By: Frank Borelli

http://www.borelliconsulting.com


For any contemporary warrior who is not already familiar with Boyd's Cycle - the human decision making paradym - I say to you, "Go and study." First documented by Col. John Boyd (USAF Ret, now deceased), the Human Decision Making Cycle is comprised of the following four steps repeated in endless loops: Observe; Orient; Decide; Act. Anyone who has ever been in a fight knows that thinking faster than your opponent matters - and not just a little. Veteran combatants have given testimony as to the applicability and importance of Boyd's Cycle. More specifically, they've talked about how important
it is for every warrior to understand what an "OODA Loop" is and how moving through it faster than your opponent means you'll be victorious. This week we take an in-depth look at the "A": Act. Boyd's sketch of the OODA Loop as presented in his summation of "A Discourse of Winning and Losing", which he referred to as "the big squeeze," 28 June 1995. From "The Mind of War - John Boyd and American Security" by Grant Hammond, page 190.

As Ken Good of Strategos International has often said, this is the part we practice most: Pulling the trigger (is an action), Swinging a baton (is an action)
Spraying OC Spray (is an action), Running to our next point of cover (is an action), And so on.... What is overlooked is the fact that whether or not that action was appropriate and justified will be determined after the fact in several ways:
1) The immediate outcome will determine, to some extent, whether or
not the action was appropriate. In a conflict situation, if your
action doesn't result in some type of improvement in your situation
then it probably wasn't appropriate - or at least didn't take into
consideration all of the circumstances.
2) Those around you will react in a manner that will indicate to you
whether or not your action was viewed as appropriate by witnesses.
3) For cops and soldiers, after action reviews will be done by
others and they will render a decision on whether or not your
actions were appropriate.
4) For cops, almost every time a Use of Force is even the least bit
questionable, a jury will decide whether or not your actions were
appropriate and justified.

Of those four, #1 is the only item you care about in an immediately
threatening situation. The feedback you get from your opponent(s)
will give you an idea (pretty damned quick) of whether or not what
you did improved your position in the conflict or not.

If it DID improve your position, then you buy yourself an
immeasurably small piece of time. That piece of time is how far
ahead of your opponent that you are in the OODA cycle. If you can
repeat that appropriate action cycle several times, then you can get
so far ahead in the loop that your opponent can't hope to catch up -
and soon realizes that his actions are irrational to the point of
stupidity - either surrendering or dying at that point.

If it DID NOT improve your position then you are either still tied
in the OODA cycle race, OR you are falling behind and your opponent
is gaining ground. We can all agree that is a BAD thing.

So, how do we work to insure that our Actions are both appropriate
and justified? Through training and carefully focused After Action
Reviews (AAR) of that training. Now I'll be the first to admit that
performing an AAR in the detail required to identify each step in
the OODA cycle, each time it was looped, and then to determine
whether or not the Action that resulted was beneficial or not, is
quite time consuming. In the long run, it's definitely easier to
evaluate whether or not the overall outcome of the situation was
positive or negative and then work backward to try to identify that
point in the OODA Loops where the fight was won or lost.

Something we need to remember - that we most often do not - is that
Actions are foundational. What I mean by that is our actions result
in a change in our status as we exist in our surroundings. That
change is at least part of the "Unfolding Environmental Interaction"
Boyd identified in his sketch above. Every Action we perform causes
a change in the overall situation and the sum of our actions (add 1
for good outcome, subtract 1 for bad outcome) contributes to our
Observations in the next cycle; our Orientation in the next cycle;
and our Decision in the next cycle. It's like a game of Chess played
at hyper speed where if you make a wrong move you can only do it
once because you die... Every Action has to accomplish several goals:

It has to improve our immediate standing in the conflict;

It has to support an on-going plan of action projected through
anticipated OODA Loops;

It has to positively change our situation so that we observe an
improvement and orient ourselves with that improvement as part of
our process;

It has to (preferably) manipulate our opponent into a position we
can take advantage of with our next or next several actions.

Examining a single OODA Loop is pretty easy for anyone who has tried
it a few times. This was the circumstance. This is how it related to
me. This was what I decided to do to change it for the better. I did
that. It worked or it didn't. Simple.

The difficulty lies in examining dozens or hundreds of OODA Loops.
The same challenge presents itself as when we had to analyze data
quickly and non-sequentially. Some of those OODA Loops we can
analyze fully because they were performed in our conscious mind. We
were aware of them and can identify each step. However, some of them
- the ones that were lightening fast and performed under moments of
high stress, might not have been quite as existant in the conscious
mind. We probably made those decisions subconsciously and though we
think we know what the OODA loop was, we're really just guessing -
at least a little. Every OODA Loop after that took into
consideration the outcome of that subconsciously-decided-upon
action,and now we are guessing at the appropriateness and value of
each OODA Loop after that.

Going back to where we started, the Jury who determines whether or
not your Action was justified will have little interest in what you
Observed, how you Oriented yourself to it, and what you Decided to
do. Your decision was obvious because it was demonstrated in your
following Action. What you observed may be weighed, but Orientation
is entirely subjective. How you Orient yourself to the circumstances
you Observe is different from how I might, or the next guy will, or
that professional homemaker on Jury duty might. Even if all the
facts are known, the appropriateness and ability to justify an
Action is still entirely subjective and based upon the individual's
inputs to their Orientation phase as they examine the facts.

So, here is the challenge (just for your own edification): The next
time you're doing any kind of force-on-force training - or even
simulation training - pick one scenario and examine it in detail
yourself. Even if you have to do it at the end of the evening over a
warmed up dinner plate at home. Write down everything you can
remember Observing. Write down how that related to you (how you
Oriented yourself to the circumstancs). Then document your Decision
and the resulting Action. Then take the time to really think about
what the results were and whether or not they were appropriate and
justified. If not, figure out why and identify at what point in your
OODA Loop you made the mistake that led to an innapropriate or
unjustified action. By doing so, you will not only identify whether
what you did was right or wrong, but more importantly, you'll
identify the fault in your Decision Making Process that led you to
that Action. The Action doesn't need to be corrected... the
Observation, Orientation and Decision DO.

Be safe!!