I’ve been fighting my way through Clausewitz’s On War, and came upon a passage in Book 1, Chapter 3. Boiled down to bullet points, here’s what he has to say about the effect of chance in war:
- War is the province of chance.
- Thus, situations are constantly changing beyond what you plan for.
- If situations change sufficiently, you may need to come up with an entirely new plan.
- A new plan requires new data, but you are often required to make a decision on the spot, before you have a chance to really analyze the new situation.
- Usually, though, chance events only serve to make us hesitate, and do not completely change our plans.
- Learning about some chance event has increased our knowledge of the situation.
- However, this new knowledge has increased our uncertainty, instead of decreasing it.
- Why? Because these chance events are always occurring, and make us feel constantly on the defensive.
I particularly loved the insight from those last three bullet points. How ironic, that we tend hesitate instead of move forward when presented with new information!
He then goes on to say that the solution is to cultivate (among other things) coup d’oeil, which is the ability to grasp a situation at a glance, and resolution, which he defines as a “moral corage”, or “courage in the face of responsibility” (as contrasted with courage in the face of physical danger).
In other words: to prevent analysis paralysis, just make a decision and move on. Planning is guessing, after all.
Jason Klug
on 22 Mar 10One habit I’m trying to cultivate is assessing whether the addition of new info (a conversation, for instance) stands a good chance of actually causing me to make a drastically different decision. If it might, I’ll have the conversation (“gain the knowledge”), it it won’t, I try not to even enter the debate and just make my decision on the info I’ve already accumulated.
Of course, it requires you have a good knowledge of yourself-what’s important to you and what influences you-otherwise that initial decision is, in itself, a hard call to make on the spot.
Berserk
on 22 Mar 10I don’t see irony, I see reason.
I haven’t read On War, but I get a feeling he is talking about tactics here, as opposed to strategy.
Also, when speaking of war—don’t miss the Art of it.
Aldric Giacomoni
on 22 Mar 10Jason, first, a note on your comment: it is reasonable, but how do you know what kind of information you’re going to learn before you learn it? You may indeed learn something mind-shattering which would cause you to change your mind.. But you won’t know until you have the conversation. Something about Schroedinger’s cat, I think? ;-)
Then, a note on those bullet points. I haven’t read the book, but I have read the Art of War, and it seems to me that these bullets completely neglect “preparation”. It is a simple concept, really: 1) “strength” beats “nothing”. Example: bullies in school. 2) “speed” beats “strength”. Lots of movies. If you can’t hit the guy, and he can hit you, you’re going to lose. 3) “experience” beats “speed”. If you can plan where the guy will be next, it doesn’t matter how fast he is. 4) “surprise” beats “experience”. I’ll let you figure it out. :)
So, while indeed, war is the province of change, it is a very, very poor leader indeed who would not have a very, very good idea of what may happen. This is, for instance, what spies are good for, as well as recon missions, scout ships (air/water/sub).
I hope the rest of the book is more interesting. The author may have a really good grasp on how people used war in the western politics, but I wouldn’t let him lead my army.
Jason Klug
on 22 Mar 10Here’s a TED Talk by psychologist Dan Gilbert that has deeply informed the way I handle “decision-making” points in my life (presenting 1 design direction to clients instead of multiple options, for example). The entire talk is insightful, but the part relevant to this post starts around 14:45.
Jamis
on 22 Mar 10@Aldric, “War is the province of chance” was just one part of one chapter, called “The Genius for War”. Clausewitz is required reading in many military circles, and has influenced thinkers for almost 200 years. The bit I mentioned here is just a small, small part where he ponders the role of uncertainty in war. Even the most prepared leader would agree that no amount of preparation (in any field) will guarantee that your plans remain unchanged to the very finish.
Jason Klug
on 22 Mar 10@Aldric – In most cases, you know going into a conversation whether it has the potential to give “mind-shattering” insight (not always, of course, but that’s part of the assessment you make going in, based on the situation at hand and the info resource).
If it’s a super-important decision, of course you’re going to spend more time looking seeking out information. But, in my experience, most of the decisions we make seem more important and fraught with implications than they actually end up being.
Sol Irvine
on 22 Mar 10This resonates with the rich Buddhist and martial tradition of “empty mind” or “mind of no mind”. The concept of “winning” is one of the great distractions in life.
Many Chinese and Japanese martial traditions are all about recognizing opportunities without analysis. Clausewitz is working a similar theme, from a slightly different angle.
Anonymous Coward
on 22 Mar 10@Jamis, that is true! I just really noticed now the “He then” part of the post. As a martial artist student and teacher, I would analyze this “He then” to several paragraphs, but I think I’d be rather off-topic if I did. I’ll just summarize: practice, practice, practice. Practice and tweak. Over and over. I guess I’ll have to read this book.
@Jason, you are right on both counts :)
Aldric Giacomoni
on 22 Mar 10Gasp. I am the ‘anonymous coward’. My apologies for forgetting my name in there.
Jason Klug
on 22 Mar 10Whole-heartedly agree with this. It’s a big part of what frustrates me about politics in our age. Make the best decision you can and move on… all of this win/loss, “us vs. them” tracking for re-election only distracts people (both the public and the politicians themselves) from what’s really important.
There are options where the “winner” is unclear but the overall outcome is better; we don’t see many of those decisions being made anymore.
There needs to be less weight given to decisions, not more; more flexibility in correcting policies going forward, not less. Stakes that are too high allow “analysis paralysis” to creep in, and this opposition-based system makes shot-callers more rigid and inflexible in their continued assessment of the decision going forward.
