When something is hard or complex, do not make it ‘easy’; make it understandable.
It is our Root Belief that that systems cannot love your people for you, only you can do that! As a result, the care and concern invested leaders have for those whom they serve must necessarily be reflected in the design and creation of the decision-making technology systems that they employ. That these Mission Command Systems provide commanders and leaders with a clear, contextual picture of high stakes situations so that they can make sound decisions.
A Mission Command System is a technology-enabled framework that provides commanders with a clear, concise picture of the contextual situation including critical knowledge needed for sound decision making.
In my experience, when invested high-stakes leaders feel the appropriate ‘weight’ of the decision they are about to make, they ask questions similar to the following: Do I have a ‘good’ plan?; Will it ‘work’? Did I consider all the variables? What am I missing?
The supporting relationships around the leader who faces a high-stakes decision often empathetically feel nearly the same amount of burden as the leader themselves. The overwhelming desire to support the leader in this situation results in ‘doing whatever they can to help’ even to the point where ‘doing more’ is detrimental to the ones they care so much about.
It is generally accepted within the Neural Decision Making field of study that the continued addition of information soon reaches a point where the ‘overload’ will result in ‘worse’ decisions than when leaders actually had less to process.
Therefore, an effective mission command system cannot ‘just throw a bunch of data up on the board’ or ‘pretty colors on a map’ and instead must produce cognitive hierarchy knowledge products that frees the invested commander to apply the sound judgment required for high stakes decisions.
In a more malicious setting, any decision support system that produces a ‘slick user interface’, more concerned with the pretty presentation of data than analytical rigor, is debilitating to the invested leader. The implication of ‘too much data’ being thrown at the commander in an attempt to make it look like a lot of work was done not only undermines the decision making process, but undermines the very value of those that must carry out the decision being made.
Instead, it is our belief that a mission command system must be designed specifically to aid the commander in both accomplishing the mission and valuing those who execute those decisions. And accomplishing that belief by revealing additional context to the commander previously not known or unseen, reducing uncertainties in combative environments, and presenting those impactful knowledge products from all echelons within the organization needed to make a sound decision.
So, is the love for your team, your organization, or your people reflected in your systems?
Tell us the problem you are trying to solve!
