The philosophy of LeaderShaping, the off-spring of the "Six Levels of Leadership," depends heavily on "Communications" and "Intelligence" to be successful. When one or both of these elements becomes compromised, the effect is known as the Fog of War. In forces terms, this phenomenon encompasses all of the confusions and miscalculations, which can occur while an actual combat situation. In the case of unsuccessful organizational behavioral influences within the business sphere, it is defined as swaying communal idea over popular culture due to misinformation or ambiguous reporting of the facts. The Fog of War offers a clear definition for the "Devil's Paint Brush:" a report of the actions over any organizational body that causes immanent death over a duration of time.
An assosication dealing with uncertainties within its master plan, internally and externally, can communicate to the Fog of War straight through a base event known as "Murphy's Law" (that anything can go wrong, will): the natural effect of organizations and their leaders rushing headlong into situations of negligible visibility. Further, this is explained as the influences of externally induced obstacles, which disrupt internal goal-oriented/directed behavior and process. The results of this base event could be catastrophic, as leaders in an assosication fail to recognize the intentions of their cohorts, or target competitive positions idea to be clear of the organization's interests. A collapse in process can be attributed to the Fog of War.
Financial Power Of Attorney
When Napoleon still ruled most of Europe, a Prussian normal named Carl von Clausewitz wrote a book entitled "On War" - one of the all-time, first-rate books on warfare and strategy, still studied in forces academies worldwide. In it, he coined the term "friction" to mean all the things that fail in the chaos of battle conditions. It's good known in business as Murphy's Law: that anything can go wrong, probably will.
In other part of the same book, "Intelligence in War," he discussed the problems of getting definite data in the middle of a forces engagement (for business purposes, this is known as "Intelligence of Process"): the effects of occupational hassles on negative mood and endeavor exertion.
Communication failures can also occur as a effect of the Fog of War. By not closely examining operations, leaders cannot relay vital and timely procedure corrections or competitive positions to their Centers of Gravity in real time. This performance can place the assosication in harm's way. Such delays and miscommunications are typically blamed on the Fog of War, since competitors and foes (in some cases, these habitancy reside internally) may have to improvise a new strategy or retreat without sufficient time to relay their actions to their own operations. The Fog of War can also be blamed (in some cases) when vital orders from leaders are unsuccessful in reaching the strategic and performance teams in time.
The idea of a Fog of War has come under critical comment over the years. But, in the last eighteen months, it has been pronounced due to economic instability and poor planning by leaders over industry. Political leaders, elected officials and communal and secret leader's response to these allegations often includes an allusion to Fog of War, meaning that some failures were due to real-time confusions, miscalculations and non-effective response to injury - not poor planning.
Some critics payment that the forces depends too heavily on the Fog of War defense to excuse their own actions or missteps. This same defense can also be argued in the business sectors, but either sector being considered, forces or business, the defense "should" not be suitable on a frequent basis - as a defense to failure (excuse) or missteps - for it goes against the very infer that "leadership" was birthed. Here's an example of the Fog of War at work in business.
Fog and Friction: Why Organizations Suffer from the Devil's Paint Brush
In 2008, I had the delight of training a new client on leadership, performance and team building. For the sake of eliminating any instance of embarrassment, I'll convert the client's name to Abc & Company. Their dilemma at the time was two-fold; first, they wanted to come to be a stronger, more cohesive working team. Second, they wanted to learn a good way to execute by enhancing the leadership culture over the organization. while the four months of their training, an moving occurrence continued to show itself - an example for demonstrated "Intelligence of Process."
While outlining the Six Levels of Leadership, the client fast realized that their business (and its future), like warfare, was messy and uncertain. They also learned that what von Clausewitz wrote holds true on both the battlefield and in the boardroom. As soon as habitancy move from the calm of planning meetings to the messiness of action, fog obscures the vision and friction confounds preparation. While actions fail to work as planned (friction), definite data is missed, lost, or mangled (fog). Regardless of how things are anticipated to turn-out, "all best laid plans convert upon first touch with the enemy." Amazingly, and with all of their training, the client fast learned that regardless of any whole of training and learning, behaviors not changed brings calamity to any well run assosication or forces unit.
