Understanding the O.O.D.A. Loop

The more you study law enforcement training related websites and articles, the more you are likely to see the term O-O-D-A loop. By now many officers know that this is a term that was coined by Retired/Deceased United States Air Force Col. John Boyd while he was researching military history, the dynamics of fighter jets and how fighter pilots can win in aerial combat. Unfortunately, the term is often only used as a “catch phrase” in training, often overlooked and, much like its creator, too often misunderstood. Col. Boyd was a true mental warrior who relentlessly studied the art of war, how to implement superior tactics and human nature. Col. Boyd was reportedly a man who slept very little and was absolutely driven by his cause. Col. Boyd, while part of the military system, often bucked the system for the good of the Air Force and the warriors who serve this country. 

Col. Boyd first presented the O-O-D-A loop in his lecture series commonly called Patterns of Conflict. One of Col. Boyd’s many nicknames was“40-second Boyd” because of his ability to engage pilots in simulated dog fights and to be on their tail, from an initial position of disadvantage, for the kill in less than 40 seconds. If Boyd had ever lost one of these contests he would have had to pay the other pilot $40.00, but Boyd reportedly never lost and never had to pay, although there was one tie. Boyd was able to physically defeat his adversaries by understanding and mastering the physical capabilities of the airplanes that he flew, often by pushing those limitations further than other pilots, and by anticipating what move his opponent would likely make before he attempted to make it. In short, Col. Boyd not only understood his O-O-D-A loop and what he was capable of, but he also clearly understood his opponent’s O-O-D-A loop and what his opponent was physically capable of doing. 

The O-O-D-A loop is a simple yet complex understanding of how the human brain processes information and how humans react. It stands for Observe-Orient-Decide-Act. First, we observe what is going on around us using our senses. Next, we orient to what is going on around us by using information that we just observed and putting it into context with information rooted in our long-term memory. The information hidden in your long-term memory that is utilized in order to put the new information into context may come from training, both good and bad life experiences and your genetic heritage. After processing this information you must come to a conclusion about our surroundings and you must make decisions on how to act or react.

The final stage, if there truly is one, is the physical action. In order to process through the O-O-D-A loop, you must perform a physical action to implement the decision you have made. If your action is appropriate and effective you begin to gain the upper hand and can often process through more O-O-D-A loop cycles at a faster tempo, ultimately leading to victory. On the other hand, failing to act, or failing to act quickly and appropriately, will often cause failure. The more failures you suffer without being able to gain an advantage, the more likely you are to have less effective physical and mental performance. With that being the case, every time you cycle through the O-O-D-A loop you are at more of a disadvantage than the last time. Col. Boyd clearly understood this concept and also understood that you can, through proper training, experience and proper forethought, maximize your ability to be victorious. One of the biggest things that Col. Boyd’s O-O-D-A loop can teach law enforcement officers is that their survival skills, whether it be firearms training, defensive tactics training or street survival, is that the actual survival skill must be properly encoded into memory. 

In a life or death situation we need to be able to process through the O-O-D-A loop as quickly and effectively as possible in order to increase our odds of survival and triumph. Boyd realized that the quickest way to process through the O-O-D-A loop was to quickly orient to what was happening and virtually bypass the decision making process by already knowing what action to take based on the stimulus you are faced with, or are likely going to be faced with. Boyd called this process of bypassing steps of the O-O-D-A loop “implicit guidance and control.” Col. Boyd’s “implicit guidance and control” is an unconscious preplanned physical response to a known threat stimulus, which is often referred to by psychologists today as a “learned automatic response.” Some experts also refer to this as a “threat stimulus response pairing.”

