Those hoping for a post on the latest news in the brewing face-off between Iran and the West, or a political rant on what the U.S. should or should not do about it will not find it here. Sorry. This post is about how groups surface assumptions, think, make decisions and set effective strategy (or fail to) when they don't know everything they'd wish to. Iran just happens to be a really good example right now of why it's important (for any organization) to be able to do all that under pressure and in depth.
Given the current headlines, we were reminded this morning of this piece by James Fallows ('Will Iran Be Next?') in the December 2004 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. For our purposes, 13 months could be 13 minutes... or 13 centuries. How groups think together is a problem that's just as hard at the outset of a meeting today as it ever has been through the ages. Fallows writes:
"War game" is a catchall term used by the military to cover a wide range of exercises... The point of a war game is to learn from simulated mistakes in order to avoid making them if conflict actually occurs... Our exercise was stripped down to the essentials... we were looking for what Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, has called the "clarifying effect" of intense immersion in simulated decision-making...
...the war games he has run as a military instructor frequently accomplish as much as several standard lectures or panel discussions do in helping participants think through the implications of their decisions and beliefs... role-playing exercises usually work best if the participants feel they are onstage, being observed; this makes them take everything more seriously and try harder to perform...
"I've got to talk about uncertainty," Gardiner began... "It's an important part of this problem...The region is like a mobile. Once an element is set in motion, it is impossible to say where the whole thing will come to rest."... Why was it so hard to develop plans that allowed for the possibility that an adversary would be clever and ruthless? Why was it so hard for the United States to predict the actions and vulnerabilities of a regime it had opposed for twenty-five years?
...Every aspect of discussion about Iran was colored by knowledge of how similar decisions had played out in Iraq... Gardiner pointed out how rare it is for political leaders to ask, "And what comes after that? And then?" ...the United States faces what the military refers to as a "branches and sequels" decision—that is, an assessment of best and second-best outcomes.
Politically, there is plenty for anyone to take issue with in the piece. That was not my purposes in blogging it. As with any static article, the ability to criticize has only grown over time. As events have unfolded, certainty has (in places) filled in where there was once conjecture.
What is remarkable (and remarkably durable) about the piece though, is what it highlights about how groups (all groups) are deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty and how that often causes them to make poor decisions or make the universal default decision: let's think about it some more before making any. Groups asked to shed strongly held beliefs and assumptions invariably grasp at them anyway when forced to decide with inadequate information. The best that can be done is to highlight them explicitly and structure a strategic thinking exercise (e.g., scenarios) to examine them and their hypothetical alternatives.
- How might we make decisions differently (and how might we take action) if we were "the other guy": trying to diminish and ultimately conquer this organization rather than build it up?
- How are our assumptions about what works (and doesn't) extrapolated from our most recent experiences in doing things that merely seem similar?
- E.g., What about making and selling DRAM chips colors our thinking about the microprocessor market? What about the hard copy publishing business might we be incorrectly analogizing with what it takes to succeed on the web? What about Iraq improperly colors our assumptions about dealing with Iran?
Fallows quotes several individuals asserting (in effect) that corporate decision-making is more sophisticated than what goes on in government. In some cases, I could agree. Yet I could also fill a book with firsthand anecdotes about how corporate decision-making can be as in-explicit, incestuous, ill-informed or simply incompetent as the worst stories in government. It's not about who writes the paychecks. It's about the way the members of the decision-making group deal with the information they have... and with one another. Yes, I'm a process bigot. :)
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