Fast transmit a year to mid 2009, the client found themselves dealing with the Fog of War in the most profound way. A senior legal responsible for running one of the organization's prosperous behalf centers decided to leave for a new opportunity. In doing so, the senior legal offered a resignation, effective thirty days from the date of submission. In this exact situation, the executive leadership's actions fell fault to Murphy's Law and the Fog of War all in one swoop. Because their culture was one that demonstrated a "hierarchal leadership" approach, one that was easily disconnected from the day-to-day operations of the exact income center, the retirement caused confusion, tension, adrenaline, and anxiety to govern the more foremost pre-events of the transition process.
If you generate "battle" pressures within an assosication - by a lack of leadership and timely communications, competitiveness, low worker moral, fear of dismissal, pressure to win no matter what, and tyrannical supervision - you'll get what real battles bring: chaos, confusion, constant breakdowns, frantic levels of anxiety, and many unnecessary losses. By the last week of the retirement and foremost up to the last day as a member of the organization, the senior legal was faced with worker infighting, a lack of trust from the consumer markets, insubordination, rebellious attitudes, and disobedience. The culture over the assosication along with the stresses, competition, anxieties and pressures increased fog and friction a thousand-fold. This is a clear example of the effects of occupational hassles on negative mood and endeavor exertion. Simply, this is the potential for the beginning of the end - and, if this is not a wakeup call for the hierarchal leadership culture over Abc & Company, it could be the end of the assosication as a whole. Diminutive do they realize, but the Devil's Paint Brush is designing a masterpiece on the very canvas of the client's assosication and culture.
Ten Lessons to Overcome the Devil's Paint Brush
Every business performance has to generate a advantage to the business; if it does not I propose you convert it or stop doing it; hence, the idea of the Fog of War. The implication is that you need to portion the productivity of a whole of activities so that you can portion and improve their behalf contribution. This is why it is foremost to figure a series of lessons to overcome the Devil's Paint Brush. These are your levers of productivity for your business - "a base architecture, a base application and a seamless approach" by all stakeholders to combat Murphy's Law. This segment explains the ideas of performance to increase/overcome barriers to productivity. Naturally setting goals will not accomplish your objectives; managing the performance that produces the effect is what easily counts. As we begin to look at how-to overcome this fog phenomenon, it's foremost to comprehend the words of Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, influential thinker and the founder of analytical science of mind (known as Jungian psychology): "The pendulum of the mind oscillates in the middle of sense and nonsense, not in the middle of right and wrong." - Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1962.
The lessons to overcome the Devil's Paint Brush show you where to start:
1. Empathize with your Enemy. In order to limit opportunities for conflict, yet touch potential for peace, empathy must reside in all situations. Any way tough business and organizational needs might be, communicating with the enemy, empathically, creates an opportunity for prosperous outcomes. Empathy is the remedial performance that overcomes all forms of misrepresentation and misunderstanding. Leaders using this strategy can take off themselves from their current emotional state, look at a situation straight through the lens of the opposing force and understand the thoughts that drive the decisions being made. The key to winning this strategy lie in your ability to know the enemy and how their culture responds to differing circumstances. In a forces context, while the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese Government saw the United States as wanting to replace the French Government to preserve colonial power. The United States saw the Vietnamese as other potential cold war power, similar to the Russian Government. In the end, both countries were wrong. Neither imposed the strategy of "empathy" to learn what the other easily wanted (strategic intent was never understood). In the end, hundreds of thousands died on both sides and life for both cultures changed forever.
