Most tech leaders want their teams to think independently, but they’ve never explained what thinking independently is supposed to look like.

I couple of years ago I addressed my team in our end-of-year meeting with a concept called Command Intent. If it sounds a bit abrasive it’s because I borrowed the concept from the U.S. Military.

In the 1980’s Military plans used to be extremely robust, including every single detail imaginable. What each unit will do. What equipment they’ll use. How they’ll replace ammunition. And so on.

There was just one problem. The plans often became useless a few minutes into battle.

As you can imagine, a lot of unpredictable things happen in the battlefield. And when they do, everything you planned becomes useless.

After so many failed missions, the U.S. Army adapted its strategy and invented a concept called Commander’s Intent (CI). It appears on top of every order specifying the desired end state of the operation (the goal).

With the one belief that, you will know what your mission is.

Officers arrive at the Commander’s Intent by asking themselves the question “What is the single most important thing we must do during the mission?” And that’s how they arrive at the one belief.

The framework essentially goes like this:

After you have done that. Let them work. Don’t micromanage and don’t armchair quarterback. You always have the ability to analyze the project success after the goal has been accomplished.

I’ve met many technology leaders throughout my career. One thing that seems to be a shared trait with many of them is an ingrained sense of control and process. I don’t blame them either. The kind of work these people have done over their careers calls for a very rigid set of steps to solve a problem, or to manage a computer network. The control they cling to has been derived from years of learning from mistakes.

Their policy-first approach to control situations works when you’re managing machines. That, of-course, becomes the problem when you’re managing people and situations.

CIO’s need to adopt the philosophy first mindset. It is a cousin of command intent, but better suited as a framework for behavior when aligning with company vision.

A great example of a philosophy document every CIO should be publishing today is AI usage. A document like that will be the cornerstone for the team when they are making decisions in un-charted territory. When you publish your thoughts to your team on how the leadership views AI from mission, vision, and values, you are giving your team the resources to think like a CIO and apply your decision framework to their individual actions. Your team is better equipped to write their own usage policies, adjust with changing models, align with security, and then end result is that your team’s work will be advancing extremely close to your intent.

James Clear said, we do not rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.

As leaders, I say we won’t rise to the level of our policies, we fall to the level of our clarity.

Until next week,

—Jared

Text Me: 314.806.3912

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