Understanding the Power of Support Relationships: the Story of TING and TED

*** This article is PART 2 of a 2 part series that starts with: Empathy as a Strategic Virtue: The Case of Hans-Ulrich Rudel, the Most Decorated German officer of WWII. Readers should read PART 1 before proceeding.***

We left off with a few thoughts that are worth repeating here:

• Rudel was successful because he understood how the comprehensive (macro)system worked, and what his role in it was. None of his success would have been possible had he not understood this. Close-air-support is, after all, support.
• Like the German wehrmacht during the Second World War, The United States Marine Corps requires its close-air-support pilots (along with all other officers, regardless of mission occupation specialty) to undergo six months of infantry training before ever touching an aircraft. During this six month course, Marine leaders build the psychological repertoire necessary to empathize with the infantrymen. The Marine Corps has identified strategic empathy as a requisite for the conduct of combined arms warfare.

This six month course is called, simply, The Basic School.

At The Basic School I studied John Boyd’s brand of warfare along with other young Marine leaders of all mission-occupation-specialties, in an environment that constantly emphasized the infantry as the end-all be-all. During this course, my instructor, Captain Charles Dotterer, taught me an interesting and extremely useful way to think about support relationships: the story of TING and TED. 

________________

Enter TING and TED

In any high-performance team, a high-level understanding of support relationships is imperative to ensure that everyone is moving cohesively in accordance with the blitzkrieg principle of schwerpunkt, which translates to focus and direction. 

TING = supporTING

TED = supporTED

TED is the MAIN EFFORT, and everything that TING does is done specifically to allow TED to accomplish his mission. TING is a SUPPORTING EFFORT, which is equally important for mission success - although by definition not the FOCUS of the operation. During all phases of any operation, Marines are taught to ensure that everyone in the unit knows whether they are TING or TED.

I would later find myself on top of hills during training exercises yelling at machine gunners who were failing to adapt their rate-of-fire to the advancing maneuver element’s progress on the field: “What the &%#$ are you doing?! You’re TING! supporTING! Support the maneuver!” The machine gunners had to realize that TED was entering a world of hurt as they advanced closer and closer to the enemy without adequate suppression from TING. TING needed to increase the rate-of-fire as TED closed the distance and received the enemy’s final protective fires. TING needed to culminate (fire at the rapid rate) at the exact moment in which TED was most vulnerable. If TING could suppress the enemy well-enough, TED would meet little opposition during the last few meters of the advance.   

Everyone in my platoon knew TING and TED. Everyone also knew that as the maneuver element advances on the objective, all supporTING assets must deploy empathy to the forces closest to the enemy (TED), and see the field as TED sees it. This is how TING supports the MAIN EFFORT assault.

The story of TING and TED is by no means restricted to the domain of warfare. Wendell Odom, the most respected author of Cisco networking books in the world, also developed a TING and TED system for Cisco World Wide Training division's instructor certification program. In Odom’s anecdote, TED is an execution-oriented builder of widgets (RouTED protocol - how to make widgets really quickly), and TING is a manager, organizer, and supplier of things that TED needs in order to make widgets (RouTING protocol - how to plan and collect information so that the other guy can make widgets fast). Odom’s TING and TED describe networking terms; “the rouTED protocol is the one being routed, such as IP, IPX, OSI, DECnet, and so forth. The rouTING protocol is the one preparing the information needed to perform the routing process quickly, such as RIP, IGRP, OSPF, NLSP, and so forth.” 

*

*

*

________________

By now, I’m sure that you’re thinking of ways to incorporate the story of TING and TED into your organization. But be careful: leaders in any organization should understand that sometimes these roles change, and sometimes they change rapidly. And sometimes one person’s TING is another person’s TED.

For example: Rudel was always TING… to the infantry. But what about the Luftwaffe fighter escorts that flew alongside him to ensure that he wasn’t shot down by Russian fighters before he could drop his payload? To the escort pilots, they were TING and Rudel was TED. The roles are always fluid and situationally dependent. Organizations must be flexible with supporting relationships, and it is incumbent on leaders to cultivate a culture of agility when assigning the MAIN EFFORT and SUPPORTING EFFORT(S). The best organizations switch TING and TED intuitively at the small unit level, when necessary.

________________

How to be your best TING

In order to be the best TING possible, Rudel deployed empathy; he constantly worked to develop a high-level understanding of the situation from the perspective of the troops on the ground as well as the enemy. To have an accurate understanding (and relevant, accurate empathy), he had to:

• Get close to the action so that he could see what everyone else could see.
• Put himself in everyone else’s shoes so that he could determine exactly how he could provide the most useful and beneficial support possible.
• Think about himself as a role player in a larger system. 

By consistently engaging this “ongoing many-sided implicit cross-referencing process of projection, empathy, correlation, and rejection”, Rudel was able to ensure that TED accomplished the MAIN EFFORT mission. 

________________

What happens when an entire team operates this way?

Empathy-driven variety in observation allows for a more relevant and accurate collective understanding of reality. As the team views every angle of the situation through multiple perspectives, order emerges from chaos. Who should be TING or TED at any given moment becomes apparent to everyone at once thanks to a shared collective understanding. A team operating in such a way will find it much easier to execute with FOCUS and DIRECTION, in accordance with the blitzkrieg principle of schwerpunkt.

By understanding TING and TED, business leaders can maximize the power of optimized and agile support relationships.