January 23, 2007 4 Comments

Commanders Intent

Made to Stick I’m reading Made to Stick ( C.C. and Whitney and Jon are also reading/have read it), and the first idea that I’ve come to that I want to highlight is Commander’s Intent.

Simply: understanding the desired outcome is better than having a rigid plan.

The example the fabulous Heath boys gave in the book was that it’d be like sending your friend instructions for a chess game in the mail. She’d understand what you wrote, but after the first few moves, there would be no way to follow the instructions.

But intent, now that can be followed.

I read similar information from Covey’s The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness where the point was that the “intention” phase of leadership, where one describes to his supervisor what he intends to do before doing it, is on the road to truly effective functioning.

Ask Yourself

Does your organization operate such that the Commander’s Intent is clearly understood? Do you require line-by-line command? If so, how effective does that make you and your organization compared to the functioning team that understands the Commander’s Intent, and has authority to execute?

And if you’re not the commander, is there a way to position your actions and efforts such that they reflect this model, thereby giving your supervisor a method by which to better interact with you?

A functioning community works the same way: if everyone understands the intentions, then everyone can feel the freedom to act.

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  • http://www.ldpodcast.com Whitney

    I love Commander’s Intent- I think in the virtual world, when you are communicating by email, sometimes the intent is not as clear as it can be if you simply have a quick phone exchange. My husband has made his new rule for email to be: If I can’t say it in a paragraph, pick up the phone. This is smart because the subtle nuance we get from voice often tells us more than we can communicate through just words.
    If I just do things through email, sometimes the intent is not as clear as when communicated through other modes-it’s like the full import of the mission is lacking and needs a little clarification or tweeking. What do you guys think?

  • http://www.ldpodcast.com Whitney

    I love Commander’s Intent- I think in the virtual world, when you are communicating by email, sometimes the intent is not as clear as it can be if you simply have a quick phone exchange. My husband has made his new rule for email to be: If I can’t say it in a paragraph, pick up the phone. This is smart because the subtle nuance we get from voice often tells us more than we can communicate through just words.
    If I just do things through email, sometimes the intent is not as clear as when communicated through other modes-it’s like the full import of the mission is lacking and needs a little clarification or tweeking. What do you guys think?

  • http://levite.wordpress.com jon

    The other side of the email length thing is that sometimes if we take several paragraphs, we can add back in the nuance that is lost. However, by spending that much time writing, we can spend far more time than the phone call would be.

    Certainly, however, there is much information lost by using email alone, particularly if we think that it is just like a turn in a conversation. It is too easy to assume context, to assume that the reader will know what is going on in our head as we write and then we lose everything.

    Think of email being read in a noisy room, coming as an interruption to a conversation that is already going on with someone else: now write in the amount of detail necessary to have the person understand your point.

  • http://levite.wordpress.com jon

    The other side of the email length thing is that sometimes if we take several paragraphs, we can add back in the nuance that is lost. However, by spending that much time writing, we can spend far more time than the phone call would be.

    Certainly, however, there is much information lost by using email alone, particularly if we think that it is just like a turn in a conversation. It is too easy to assume context, to assume that the reader will know what is going on in our head as we write and then we lose everything.

    Think of email being read in a noisy room, coming as an interruption to a conversation that is already going on with someone else: now write in the amount of detail necessary to have the person understand your point.