Companies do not break because the plan was bad. They break when reality changes and no one dares to make a decision.
Customers change their minds. Competitors fight back. Employees interpret the plan in their own way. It does not matter how good the strategy looked in the boardroom if the organisation comes to a halt as soon as something unexpected happens. You do not need a company that follows the plan. You need a company that works when the plan has become worthless.
You probably know that, in addition to running companies, I also lead soldiers. Here are five principles I take from the battlefield into the boardroom. Much of the inspiration comes from MCDP 1 Warfighting, but there is a reading list at the bottom for anyone who wants to go deeper.
1. Business is a contest of wills
Business does not happen in a vacuum. Customers, competitors, suppliers and employees have goals of their own, and they react to what you do. When you change your prices, launch something new or enter a market, other people will adapt.
A strategy that only works while everyone else stands still is not a strategy. You cannot predict every reaction, but you can build plans that still work when customers wait, competitors cut their prices or employees interpret the change differently from what you intended. The important thing is not to predict everything correctly. It is to avoid depending on everyone else behaving as you hope.
2. You must decide before you know everything
You will almost never have as much information as you would like. Market data is incomplete, forecasts are uncertain and customers reveal their real response only after you test something. Companies often respond to uncertainty with more analysis, more meetings and later decisions. That may feel responsible, but more information does not automatically improve the decision. Sometimes it only ensures that the decision comes after the opportunity has disappeared.
“War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.”
Carl von Clausewitz
This is a recognised English rendering of the passage from Book 1, Chapter 3 of On War. Older English editions use “province of uncertainty” and “clouds of great uncertainty,” so the exact wording varies between translations. (Marxists Internet Archive)
You need to understand which decisions can be reversed. Most pricing models, campaigns, offers and working methods can be tested on a smaller scale. In those cases, a reasonable decision made in time is better than a perfect decision made when it is already too late.
3. Reality does not follow the business plan
Customers disappear, people leave, costs rise and projects that looked simple become difficult. At the same time, an unexpected enquiry may open a market you had never planned to enter.
“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eisenhower used these exact words in a 1957 speech, although he introduced them as a statement he had heard years earlier in the Army rather than claiming to have invented it himself. (The American Presidency Project)
The plan is useful until you start defending it against reality. It should help you prioritise and notice when events diverge from your assumptions. It should not force the organisation to continue in a direction that no longer works.
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
A misquoted Helmuth von Moltke, although the quote is better this way
When every deviation requires another meeting, a revised budget and approval from senior management, the company will always react too late. You need structure, but you also need people who are allowed to depart from that structure when circumstances demand it.
The goal is not to impose order everywhere. The goal is to keep working when order disappears.
4. Initiative creates tempo
Tempo is not about working fastest. A company can move slowly even when everyone is stressed.
Real tempo appears when people understand what is happening, make decisions and act before the situation has changed. It disappears when every question must travel through several layers of management or when employees are more afraid of making a mistake than of missing an opportunity.
Initiative does not mean that everyone can do whatever they want. It means that people can act within a shared direction without asking permission for every detail.
It also requires managers to judge decisions according to the information available when they were made. When every failed attempt is treated as proof of poor judgement, the organisation quickly learns that doing nothing is safest.
5. Lead through intent rather than instructions
An instruction works only while reality still looks the way it did when the instruction was written. Intent can remain useful even when the conditions change.
There is a frequently repeated story about an American general visiting a German unit during an exercise. He asked the German commander where his subordinate commanders were. The German supposedly replied:
“Why would I need to know where they are? I know what they are supposed to achieve.”
Unknown source
The story should be treated as an unattributed anecdote rather than a verified historical quotation.
A leader therefore needs to be clear about the result that must be achieved and why it matters. When an employee understands the intent, they can change the method, priority or order of work without losing direction.
This also makes prioritisation easier. When two tasks conflict, the employee does not need to ask which activity comes first in the process. They can choose the one that best supports the most important result.
For this to work, the employee needs to know which objective matters most, which decisions they are authorised to make and when an issue must be escalated. At the same time, the leader must accept that the right result will not always be achieved in the way the leader would have chosen.
A company that only works when everything goes according to plan is not well organised. It is fragile.
Inspiration for this article
- MCDP 1 Warfighting
- Om stridens grunder, Marco Smedberg
- Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, Robert Coram
- Maneuver Warfare Handbook, William S. Lind
- With Schwarzkopf: Life Lessons of The Bear, Gus Lee
These books are not just a reading list. They are five books that have shaped how I think about military leadership and what I bring from that world into entrepreneurship.