Success over Complexity: Insights from a Marine Lieutenant Colonel
Success over Complexity: Insights from a Marine Lieutenant Colonel
Tackle risk, uncertainty, and disorder with time and battle-tested methods
September 23, 2021
THE NATURE OF WAR
Both a battlefield and an office are rife with challenges. While these challenges vary in scale, nature, and consequence, John Gianella utilizes his knowledge of both the Marine Corps and business operations to succeed over complexity. As you read about mitigating the challenges that come with complexity and a host of other variables, think about how you would apply John’s insights to your own organization.
LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
John’s first step in mitigating complexity the Marine Corps way is to build a baseline of common knowledge—to level-set. From the outset, if employees are given the same education and training, they will be able to work well across teams and quickly coalesce with one another. Beyond level-setting, Marines undergo sustainment courses, allowing them to continue learning and adding to their skills. This common learning and development allows both Marines and employees to use their shared knowledge to pivot from what they collectively know works well and creatively achieve success when faced with challenges.
COMMUNICATION
The second step to mitigating complexity is establishing succinct and efficient communication practices. John lays out two methods used by the Marine Corps that allow for clear and effective operating and reporting: standard operating procedures and notification requirements.
Standard operating procedures are established by thinking through potential opportunities and pitfalls that may arise during a project and how to respond to them. By anticipating areas of chance and challenge before undertaking the project, the team is able to maintain tempo and more quickly move towards completion. Additionally, the manager is allowed to step back and think about the big picture, as the team will be able to deal with any variables themselves.
Further allowing the manager to step back and trust their team to be successful, notification requirements help to eliminate both over communication and under communication. Notification requirements establish standards for when the team should report back and how that report should be structured. This method of communication sets clear expectations and helps employees understand what they should prioritize based on what is being reported without unnecessary check-ins.
THE TRINITY OF MANEUVER WARFARE
Building upon the aforementioned practices, the trinity of maneuver warfare breaks down how to find success through focusing on the what, the why, and the who. Since the Marine Corps is usually not as large as competing forces, they must pit their strength against the enemy's weakness using the following ideas:
Mission orders: Also known as trust tactics, communicate what is to be done, not how to do it. This frees the manager to, again, not micromanage, but rather step back and think ahead. If details are necessary, they should be details pertaining to all members of the team or that help to ensure effective coordination among the team.
Commander’s intent: Breaks the mission down into two parts: the task and the purpose. The purpose is what needs to have been accomplished and why when all is said and done. So if a task goes sideways, the team needs to know how to pivot to still accomplish the purpose, the commander’s intent.
Main effort: Segments the tasks so that if there are three people working on it, one is designated as the main effort. This means that if the other two people fail but the main effort succeeds, then there is still enough to get by on. Main effort creates a clear reporting structure so that the other parts of the team and the manager know who to support for the best chance of success.
INITIATIVE AND BOLDNESS
All of the prior named elements rely on the proper environment which must be created by the manager. If a manager creates a zero-defects environment—one where mistakes are not allowed—then employees will not feel the freedom to disagree, take initiative, or make decisions on their own. On the other hand, if an environment where mistakes are handled properly is created, then teams will have healthy dialogue and work well alongside one another—ultimately overcoming complexity and finding success.
John strongly encourages the reading of MCDP 1 Warfighting, a manual by USMC that outlines how the Marine Corps engages in conflict. Although it is primarily used to inform combat settings, you would be surprised at its applicability to office management!
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