In the business context, leaders can only win this strategy by remaining associated to the day-to-day operations. Keeping a finger on the pulse of the business, internally and externally, along with the actions, behaviors and thoughts of all stakeholders, allows leadership to remain ahead of the curve. But, at times of uncertainty as when critical staff moves away from the assosication to pursue greater opportunities, the incident cannot cause for alarm as in the case of calling the fire "out-of-control." This is the time that the leaders are able to spread their wings and demonstrate the true power and foundation of excellence - the true substance of the assosication must prevail beyond the parties being removed. To be successful, leaders must empathize with the situation from all aspects (good and bad), understanding what is needed to use the situation as a increase opportunity, and get their hands dirty to comprehend how-to maximize the talents of the remaining human capital. habitancy are the many asset to any organization, so this means that the leadership must be able to understand the thoughts and feelings of others - their internal and external customer. This cannot be done if the leaders are disconnected from the daily functioning of the assosication or agency being effected.
2. Understand "Rationality" as the No-Safe-Zone. I remember watching a splendid movie titled, "Thirteen Days," staring Bruce Greenwood and Kevin Costner. The film is set while the two-week Cuban missile emergency (Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba) in October of 1962 and it centers on how President John F. Kennedy, Attorney normal Robert Kennedy and others handled the explosive situation.
In October, 1962, U-2 guard photos revealed that the Soviet Union was in the process of placing nuclear weapons in Cuba. These weapons had the ability of wiping out most of the Eastern and Southern United States in minutes if they became operational. President John F. Kennedy and his advisors had to devise a plan of performance against the Soviets. Kennedy was thought about to show that he was strong sufficient to stand up to the threat, and the Pentagon advised U.S. forces strikes against Cuba, which could have led the way to other U.S. Invasion of the island. However, Kennedy was reluctant to effect straight through because a U.S. Invasion would have cause the Soviets to retaliate in Europe. A nuclear showdown appeared confident and the query to ask now, some forty-seven years later is this: "how was it prevented?"
This story offers one of the many part for leaders to truly understand how-to win the strategy here. I encourage you, the reader, to rent the film from your local video rental for a part in leadership, patience, communications, strategy and the Fog of War. Having a true understanding of the actions from both presidents, Kennedy and Khrushchev, while this tense stand-off teaches just how fragile "rationality" easily is in times of uncertainty. It was later found out in a meeting in 1992 that the Soviets had parked 162 nuclear warheads, along with 90 tactical warheads in Cuba while this critical moment in the crisis.
In the business context, leaders must have a proven process by which individuals are superior to be leaders, given they possess the required attributes and style that best fits the organization. Leaders responsible to the choice process must be equipped to make the best decisions to maximize the many payoff distributions. They must go for the abilities after removing the noise inferred ex post from the immediate observed outcomes. The framework create to effect must offer a model, which leaders' judge relative to three distinct outcomes: First, risk must be thought about at all levels of the organization. Behaviors and personalities coming together as ineffective ingredients can have a greater cost to the assosication than any newly appointed incoming/ineffective leader. Second, "overconfidence" must be thought about to ensure the actual needs of the assosication are not being underestimated. This can cause a potential appointment decision to be based on "rationality" rather than "best practices" to meet current and time to come needs. Third, numerous implications for the prognosis of real-world leadership and organizational behavior, new stock development, relation of risk-taking to an organization's situation and culture (past, gift and future) must be discussed (i.e. One who underestimates scheme risk, has a higher probability of being chosen as the leader than an otherwise identical rational manager). Rationality can in fact cause a "No-Safe-Zone."