In order for survival skills training to truly be effective, training needs to be capable of rooting its goal, purpose, tactic or maneuver into the officer’s long-term memory. According to Psychologist E.R. Guthrie, “A skill consists of the ability to bring about some end result with maximum certainty and minimum outlay of energy, or of time and energy.” For our purposes in law enforcement this seems to be a perfect definition of a skill because we must continue to face countless dangers, seen and unseen, and be able to bring about a proper end result with maximum certainty as quickly and safely as possible. Failure for us to do so can end in tragedy and/or unnecessary danger to the public at large.

Building these skill sets can often be accomplished by using repetitive, emotionally based interactive training that utilizes at least two human senses and is relevant to the trainee. When a skill set is encoded into your long-term memory, the body is physically building synaptic connections between brain cells. These connections help form your unconscious memory and, much like the physical training itself, the more you exercise your brain the stronger the connections become. This process can include both physical and mental training.

An easy way to understand this is to imagine two bridges representing these synaptic connections in your mind. The first bridge is a rickety old rope bridge with missing planks to walk on. The bridge sways high above the bottom of a deep cavern and it creaks in the wind. The bridge is there because you built it in one day, but you did not put the proper effort into building it. The failure to properly maintain the bridge over the years has also caused it to become more and more unstable; the ropes are rotting and the connections are weak. Unfortunately, the only reason you built the bridge was because you were told to do so by a skill set instructor, and you only had to walk across it one time by taking baby steps in order to show you could. This unfortunately happens all the time in law enforcement when officers and trainers don’t think the bridge will actually have to be used to survive. 

On the other hand, the second bridge is a large, multi-lane highway span that you and your brain can race across. When you built this bridge you put lots of time, effort and physical expense into its completion, and you understand that you must properly maintain it so that it too does not deteriorate. You had expert help in building it to make certain all the connections are correct and the bridge does not fail you. You built it because you understood the need to do so, and you have most likely raced across it at least once at work, or have at least envisioned racing across it often while mentally preparing for your survival.

To understand why we want the skill sets and bridges built into your long-term unconscious memory, you should be familiar with the Theory of Schema which states that “The conscious mind is slow and the unconscious mind is fast.” According to this theory, if you have to think before reacting, your body will suffer approximately a ?- second delay. On the other hand, if you unconsciously react to a threat or stimulus, your reaction time is only approximately 1/10th of a second.

With these pictures in your mind, simply think about which bridge you want your brain and your trained survival skill set to have to race across while engaging someone who is determined on taking your life in a dark, cold alley. I, for one, want that needed survival skill to be a high speed race car on an open highway unless, of course, I can maximize my training and preparation even further and anticipate how to make it a preplanned air strike waiting to be activated.

When you have a greater understanding of how your O-O-D-A loop works, how skills training is set into your long-term unconscious memory and how these can affect your physical response to a threat stimulus, it is easier to understand the need for proper skills training. Not only can the training assist you in properly orienting and responding to a threat, it can help you avoid improper responses.

Unfortunately, officers are sometimes improperly trained, or bad habits are not corrected and instead allowed to continue in training. When this happens officers are unfairly placed in situations which may lead to ultimate failure and loss. Take, for example, the tragic story in Colorado where an officer was involved in a deadly gun battle with an armed assailant and reportedly fired at the assailant at distance from the high-tuck position. This improper, most likely unconscious response, allowed the firearm to entangle with the officer’s uniform, causing the officer’s gun to jam. Unable to quickly fix the jam the officer was executed by an advancing assailant who was more than willing to take advantage of the situation. The tragic loss of an officer’s life in this situation may have stemmed from improper training, shooting from the high-tuck position while the assailant was not in close quarters and thereby became a learned automatic response to a threat stimulus. 

In order to help prevent future tragedies, we owe it to ourselves and our families to ensure that we, as officers, trainers and supervisors, know and understand how our O-O-D-A loops work and how to maximize them for survival. Take time to look at your physical traits and habits at work. Could you be unknowingly setting yourself up for failure? Are we presenting training because we are required to, or are we presenting well thought out training which is more likely to help officers survive life and death struggles on the street and in our detention facilities?