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A Decision/Action Model for Soccer – Pt 5Adaptive Leadership, Organic Command & Control and Distributed Situational Awareness in soccer

Leadership is an “activity” that “mobilizes” others to a “higher moral calling” which “includes competing value perspectives, produces socially useful outcomes” and is “tested against reality”.Ronald Heifetz

“In this sense, the Command and Control we are speaking of seems more closely aligned to leadership (rather than command) and to some kind of monitoring ability (rather than control) that permits leadership to be effective.”John Boyd

“The predominant models of Situation Awareness (SA) are inadequate for the study of systems operated by teams… We suggest that, to study the control of dynamic systems, it is necessary to shift the unit of analysis from the individual to the whole cognitive system comprising a team of people as well as the artefacts which they use.Henrik Artman and Christer Garbis

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Authority, management and leadershipNecessary elements for cohesive action

Formal and informal authority, based on trust, provides the legitimacy for command and control. Relationships can be implicitly or explicitly expressed, understood and modified. ‘At this time and place we know who to follow. But time is passing and the relationships are in flux. Who leads and follows will need to change. The change will bring a reset in values and the authority structure.’ [25,26,27]

Management controls group behavior; how things get done; who does it and so on. Good management is adept at getting the most out of existing resources. Creative management* can arrange the existing tools in new and innovative ways. [1]

*Creative management involves using the existing tools, (see Heuristics and the adaptive toolbox) in a flexible manner. The looser the coupling, the greater the chance for creative solutions. However, no new tools are created.

Leadership provides the team the chance to adapt to challenges that are outside of its current values or resources. Some individual/s notice an early indicator that existing solutions will be inadequate, that group adaptation will be necessary and, when the time is “ripe,” begin the leadership process. [25,26,37,42]

Leadership and management are activities that are distributed throughout the team through formal and informal authority relationships. They form transient, dynamic networks that may contain hubs of relative stability. [2,3,5,6,17,33,36,42,43,44]

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AuthorityThe baseline for communication, planning and action

“I define authority as conferred power to perform a service… First, authority is given and can be taken away. Second, authority is conferred as part of an exchange. Failure to meet the terms of exchange means the risk of losing one’s authority.” [25]

“Authority can be divided into two forms: formal and informal. With formal authority comes the various powers of the office, [coach, captain] and with informal authority comes the power to influence attitude and behavior beyond compliance… Formal authority is granted… whereas informal authority comes from promising to meet expectations that are often left implicit.” [25,26]

“Those functions of people in authority, providing direction, protection and order are the same for any person in authority… It’s what we expect people in authority to do. It’s very important work, the work of authority, providing direction, protection and order. But it has nothing to do with leadership.” [27]

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ManagementAssessment, appreciation and control

Three key components of management: [1,22]

Administration. “A manager maintains what has already been established. This person has to keep her eye on the bottom line and maintain control or else there might be disorder within the organization… Alan Murray cites [Peter] Drucker as saying that a manager is someone who "establishes appropriate targets and yardsticks, [within the plan] and analyzes, appraises and interprets performance." Managers understand the people who work alongside them and know which person is the best person for specific tasks.” [22]

Control. “Drucker wrote that their job is to maintain control over people by helping them develop their own assets and bringing out their greatest talents. To do this effectively, you have to know the people you are working with and understand their interests and passions. The manager then "creates a team out of his people, through decisions… and through his communications with the team.”” [22]

Management asks “how” and “when?” “Their job is to… make sure they execute the plan accordingly. Drucker wrote that managers accept the status quo… They know that orders and plans are crucial and their job is to keep their vision on the company's current goals.” [22]

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LeadershipGuiding the group through adaptation

“The myth of leadership is the myth of the lone warrior: the solitary individual whose heroism and brilliance enable him to lead the way.” [25]

“There is a whole host of problems that are not amenable to authoritative expertise or standard operating procedures [management]. They cannot be solved from someone who provides answers from on high [lone warrior]. We call these adaptive challenges because they require experiments, new discoveries, and adjustments from numerous places in the organization or community [distributed situational awareness]. Without learning new ways-changing attitudes, values, and behaviors-people cannot make the adaptive leap necessary to thrive in the new environment. The sustainability of change depends on having people with the problem internalize the change itself.” [26]

Leadership involves changing values, a reorientation towards a new, unknown or vaguely defined goal that falls outside of the teams capacity of “resilience.” [42,44] Reorientation occurs when an individual/s sense a change in the groups schwerpunkt [33] and begins the process of mobilizing the group towards the new objective, goal or threat. This ‘early warning system,’ known as coup d'œil, [18] is dependent on expertise, mutual trust, clear channels of communication, courage, attention and appreciation.

Leadership carries risk. The leader must mobilize others to reorient, to change energy and direction. That involves the others facing a loss and disorientation. The loss of the current plan and direction may appear greater then some vague future gain. Choosing the right moment for change is as important as the change itself. [25,26]

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Organic Design for Command & Control [8]

“Implications and elaborations”

“Need insight [management] and vision [leadership], to unveil adversary plans and actions as well as “foresee” own goals and appropriate plans and actions. Why insight and vision? Without insight and vision there can be no orientation to deal

with both present and future.”

