Commander's Intent Powers Strong Leadership

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0:56Hise O. Gibson:I absolutely believe that a corporate setting could benefit from a more direct communication style. At the culmination of my military career, I retired as a colonel in the U.S. Army. Being direct is a very normal way in which to communicate in the military. You mean what you say and you say what you mean. It doesn't mean knife hand, like, do what I say. But it does mean this is what we need, this is why we need it. Here are the expectations. Here's how I need it to end. That framework is what I've used for 25 years, and we call it commander's intent. So the idea of commander's intent, it's something that comes from mission command.

1:40Hise O. Gibson:Mission command allows for centralized command but decentralized execution. And in that, what we all want as leaders, we want to be able to tell people what we want. They go off and do amazing things. What normally happens is we tell people what we want. They have no idea what was just said. They don't ask for clarification. And then we're upset two weeks later that what happened? At least in the military, every operation I've ever done, no matter whether it's doing physical training in the morning, going on a march, doing a convoy, doing an aviation flight brief, we provide some kind of intent.

2:12Hise O. Gibson:And all that is is three things. You provide the why. Why are we doing this? What do we want? What is expected? And we use terms like key task. We don't mean a 20 list, a 20 bullet point priority list, three to five things. What do we want? What is expected? And then the key thing that is critical, that really makes sometimes corporate leaders uncomfortable, is providing how do I want it to end? What is the end state? Meaning, if this was a book, what's the next chapter? How do I want to be set after we're done with this? What that provides is a level of accountability to the leader. If a leader has to communicate, this is why we're doing this.

2:58Hise O. Gibson:Here are the key tasks that need to be completed in order for this operation not to fail. And here's how I want it to end. That should be enough for people to go out and be awesome. them. Sometimes leaders I've observed in corporate settings, they do provide what, but they get too granular in the what. If we're experts in anything, like I'm a pilot, I was a pilot in the Army. And so if one of my peers, who was not a pilot, tried to explain to me how to be a pilot, I might be a little upset about that. Just tell me what you want. Oh, you want me to move food to you? You want me to bring you water?

3:38Hise O. Gibson:You need me to transport you from point A to point B. Got it. I'll take care of the flying part. You just tell me what you want. Don't tell me how to do my job. There's a lot of really smart teammates that we have who we hire because they're awesome. But if we start to tell them how to do stuff, we actually start to stunt their growth. If you keep telling people how to do things, at some point they're just going to wait to be told. And then they don't exercise the initiative that we hope and want them to exercise in order for all of us to be effective. There's a place in Louisiana that used to be called Fort Polk.

4:11Hise O. Gibson:It's a training area. And so every month, about 10 ,000 soldiers go and train at this place. And I went there a lot when I was in the 82nd Airborne Division. This one time I was there, and the senior leader, the colonel in charge, I was one of the commanders, and we were having a commander meeting. He provided his intent. He gives a slide with, like, 10 sentences. And those 10 sentences guided an operation that were going to move 6 ,000 to 8 ,000 people in a certain direction. All those senior leaders are all in the room, and each of us knew what our part was in this paragraph. We need to move X amount of people to this place in order to do this thing.

4:56Hise O. Gibson:Well, the only way they can move is if they move by helicopter. Okay, so that's me. And then on the back end, what's not said is for an operation like this, oh, you're also going to need medical evacuation. It doesn't have to be said explicitly, but safety and keeping soldiers taken care of when they're injured is an implied reality in any major operation. Doesn't that need to be said? Each of the 10 leaders all knew what our part was. If we were unclear, could immediately ask on the spot or verify with our peers to the left or right of us what needed to happen so that we were aligned. When we provide the end state or how we want something to end, what we've just done as a leader is actually given ourselves accountability.

5:42Hise O. Gibson:that if you meet this mark, if you cross the finish line, I don't care how you do it. As long as you don't do something illegal, unethical or immoral, you might not do it the way that I did it. You might find some new way. You might take a little bit longer. But as long as you meet the mark, we're good. So you provide a latitude and some may fall into the trap to believe if I if I give this information, I'm going to set innovation. But by setting the expectation clearly, you've actually stoked innovation because that brings us to figure out how to meet the bar in which you set. If we set high standards, our teammates are going to meet it consistently.

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