3. Maximize Efficiency, Decrease Ineffectiveness. Time is critical and has a value that is mostly misunderstood. Efficiency must be a major consideration when faced with serious issues. Maximizing efficiency requires both "incremental convert of process" in the way things are being done today, and "fundamental change" that brings on greater gains in efficiency for the future. other aspect for consideration on this topic is "acceleration." As we investment into the new world after the down sizing of the global business sphere, we'll begin to see the need to do more with less - less cost, less time, less risk and less redundancy. To win this strategy, leaders must learn to increase efficiency over all aspects of their data infrastructure, deploy the most energy-efficient base application platforms for best practices, simplify their processes of compliance with regulations and policies, utilize the benefits of the digital age (automate It supervision platforms and archetypes), get definite and trustable data at every level to execute strategically and flawlessly, and aim to be a strategic partner that enables the success of the habitancy and assosication simultaneously. Experiencing high levels of success in this area not only maximizes efficiencies, but also leverages expertise to help the assosication emerge from areas of uncertainty stronger than ever into the future. All of these actions (and some not listed) decrease ineffectiveness over an assosication and offer, to a leader, the many opportunities to be more effective within their operations.
4. Proportionality is an Absolute Guideline that Fails - within Reason! Some habitancy seem to pursue an intuitive definition of proportionality in warfare: that the civilian casualties in war on either side should not be significantly higher than the civilian casualties on the opposing side. But, the actual definition, from international law, does not define it that way: the incidental or unintended harm caused to civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct forces advantage anticipated by an assault on a forces objective. The query now is this: which definition makes more sense, the intuitive one or the legal one? One question with the intuitive definition is that civilian casualties on one side could be used to elaborate deliberate civilian casualties on the other side. But, the legal version is also problematic because it seems to elaborate any whole of civilian casualties if the forces advantage is judged great enough. Neither formulation, Any way you peruse them, offer a quantitative comparison, which means that in any war, habitancy Keeping distinct biases are unlikely to agree on either or not proportionality was easily observed. Naturally stated, "proportionality" in the forces context is all about the possession and wrongs of killing civilians.
Proportionality in the business sense also has parallels to the definitions above, only it is outlined as a strategy to win. How, you might be request yourself. Earlier, we outlined the definition for the Fog of War as the "actions over any organizational body that causes immanent death over a duration of time." One of the actions that leaders fail at is taking care of their organization's many asset - the people. The critical basic asset of an assosication is its people. They are the engines that drive performance and make things run. Without people, nothing can be achieved.
If leaders fail to inspire greatness from their people, they'll fast create a guideline of perception that things such as behalf and process has a greater value. This performance is one that promises to cause immanent death to an organization. The key is to create "Success Traps" that help individuals accomplish Personal Proficiency to increase pro Mastery. Leaders must be able to get habitancy to riposte a few questions:
- How do "I" riposte to problems and challenges?
- How do "I" affect others to my point of view?
- How do "I" riposte to the changing pace of the environment?
- How do "I" riposte to rules and regulations set by others?
And, they too must be able to get their habitancy to riposte the following questions, as it relates to the widespread state - and the time to come state - of the assosication as well:
- Do "I" know where the assosication wants to be in the future?
- Do "I" know what the assosication will apply its resources against to accomplish its time to come Picture?
- How will the assosication apply those resources? And, how might "I" lead in the process?
- When and under what conditions will the assosication exit from its current strategic plan? And, what influences will "I" lead to ensure greater success to its outcomes?
It basically comes down to a singular issue: "does leadership help every person in the assosication lead upwards? And if so, do they communicate the secrets of service performance supervision to everyone?" In the current economy, facing the challenges of a deepening global retreat with Diminutive financial resources; many organizations are charting a new course. As business leaders navigate this evolving terrain, it is foremost that they satisfy the demands of customers, employees, and vendor relationships - and create new strategies that address the economic, social, and environmental impact of their business processes and practices. This is where service performance supervision adds value: Strategies to generate business and societal value to furnish the strategic clarity needed to align performance and service oriented supervision to business and organizational strategy, and hold individuals accountable while managing successfully straight through the downturn.
When leaders take care of their people, "proportionality" becomes a non-issue. But, when they do not value their habitancy as their many asset or forget, immanent death over a duration of time (shorter rather than later) is realized.
