Autonomy and Alignment

I wanted to revisit the book The Art of Action by Stephen Bungay.  The book is in essence a guide to improving how we, as leaders, can navigate through our VUCA world, based upon lessons from military history, particularly the nineteenth century Prussian generals Carl von Clausewitz (who wrote the classic treatise on strategy On War) and Helmuth von Moltke (the Elder).  One of the reasons that I like this book so much is that Bungay introduces a leadership concept that he calls "directed opportunism", which reminds me a lot about the High Reliability Organization principle of "Deference to Expertise".  The German Wehrmacht in World War II called it Auftragstaktik, and today the U.S. military calls it mission command.  Retired Navy Captain David Marquet (check out his book Turn The Ship Around) calls it "pushing authority to information".  Whatever you choose to call it, the concepts are all the same.  Front-line leaders, who have the most up-to-date information about the situation at hand, should be empowered to make decisions that will help the team to achieve its overall mission objectives.    

There are two additional points that Bungay makes that are critical to the success of this style of leadership, and of course they were first learned by von Moltke when he re-organized the Prussian Army as Chief of Staff in the early nineteenth century.  Prior to a disastrous defeat to Napoleon at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt on October 14, 1806, the Prussian military selected its leaders from the aristocracy.  Before developing the operating model that would become Auftragstaktik, von Moltke recognized that military leaders would have to be selected based on their success on the battlefield.  The Prussian army officer corps became a meritocracy.  He also recognized that his military leaders would need to be trained, so he developed a war academy and invested significant time training his front-line leaders in strategy and tactics, as well as instilling a culture of independent thinking and initiative.  The lesson for us today is that if "Deference to Expertise" is going to work, we have to train our leaders as well as empowering them.  We have to similarly instill a cultural mindset of independent thinking and initiative, so that these leaders will make the necessary decisions to achieve the overall objectives of the organization.

Helmuth von Moltke knew that he needed to provide a high level of autonomy to his front-line leaders for his new operating model to be effective.  However, von Moltke also knew that a high level of autonomy demanded a high level of alignment at the same time.  He realized that the more alignment you have, the more autonomy you can grant.  The one enables the other.  Alignment is achieved when everyone is on the same page about the strategic intent (what to achieve and why).  Autonomy is thereby granted around actions (what to do and how).  

The key to successful leadership is to find the right balance between autonomy and alignment.  While alignment ensures that all of the members within an organization or team are working toward the same overarching goals, autonomy allows individuals to use their expertise and situation awareness to make decisions within the context of their particular role, without being micromanaged.  According to Bungay then, the secret to achieving high performance is both alignment and autonomy.  Leaders set clear strategic direction while trusting their teams with the autonomy to execute.