Jim Scott
on 22 Mar 10Clausewitz is describing war – peoples lives are at stake. This is not a board room discussion about budgets. What makes a military genius is the ability to do just what he describes. The chaos of war is chaos for both sides. The victor will be the general/leader that can do just as described better than his opponent.
That was why Grant was so successful, and McClellan was McClellan. That is why Patton was as successful as he was. In war, ultimately, analysis paralysis is the worst of all worlds.
In business, where agility over your competitor is prized, the ability to assess at situation and act will also be better than analysis paralysis.
Steve Schwartz
on 22 Mar 10This makes sense, really. Every chance event introduces new knowledge you didn’t previously have or expect. With the introduction of new knowledge, comes the renewed realization that your previous knowledge was incomplete. This causes you to question the completeness of your current knowledge, which, of course, leads to hesitation when needing to make a decision based on your current knowledge.
Related phenomenon: the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Daniel
on 22 Mar 10@Jason Klug:
Awesome TED talk! Can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. However, the most interesting thing, I think, was not so much in regard to planning and reponses to new information. It was the explanation of why people at first prefer the product with tons of features, but in actual use they prefer the simpler product. And specifically, why preferences/settings should be avoided. Both those sentiments are of course very 37signals-ish. People are happier when they can’t change their minds, it seems.
As for the war story: I’d argue that war is a slightly different kettle of fish than product development. In product development (eps. software), decisions are indeed pretty temporary. In war? Not so much.
While it’s true that you should quickly adapt to new information - chance - and just be indecisive or ignore it, there are those things (in war) to which you simply cannot sufficiently adapt. Not just because you had a plan beforehand that you still want to follow despite information against it, but because you don’t have a choice. You can’t decide not to fall into an ambush, when you are being ambushed.
(I’m debating Clausewitz more than Jamis here, because in software development agility and adaptation is “easier”—or at least less costly in terms of human lives.)
@Jim Scott: Interesting that you should mention Patton as an example of Clausewitz’s theories, since Patton was pretty notorious for disregarding any and all new information in favor of muddling through. Damn the torpedos! In my mind, he often did the opposite of what Clausewitz prescribes, i.e. acting on chance and new information.
Daniel
on 22 Mar 10Jamis:
Or, to put it another way: Your plan can remain unchanged, but then chances are that your plan fails.
Tom
on 22 Mar 10Jamis, you should keep in mind that the only chapter Clausewitz was happy with before his death was the first chapter. All other chapters Clausewitz was unhappy with, considered to be in unpublishable draft form, and had marked as ‘not to be published’ upon his death. His wife, I believe, ignored his request and had the full volume published anyway. So, just take with a grain of salt anything that’s past the first chapter.
Cherry-picking aggressive-sounding quotes from the later chapters contributed to the ‘cult of the offensive’ mindset that dominated European military establishments up through WWI (and in some cases through WWII). A closer reading of Clausewitz indicates that this was not his intention, and that the Clausewitzian disciples of Clausewitz has grossly misinterpreted his work. Pay attention to the contrast Clausewitz is developing between war in its essence (the ideal-type of war) versus war in reality (dominated by uncertainty and ‘friction’). The militarists mistakenly focused on the war ideal-type, believing that Clausewitz was advocating that this was what war should be like. This is incorrect, and the proper focus should be on Clausewitz’s insights into how the uncertainties of reality undermine ideal-type thinking, destroy certainty, and after foiling our well-laid plans force us to rely on experience/judgment.
The best translation out there is still the one with the Michael Howard introduction (the one you linked to). Other folks interested in reading On War should avoid the translation with the Anatol Rapoport introduction.
Steve Thomas
on 22 Mar 10Thanks for the great post—exactly why I love the whole 37Signals culture and product. Huge fan, first time caller.
While the parallel is not exact, I couldn’t help but think of what Godin wrote about resistance in Linchpin (and Pressfield in the War of Art before him) in reading the discussion about “moving forward” in the face of new information. Often new information feels like resistance. New information often forces the inexperienced to reevaluate EVERYTHING, which often leads to disaster.
I’m adding “coup d’oeil” to my vocabulary provided I can manage the french without sounding unreasonably pretentious.
I recently laughed at another consultant who was advocating a client develop a 5 year plan. So I ask…what’s your thinking? What’s a long-range plan in light of this discussion?
Thanks again. st
simson
on 23 Mar 10now some scenes on wall street make more sense.
Aldric Giacomoni
on 23 Mar 10“coup d’oeil” => coo d’uuy, where the “uu” is the sound you make when you say “uum”, and the “oo” is a short “oo”, rather like in “coup d’etat” (how strange, another french word!) :)
I realize that I’ve never suffered from this “analysis paralysis”. Maybe it’s my nature; maybe it’s my martial arts training.
I like to think that it’s because when I was nine years old, I read Frank herbert’s Dune, and this quote has stuck with me ever since:
“Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife – chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: ‘Now, it’s complete because it’s ended here.’
- from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib’’ by the Princess Irulan”
Sayam
on 24 Mar 10Jason,
If you enjoy thinking/reading about long-term-planning vs. agile-on-the-spot-real-time thinking, I recommend Robert Greenwald’s 33 Strategies of War.
It’s a most delightful & insightful read, full of thick, tactical ideas about being nimble and zen-like with execution.
This discussion is closed.