Thread by @commandodev

Today's newsletter from @TaylorPearsonMe is excellent. It's about The Farthest Down the Chain Principle.

I haven't heard it called this before, but I do know about the principles under other names: Mission Command or empowered execution.

Important ideas - time for a thread!

Let's start with OODA.

There are 2 or 3 really good intros to OODA out there that don't oversimplify, and Taylor's is one of them. It's also another OODA loop video with insanely low views for its value! (I'll share some more later on).

The OODA loop was the culmination of Boyd's synthesis of millennia of military strategy and scientific principles. It truly contains multitudes, and if you're operating in an kind of complex environment, it's required knowledge.

Previous thread here:

https://twitter.com/commandodev/status/1190296117218549760?s=20

The paper at the end of the previous thread is a masterpiece of explanation about the building blocks of OODA. This is the other criminally neglected video I mentioned before.

Evolutionary Epistemology

I've come to think of OODA as less of a loop and more or a hierarchy...

A flow of energy/information from our external environment inwards ("up" the heirarcy).

Coupled with intent and actions flowing outwards, changing our environment which are then observed.

And so on...

Events happen, which are OBSERVED and have some effect on our model of the world (ORIENTATION). The familiarity of those events determines how far up/in the change to our models penetrates the hierarchy.

Changes in our mode determine what we DECIDE and ACT upon.

If OODA is a loop, it's a Hofstadter-esqe strange loop.

Great overview on what that means from @nateliason here nateliason.com/notes/godel-es…

What Taylor is really talking about in the newsletter is the concept of Mission Command - what @donvandergriff calls "The doctrine of empowerment"

MC is the "outward" flow if intent. It's so important that there's a whole section in my course on it.

MC relies on mutual TRUST (Einheit) and FLEXIBILITY of thinking (Behindigkeit) with ALIGNMENT (Auftragstaktik, Commanders Intent) to build a kind of group INTUITION (Fingerspitzengefühl).

These are the building blocks of EFFECTIVENESS or FLUENCY of operation embodied by OODA.

Having effective organisational OODA loops is how you win.

Mission Command is the mechanism by which you build those loops.

Here's a great resource for understanding MC by @donvandergriff and @PonchAGLX

So if Mission Command is how you build effectiveness on the doing side of OODA. The other "half" is how we understand our environment, how we OBSERVE and ORIENTATE.

This is Situational Awareness.

Even though a lot of the research into SA was carried out by the USAF, I haven't found much evidence that it was either influenced or known about by Boyd. @FuentesDeOnoro/@PonchAGLX do you know?

This makes the clear overlaps even more fascination. SA is exactly OO

It all comes down to AWARENESS, ALIGNMENT and ACTION

I dig into all of this in a lot more detail in my course

cdo.dev/c2ott