :

You should focus on your core drills and battle procedure in such a way that it should become your muscle memory .

As an analogy, Boxing is compulsory to an extent For young officers in Indian Military Academy. They are asked to practice boxing rigorously for 4-5 hours continuously and when the trainees are in no position to lift their hands any more , they are asked to go down to the floor and put their finger on the floor and revolve around the finger 20 times. Again come up and start practicing and then again go down for 20 revolutions around the finger. So on and so forth. It makes them completely dizzy.

Initially trainees don’t get any clue of why this kind of insane exercise, until they go to the boxing ring and opponent hit them on the face to knock them off. But instead of being knocked out, in this condition when they are supposed to be dizzying, suddenly they get back and come up strong with continuous punches for their opponent.

 In the battle field or VUCA situations, it is your muscle memory that serves you well when everything fails.

Thus, it is the job of a leader that they should make their teams sweat in peace … sweat in peace … sweat in peace , so they won't bleed in wars.

Principle Four : Improvisation and innovation on the fly :

There are countless examples of improvisation and innovation on the fly during this operation and one of them took place while executing evacuation drills.

In The Taj hotel, while evacuation operation was going on and all tourists and hotel staff were being evacuated, there was a need of suppressive fire from outside of Taj so that terrorists occupying upper floors would not interfere in evacuation drills. The challenge was, there is wide and open sea in front of The Taj and no suitable place where you can stand and dominate upper floors of Taj providing cover fire.

IN such a challenging situation commandos used porches of fire brigades and kept them mobile to stand and provide cover fire.