5. accomplish the Data - Optimize its Resource. Machines that run at high speed query constant and abundant lubrication to preclude friction in the middle of the moving parts. Slower-speed machines need less. Running a machine, or a business organization, faster than it is designed to accomplish is the perfect recipe for provoking the maximum whole of breakdowns. This is even more true when an assosication is being forced to operate efficiently and effectively on a daily basis. Although its create requires peak performance, without the allowable data to optimize its resources, things will go wrong and the leaders will touch the Fog of War.
Speaking about the need for data ability helps organizations generate the right form of business intelligence and aid leaders with production the right business decisions that becomes the game changer for the habitancy and organization. The key to maximizing the data relies on a simple acronym that is all too familiar: Gigo - "Garbage in, Garbage out." Data integrity is critical to an organization's success and the leader's ability to make great decisions.
6. Belief/Seeing are both often Wrong. "We see only what we want to see, and in most cases, our judgment in the face of chaos, causes us to be wrong - and right - when we only see half the picture." Tom Petruno's Money & Co. Blog back in April, 2008 talked about Wachovia Bank's shareholders wishing that they could have a "do over" of the bank's major foray into California. What he was referring to at the time was Wachovia's 2006 buy of Golden West Financial, the California lender that specialized in so-called choice Arms. As mortgage loan losses soared in 2008, Wachovia was forced to slash its regular dividend cost by 41%, from $.64 a share to $.375. At a time that the business world, more specifically, the financial markets were imploding, Wachovia was stated as saying "California easily is bad and the acquisition of Golden West Financial was riskier than we initially thought" (Source: Goldman Sachs & Co. Report). The Golden West Financial assosication didn't just specialize in choice Arms, it lived, ate, and breathed them. Agreeing to Bloomberg News, "99% of Golden West's mortgage loans were choice Arms." You wonder, then, how it's potential that Wall street didn't recognize how risky these loans were until, um, today (April 2008). Leaders must learn to take heed in the part that others have paid the ultimate sacrifice. The key to winning this strategy lies in a keen ability to "achieve the data and optimize its reserved supply - and, understanding that there's more than what meets the eye!"
7. Put in order to Re-Examine your Reasoning. Robert S. McNamara, the Eighth Secretary of Defense for the United States serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, is quoted as saying: "Were those who issued the approval to use Agent Orange criminals? Were they committing a crime against humanity? Let's look at the law. Now what kind of law do we have that says these chemicals are suitable for use in war and these chemicals are not. We don't have clear definitions of that kind. I never in the world would have authorized an illegal action. I'm not easily sure I authorized Agent Orange. I don't remember it, but it easily occurred, the use of it occurred while I was Secretary." He is also quoted as saying: "What makes us omniscient? Have we a report of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe that we should ever apply economic, political, and forces power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn't have been there. None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd good reexamine our reasoning."
What an splendid leadership part for us to learn from. These words are profound in a way that stipulates the infer to create Great teams over an assosication - and, hold them accountable for their actions and their leaders for the decisions being made when executing strategy. The many mistake that leaders can make is not reexamining their thinking for moving transmit with a decision. Responsible leaders create a framework, or adopt a proven model that provides their habitancy with a toolkit to think strategically, compare financial implications of their decisions, mobilize convert within the assosication and communicate with other business leaders. These actions help their managers and team leaders to chart the time to come of their departments, as well as manage for bottom-line performance in real-time. When a leader is able to accomplish in this manner, he/she provides moving opportunities for others to specialize in a exact area of occupation interest. Having the reliance to take off yourself from popular culture, the "Art of Detachment," and reexamine your reasoning, eliminates opportunities for mistakes to be repeated - by All parties.
