Commander's Intent

I give you another military process that can be applied to business strategy and organization design. It’s called "Commander’s Intent" (CI) and it’s designed to create durability through simplicity and openness to interpretation:

"Plans are useful, in the sense that they are proof that planning has taken place. The planning process forces people to think through the right issues. But as for the plans themselves, [Colonel] Kolditz says, ‘They just don’t work on the battlefield.’

"CI is a crisp, plain-talk statement that appears at the top of every order, specifying the plan’s goal, the desired end-state of an operation. At high levels of the Army, the CI may be relatively abstract: ‘Break the will of the enemy in the Southeast region.’ At the tactical level, for colonels and captains, it is much more concrete: ‘Have Third Battalion on Hill 4305, to have the hill cleared of enemy, with only ineffective remnants remaining…’"

I love this kind of thing.

See what I’m talking about.