Leadership · Growing to Scaling
Mission command
You give an assignment through your managers so that the goal and the why reach two layers down.
Worth reading first: Situational leadership
Does this sound familiar?
- You explain to the leadership team what needs to happen this quarter. Two weeks later every team is doing something different, and each one can tell you why.
- Your team leader passes your assignment on as a to-do list. His people know what to do, but not what it's for.
- Something unexpected happens with a client, and the question of what to do comes back to you through two layers.
- You keep making the plan more detailed, and it's out of date sooner each time.
- The numbers are disappointing, and you find yourself sitting down with the people doing the work again, going round their manager.
Who it's for, and when
For founders and members of the leadership team who no longer tell the people doing the work what needs to happen themselves. They tell someone who passes it on. It starts as soon as there's a layer of managers between you and the work, and it matters more with every team, location or market you add.
The model
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
As long as you tell the people doing the work yourself what needs to happen, you can correct course in the conversation. Once there's a layer of managers in between, you can't. Your assignment passes through two or three pairs of hands, and something drops off at every handover. Usually the why.
Mission command solves that with a set format. You give the goal, the reason why and the boundaries. The manager works out the route, briefs you back on what he's going to do, and gives his own team an assignment in the same way. Whoever chooses the route is accountable for the result. So you can be strict about what gets delivered, and you stay out of how it got there.
The why has to reach two layers down. A team leader knows the why of his own assignment, and the why of the layer above. If things don't go to plan, he can choose for himself what serves that intent best, without checking with you first.
Situational leadership is about how much direction one person needs for one task. This lesson is about an assignment that has to travel through your managers, and it only works with leaders who are self-reliant in their own field. Which decisions belong to a role is in the lesson Who decides what, whose piece of work it is in Who's got the monkey?, and who carries your team in The A-player matrix.
The Prussian army in the nineteenth century, under Helmuth von Moltke: Auftragstaktik, leading with a mission instead of an order. Stephen Bungay worked it out for business in The Art of Action (2011), with the three gaps between plan, action and outcome.
The knowledge gap: you don't know everything
There's a gap between what you'd like to know and what you actually know. Gathering more information before you give an assignment won't close it. Bungay: limit yourself to the intent, and state it so clearly that someone who knows the situation better can carry on with it themselves.
The alignment gap: they do something other than you meant
What you wanted and what the teams do drift apart. The reflex is more detail. Bungay: let every layer work out its own assignment from yours, and have it brief you back on what it's going to do and why. Then you hear the difference before anything happens.
The effects gap: it turns out differently than expected
What you expected from an action and what it delivers drift apart. The reflex is more control. Bungay: give people room to adjust their approach, as long as it still serves the intent.
Briefing and backbriefing, layer by layer
You brief your manager: goal, why, boundaries. He briefs you back in his own words, with what he's going to do. Then he briefs his team, with his own goal, your why and his. That's how the why travels two layers down.
Pitfalls
Passing it on instead of translating it
Your team leader forwards your email, or turns it into a to-do list. His people know the what but not the why, and every surprise needs you again. Passing an assignment on means translating it into what it means for this team.
Going round your manager
When the numbers disappoint, you go to the people doing the work yourself. That undermines their leader, and the team no longer knows whose assignment counts. Hold the manager to account for the result, and let him carry on with his team.
Letting go of the process where process is the rule
For safety, legislation and money, you set the procedure and hold people to following it. A safety inspection, or a payment that can only go out after a second signature, isn't something you leave each person to do their own way.
Watch and read
Bungay himself on the gaps between plan, action and outcome, and why more detail and more control make them wider.
Watch on YouTubeA submarine captain on how his officers went from asking permission to saying 'I intend to': leaders who lead for themselves.
Watch on YouTubeIn Dutch, on freedom of action within the intent of the assignment.
