Battle Command in the Workplace

Over the last few weeks I’ve reflected on the strategic level of leadership. This week I want to dial it back a little closer to home! Direct and organizational leadership is what impacts us most in our day to day lives.

Whether interacting with our immediate subordinates or trying to compel behavior across an organization, leadership matters!  Without good direct and organizational leadership, the routine execution of tasks that keep our workplaces running won’t succeed.  

There are parallels between the civilian and military world when it comes to direct and organizational leadership. Sometimes it’s a challenge to see but it’s there if you look close enough! I thought I’d reflect this week on how my former military profession trains organizational leaders to think about conducting operations. Of course, the Army can’t just call it how to think about operations….it sounds much better when referred to as Battle Command!

What is Battle Command? I’ll offer the book definition from FM 3.0 (albeit a few years ago), “Battle command is the art and science of understanding, visualizing, describing, directing, leading, and assessing forces to impose the commander’s will on a hostile, thinking, and adaptive enemy.”

What has that got to do with leading in the civilian world?  As I’ve spent the last two years readjusting to working and leading back as a civilian, I’ve often fell back on my military leadership training. “Understanding, visualizing, describing, directing, leading and assessing” is a common framework every leader should master whether on the battlefield or in an office space!

Visualize is the key word here. The Army always tried to train leaders to think beyond face value and visualize all aspects of the environment. We were conditioned to think about second or third order effects before directing an action. Civilians have to do this too and to be honest most do, they just don’t call it something cool like “Battle Command”!

To illustrate this concept further, I’ll share an excerpt from a short writing piece I completed at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) many years ago. CGSC is where the Army educates its mid-level leaders on how to think beyond direct leadership and start considering all the factors which impact larger organization’s operations.  

The following excerpt examines how battle command or “understanding, visualizing, describing, directing, leading and assessing” is different in counterinsurgency operations (think OIF/OEF) than in a high intensity conflict (think WWII). As always, a quick disclaimer, the opinions in the following text are my two cents, nearly 15 years ago, on battle command and don’t reflect those of the Army! Needless to say in 2007 when this was written, counterinsurgency was a very hot topic…

It is easy for a military leader to jump to the conclusion that battle command in a counterinsurgency (COIN) environment is considerably more difficult than in a high intensity conflict (HIC).  While understandable, this assessment is flawed. The successful application of the elements of battle command is hard regardless of the type of conflict. 

However there is one key difference in the application of battle command in COIN operations versus battle command in a high intensity conflict.  In COIN, unlike HIC, the application of battle command must be almost entirely focused on the operational environment within which the military formation is operating.

To understand this one needs only look at the differences of how a commander visualizes and directs on the COIN battlefield as well as how the leader exhibits the corresponding leader competencies of lead and achieve. 

For years the Army visualized and analyzed combat operations through the lens of five (later six) simple words, METT-TC: mission, enemy, terrain / weather, troops / support available, time available, and civil considerations).  Two of these six elements are inwardly focused (mission and troops / support available) while the other four are meant to help analyze the enemy and environment. 

However, on today’s COIN battlefields many commanders are drifting away from METT-TC as the cornerstone for visualizing the battlefield and rely more heavily on two relatively new tools to assist in analyzing the COIN fight,  PMESII-PT (political military, economic, social, information, infrastructure, physical environment, time) and ASCOPE (Areas, Structures, Capabilities, Organizations, People, Events).  

Not only is this a lot more words to remember, these tools are completely focused on the operational environment and contain no elements meant to analyze a unit’s own disposition. 

Herein lies the most significant difference (and potential danger) of how the visualize aspect of battle command differs from COIN to HIC. A commander in a COIN environment can more easily become too focused on their operational environment and could potentially overlook critical aspects of their own unit.

Commander’s apply the visualize and direct elements of battle command as well as the correlating leader competencies of lead and achieve differently in the COIN environment from the HIC battlefield because in COIN operations the commander becomes more focused on his / her operational environment rather than own unit capabilities. 

I am certainly not suggesting to start applying Army doctrine or battle command to civilian workplace operations! But I think the parallels are obvious. There is a lot to be learned by understanding how our military trains leaders to visualize the battlefield, assess and then direct action.

How many times do we get fixated on our “operational environment” in the workplace? The office politics, the sluggish (or booming) economy and even the occasional pandemic. At the end of the day, there really is little we can do to shape or change these aspects of the work environment. But we certainly must strive to understand and adapt to it.

Sometimes these conditions in the workplace cause us to forget the most important factors in leading, the people around us. What are my organizations’ core values and mission? What are my co-workers skills and experience? What training do they need? Are they resourced adequately to accomplish their tasks?

While I was serving, I never really thought the leadership training I received at CGSC or the War College would help in any other endeavor other than warfighting. But the principles I learned back then are proving useful as I do my best to become a good leader back in the civilian workplace. I’m very thankful to have had the opportunity to learn from our great military!

August 6th marks 76 years since the first use of atomic weapons in warfare. Next week I’ll bounce back to strategic leadership with an examination of a monumental strategic decision.

If you’ve enjoyed this blog, be sure to check out my book Writing to Lead: A Look at Military Leader Development Through Academic Writings and other books on sale now at Amazon!  

The views, opinions and biases expressed in this blog are the authors and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army or Department of Defense.

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