8. Learn to Win Good by moving the Devil. Again, quoting Robert S. McNamara, he stated: "How much evil must we do in order to do good? We have confident ideals, confident responsibilities. recognize that at times you will have to engage in evil, but minimize it." This statement is in relation to the many awful things that took place in Vietnam. But, it still rings true today for the battles that are engaged by leaders in the business battle space. Sometimes, doing the right things means "not" doing what is right. Small business owners are faced with this dilemma day after day. Any way you look at it, it comes down to a decision having to be made. What do you do when you have to make a decision to speak an untruth because the circumstances are not right and the outcomes from the truth will do more harm? Here's a way to deal with this dilemma.
In most cases, the Fog of War in business are the prime causes of loss and wastage in organizational settings - waste of money, time, effort, manpower, and resources of every kind. They turn opportunities into fiascos and cause perfect plans to fail. The world is already a turbulent place; there's not much that you can do to convert that. It makes no sense to add to your problems straight through self-inflicted and unnecessary pressure. So, the best way to avoid the effects of the Fog of War and ineffectiveness within the assosication is this: slow down and operate from a clear Memorandum of understanding that provides a base architecture, a base set of applications and a requirement of teams to perfect the critical tasks to win.
It is foremost that you, as a leader, have the critical time to be proactive in order to limit any risk while moving transmit (the distinction in the middle of production a "compromise" vs. Being "compromised"). When things go wrong, as they often do, do not switch into a panic mode, yet operate as if all is Ok. The only way to pull this off is to learn how to take off yourself emotionally from the scenario you found yourself in, get trustworthy feedback from your peers, ensure the data (data) is definite and uncompromised, make decisions with the time to come photo in mind (don't win the small battles Only to lose the big war), and flawlessly execute to win.
And, if you're wise, you'll have anticipated failures along the way, ready your contingency script and continue with non-missteps and Diminutive surprises. Take time to let the fog clear and the dust settle. Most situations are less pressing and critical than you think. Success in business rarely depends on split-second decisions; but, in some cases, success may want you to come into the devil's living room. When this happens and you are faced with request yourself the query posed earlier in the segment, or a query that is unfavorable, keep the time to come photo and mission within sight. moving the devil may have to occur; when you must, do so with stunning understanding and perspective. The cleanup when it's all over must be as Diminutive with work as potential and its cause cannot be revisited by you.
9. Never say Never - Never say I Can't! Winning this strategy is simple: one of the lessons I learned early on while my service as a United States nautical is this: Never say never - never say I can't! Never, never, never, never... Say never or I can't. And more importantly, never riposte a query that is asked of you. riposte the query that you wish had been asked of you and do it honestly. Quite frankly, it is my idea that if leaders effect these two rules, they'll find themselves in a pretty prosperous position and be able to sleep at night with a clear conscience. These rules offer a simple approach. These rules are very easy to follow.
10. You Can't Beat a Man at his Own Game - Human Nature. Here's one last quote from Robert S. McNamara: "We all make mistakes. We know we make mistakes. I don't know any forces commander, who is honest, who would say he has not made a mistake. There's a splendid phrase: 'the fog of war.' What 'the fog of war' means is: war is so involved it's beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, is not adequate. And we kill habitancy unnecessarily." There's an old adage that says "everything that's gold don't shine and habitancy waiting in a long line do not constitute that they are waiting for something that is good." Any forces commander or business leader who is honest with him/herself, or with those they are speaking, will admit that he/she has made mistakes in the application of forces power or in production sound business decisions. In order for leaders to win this strategy, human nature must be paid attention to at all times.
The Summation
The final part as we close this report is one that explains how leaders don't just come to be prisoners of their perceived success. They also come to be prisoners of their errors. Avoid the Devil's Paint Brush, even when you refuse to see it headed in your direction.
The Devil's Paint Brush Within Organizational LeadershipFull Committee Organizational Meeting Video Clips. Duration : 95.87 Mins.Full Committee Organizational Meeting - House Oversight Committee - 2011-01-25 - Consideration of the 112th Congress Proposed Committee Rules Package. Video provided by the US House of Representatives.
Tags: oversight.house.gov, public.resource.org
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