Watch on YouTubeRead
The Art of Action
Stephen Bungay · 2011 · ISBN 9781857885590
Where the model in this lesson comes from: the three gaps between plan, action and outcome, and briefing and backbriefing all the way through an organisation. Businesslike and thorough.
View the bookTurn the Ship Around!
L. David Marquet · 2013 · ISBN 9781591846406
The story behind the Greatness video: how a captain stopped giving orders and let his officers lead. Written as a story, with what you can do yourself at the end of each chapter.
View the bookApply it
- 1
Write the briefing: the goal
What needs to be in place, and by when? One sentence, with a number or a date if you can. Leave out the steps to get there.
- 2
Why, and the why above it
Why does this matter? And what does that in turn serve? Your manager passes that second sentence on to his team. If you can't write it down, think it through yourself before you give the assignment.
- 3
Boundaries
Budget, time and what's off limits. As few as possible, as clear as needed. If a fixed procedure applies (safety, law, money), name it here.
- 4
Backbrief
Ask: 'Tell me in your own words what you're going to do, and what you'll ask your team.' Listen for whether the goal and the why have landed. Only add something if they haven't; the route is his.
- 5
Agree a date, then look at the result
On that day, look at what's been delivered, and talk to the manager, not round him. If you do get involved in the how along the way, know that you're signing up for the outcome too.
Examples
The briefing, filled in: from managing director to operations manager
Goal: within three months we deliver in five working days instead of eight. Why: two large clients are leaving us over delivery times. The why above it: this year we want to win wholesalers as clients, and they pick suppliers on delivery time. Boundaries: no extra people, no ongoing overtime, quality stays the same. Backbrief: Friday.
The operations manager's backbrief
'I'm going to halve the time between order and the start of assembly; that's three of the eight days right now. Planning will bundle orders by region and schedule them the same day. Assembly will keep a fixed stock of the ten most-ordered parts. In four weeks I'll show you the delivery time per week.' The managing director hears that the goal has landed, and says nothing more about the approach.
The briefing one layer down: to the assembly team leader
Goal: from 1 March every part in the top ten is in stock, and an order starts within a day. Why: that wins us three days on delivery time. The why above it: wholesalers pick suppliers on delivery time, and that's where we want to grow this year. Boundaries: stock stays within the budget the operations manager set. Backbrief: Monday, to the operations manager. If a wholesaler rings with a rush order when stock has run out, the team leader now knows for himself what comes first.
You hire a consultant to design your way of working
You say where you want to get to and why, and when you want to see the design. You don't draw any of it yourself. If it disappoints, you hold him to account for it. You can, because you didn't decide the how; if you get involved, you're designing it with him and you share the outcome.
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- You look back on a situation from your own work. Only you can read what you write.
- You set a date with yourself, and on that day the app asks how it went.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
6 situations. You need 5 of 6 right. You can try again at any time.
1.You gave your operations manager an assignment for the quarter. Three weeks in, it turns out planning and assembly have each taken it in a different direction. According to Bungay, what helps most?
2.An assembly team leader was told: 'make sure the top ten parts are in stock'. A wholesaler rings with a rush order for a part that isn't on the list. What does he need to make the right call himself?
3.Delivery times aren't coming down as agreed. You've known the assembly staff for years. What do you do?
4.You've explained the goals for the quarter to your leadership team. Everyone nods and there are no questions. What do you do before they get going?
5.You hired a consultant for a new way of working, and along the way you helped draw up the steps yourself. The result disappoints. Can you hold him to account for it?
6.Your service team leader asks how he should have his engineers carry out the annual safety inspection at client sites. What do you say?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Who decides what · For each decision, you agree who makes it: the person themselves, after checking with someone, or someone else. And everyone can look it up.
- Founder mode · You choose, topic by topic, whether you get hands on or let go, and you say why and until when.
- Ownership in your team · For each team, you know whether the mission and the mandate are in place and whether you're keeping your hands off. And you let the next decision someone else makes stand.
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