Battle Rhythm

Everyone needs a day planner, schedule app or virtual personal assistant as they call it these days, right? The Army is no different. The only difference is the Army gives the daily schedule a cool name- battle rhythm. In most Army units, the day-to-day activities and events while in garrison are driven by the battle rhythm. It is meant to provide predictability, order and efficiency in what can be a sometimes-chaotic profession. This week’s featured pic is an example of a typical battle rhythm for a battalion sized organization.

In my humble opinion, the good commanders were those that would stick to the battle rhythm come hell or high water. If a leader was unavailable for a particular meeting, then that’s why they have a deputy or even a third in secession. If the battle rhythm is to do maintenance on Tuesdays, then that is everyone’s place of duty, leaders and led. The units that played fast and loose with established battle rhythms tended to struggle with key tasks such as personnel accountability, training certifications and maintenance.

Three years ago, upon re-entering the civilian world, I learned battle rhythms are a much less valued part of the civilian workplace organizational culture. Make no mistake, I haven’t encountered a civilian workplace yet that didn’t have established days for accomplishing certain tasks or holding certain meetings. But I’ve noticed there is a much greater tendency to cancel or worse yet, reschedule events or meetings rather than drive on with the established rhythm.

I suppose those of us who served, especially for a full career, were drawn to the regimented life of the military and although I am sure we complained, deep down enjoyed trying our best to stick to our unit’s battle rhythm. I think this even carried over to our personal lives. In fact, I’d venture to say most people probably don’t realize it, but they too have a personal battle rhythm.

Personal battle rhythm is different than personal OPTEMPO, which I’ve blogged about previously. One is more schedule of events while the other is frequency. If you feel like your personal battle rhythm is too full, then you’ve probably got a high personal OPTEMPO! I’ll share a few of our battle rhythm events as examples.

The personal battle rhythm event that I will cherish the most is nightly dinners. We always tried to sit down and have dinner together every evening, generally between 6pm to 7pm. Occasionally the event got overcome by sports practices, work or maybe a big test the next day. But I’d estimate we stuck to dinner as a family 90% of the time or better. Sometimes the meals were filled with laughter, sometimes shouting, or if the meal was particularly good, no sound at all as we stuffed our faces! I hope the kids will look back on that simple nightly 30-minute battle rhythm event fondly and perhaps implement the same with their own families.

Another battle rhythm event was weekly worship service attendance. I’ll admit there were some long periods where we struggled with accomplishing this battle rhythm event religiously (pardon the pun) but we’ve been more successful than not. I think it was an important event for our family’s spirituality. Another added benefit of this weekly battle rhythm event was it usually always included a lunch meal immediately following service. I love to eat and breaking bread as a family on Sundays was always an enjoyable moment!

There is one of my weekly personal battle rhythm events you’ve been participating in that you may not even realize! If you’ve read this blog more than once, you know my battle rhythm is to post a new blog on Wednesdays. Not sure how I picked the middle of the week, just seemed like a natural spot to share some thoughts on Leading – Investing – Living.

Which brings me to an important point about battle rhythms. Good units followed their battle rhythms religiously but also took time to reevaluate periodically and change as necessary. I am reevaluating my battle rhythm as it pertains to blogging! Starting in January, I will begin posting blogs twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays to my Norm Spivey author Facebook page.  To be fair, new content will be on Tuesdays and a re-post on Thursdays of material produced over the past two years. But it’s a significant change in my personal battle rhythm nevertheless!

Whatever one’s views are on battle rhythms, in the military, the civilian workplace or at home, it’s generally accepted that we as humans are creatures of habit. Battle rhythms are just taking our natural tendency to be repetitive in our actions a step further. Look around, you may have a very developed battle rhythm and didn’t even realize it!

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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.