Commander's Intent

Commander's Intent

My son started a new position this week. The first thing covered in orientation by the management team were the Mission, Vision, and Values (MVV) of the organization. One might think that this is a fairly normal routine in an orientation, however because it is an orientation in a public safety organization, a briefing on the MVV carries a much more serious tone. An in-depth understanding of the MVV supports mission accomplishment in times of crisis.

Times of Crisis

COVID-19 with its seemingly long chain of mutating strains, the war in Ukraine, gas and oil prices, social unrest, political turmoil, and a dozen other issues are affecting militaries, public safety agencies, and businesses on a global basis and perhaps more so than ever because of international connectivity where information and finances are almost immediately affected on a worldwide basis.

The Role of Planning

All organizations spend weeks and months planning but wise managers understand that "No plan survives the first contact with the enemy" (attributed to Helmuth von Moltke, 19th century). Therefore, some important questions are:
• How does your team respond to changes in plans?
• Does everyone know what to do in a crisis, or is there confusion, directionless activity, or a lack of moving in any direction?
• Will key people act without be told what to do next?
• Will there be a power struggle when communications with the C-Suite is poor or nonexistent?

The Role of After Action Reviews

Public safety agencies have learned and continue to learn how to answer these questions and overcome these operational hurdles through after action reviews from catastrophe's and disasters like 9/11, Madrid & London bombings, Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, and a host of others.

Commander's Intent

Companies would also be wise to consider a concept that public safety borrows from the military which is used to operating in the fog of war. This concept, Commander's Intent (CI) allows for organizations to carry out their mission by defining what the successful mission looks like in adverse circumstances especially in chaos, a lack of actionable intelligence, a scarcity of resources, and a now (then) outdated action plan. CI empowers initiative, improvisation, and adaptation by the provision of guiding principles and a painting a picture of what success looks like prior to chaotic, demanding, and dynamic environments.
This "pre-painting" of success consists of teaching key employees to thoroughly understand:
• The organization's mission and their part in it. They will also know their boss' and subordinate's jobs as well.
• Understand the company's vision thoroughly guiding how the mission objectives will be executed and the character of the actions to be taken in carrying out the mission.
• The amount of operational risk that the leader's will tolerate and that the organization can support. This provides knowledge of the degree of latitude people can have in carrying out the mission.

Thereby, in extreme conditions your employees will:
• Know their jobs better
• Do their jobs better
• Work better with each other
• Accomplish the mission safer, more efficiently, and more effectively.

The key component of a successful CI is a trained, confident, and engaged staff that has been provided the leader's intent (his/her philosophy) in writing containing the details of his/her expectations and overall goals and objectives. In this document, the leader provides the foundation on which to build (or update) emergent plans, gather proper resources, and to base all actions, unleashing them to accomplish the organizational goals in the midst of turmoil. The training should consist of several projects, after action reviews of previous incidents, and simulation training of potential situations that will force staff into adapting their activities to meet the overall mission in adverse situations.

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Jaap de Jonge
Editor, Netherlands

Commander's Intent

Interesting… I did some research on this concept coming from military environments.
Commander's Intent describes how the Commander (leader, CEO) envisions the battlefield at the conclusion of the mission. In simple wording, it shows what success looks like in adverse circumstances and why.
A Commander's Intent is typically guiding military-focused operations and it is a publicly stated description of the end-state as it relates to forces (entities, people) and terrain, the purpose of the operation, and key tasks to accomplish. It is normally developed by a small group, e.g. staff, and a commander. It acts as a basis for staffs and subordinates to develop their own plans and orders to transform thought into action, while maintaining the overall intention of their commander.

The Commander's Intent, or we may call it Leader's Intent, is used to represent the higher purpose behind an assignment in difficult circumstances. In the Commanders Intent, the commander clearly formulates the desired outcome of an assignment or operation and the "why". The commander indicates to his subordinate commanders which objectives he wants to achieve, what their role is in this and the reasons why. He then allocates them the means to fulfill their assignment. He does not indicate 'how' it should be done.
Indeed this concept could also be used to guide senior management teams in turbulent business circumstances, crises and disasters.

Michael Norris
Director, United States

Further Rationale for Commander's Intent

Thanks Jaap for your addition.
I thought this would be a valuable crisis management philosophy since it seems the majority of comments center around trying to forming committees, getting multiple points of view, working out the best alternatives, and then assessing actions - all AFTER the crisis has already started and has established a huge foothold on the beach head.

Much of my point is founded upon getting people qualified to command, forming the plans AHEAD of time (even though much of it is outdated once the crisis gets established), testing those plans through scenario training, and forming "mutual aid" agreements with other agencies for their assistance prior to the disaster. Even with all of this preparation, it will be a struggle to get ahead of the crisis and stay there.
However, organizations that wait until the crisis to do these things have a much higher chance of not surviving the challenges of the crisis when it hits. Additionally, we live in a time of multiple crises, hitting all at once, endangering any entity which is not fully prepared. That is what developing and instituting commander's intent is all about.