“Need focus and direction, to achieve some goal or aim. Why focus and direction? Without focus and direction, implied or explicit, there can be

neither harmony of effort nor initiative for vigorous effort.”

“Need adaptability, to cope with uncertain and ever-changing circumstances. [The interchange of authority, management & leadership relationships] Why adaptability? Adaptability implies variety and rapidity. Without variety and rapidity

one can neither be unpredictable nor cope with changing and unforeseen circumstances.”

“Need security, to remain unpredictable. [direction, protection and order] Why security? Without security one becomes predictable, hence one loses the benefits of

the above.”

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Organic Design for Command & Control [8]

Epitome of “Command and Control”

“Nature Command [leadership] and control [management] must permit one to direct and shape what

is to be done as well as permit one to modify that direction and shaping by assessing what is being done.”

“What does this mean? Command must give direction in terms of what is to be done in a clear unambiguous way. In

this sense, command must interact with system to shape the character or nature of that system in order to realize what is to be done;

whereas

Control must provide assessment of what is being done also in a clear unambiguous way. In this sense, control must not interact nor interfere with system but must determine (not shape) the character/nature of what is being done.”

“Implication Direction and shaping, hence “command,” should be evident while assessment and

determination, hence “control”, should be invisible and should not interfere—otherwise “command and control” does not exist as an effective means to improve our fitness to shape and cope with unfolding circumstances.”

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Team Situation Assessment and Information Distribution [10]

“Teams differ from general groups in that the members explicitly have different roles and tasks, and thus attend to different items of information in the decision process…Furthermore, teams are more often thought of as being in a more elaborated context with special artefacts and tools… This division of labour has consequences for the teams cognitive functioning…”

What is ‘team cognitive functioning?’: “Two or more agents [inter-subjective] active construction of a situation model which is

partly shared and partly distributed and, from which they can anticipate important future states… Team situational assessment is related to the concept of a shared mental model [schwerpunkt]… Cognitive functioning of shared mental models is vital for how the team collectively assesses the situation, as the means of sharing information is what the team coordinate their efforts by. Teams that work closely together learn to know each others needs, knowledge and tasks [fingerspitzengefühl & einheit] and can adjust their information sharing and interpretations to those needs, a situation we have called cognitive empathy [auftragstaktik].” [10,33]

Cognitive empathy begins with an appreciation of authority, mutual trust, shared experience, predictable behavior and values; see Teambuilding.

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TimescalesA defining element in leadership and management

“The systems I will therefore term complex are those characterized by irreversibility, non-linearity, emergence and interconnectedness under dynamic conditions… A multitude of elements, hierarchies and interdependencies do not yet turn a system complex, merely complicated. In order for it to be complex, it takes state modifications, at high speed… In this sense, time is the complexity-generating factor, able to transform a complicated system into a complex one.” i.e. the active state of a soccer match. [16]

“The second key assumption of the dynamics systems approach is that behavioural change occurs over different timescales.” Speed of play can be broken down to individual yet interconnected timescales, i.e. the slowest link syndrome. [35]

“Organizations that try to control complex dynamic systems often are organized in some hierarchy so as to consider different time-scales… By this organization it is possible for those with more general, wide spread information on the higher (and slower) time-scale to command… the local operators who, because of their limited “window” of the situation, work on a lower (and quicker) time-scale.” [3]

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Timescales of leadership and management“Both in and out of the game” Walt Whitman

The following is adapted from Leadership Without Easy Answers; Leadership is both active and reflective. One has to alternate between participating and

observing. Johan Cruyff’s greatness in soccer came in part from his ability to play hard while keeping in mind the whole game situation, as if he could retreat to the stands for a quick look.

Although the principle may be easy to grasp, the practice is not. Rather than maintain perspective on the events that surround and involve us, we are often swept up by them. Consider the experience of playing a competitive match with watching from the top of the stands. Engaged on the field, it is nearly impossible to get a sense of the patterns in the game. Motion, the emotional charge and the short time-scale on the field make observation difficult. To discern the larger patterns – to see who is dealing with whom, in what groups, in what locations we have to mentally step out and up to gain “top-sight,” emotionally disengage in order to reflect on the larger picture. But to stay too long in the stands is to lose touch with the game,fingerspitzengefühl fades. Finding the balance, and the speed to switch between views is essential. [25,26]

The ability to appreciate and work with different timescales is critical for cohesive play. The distinction between management and leadership is temporal, not status; it includes members of the opposition; is based on formal, informal authority and dominance; is transient and complex in nature. “Often a higher timescale has the authority to command a lower one.” [3]

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Factors that influence Timescales

Genetic heritage: bigger, faster, stronger, smarter. No two players are identical across the board. An advantage in one area can be offset by another or through a combination between players; my brain – your legs.

Cultural traditions: underlying national, regional, local beliefs, habits and behaviors. These often work at the subconscious level. For good or bad, they help to anchor and frame orientation. Note; the cultural base of individualism, i.e. do-it-yourself, or collectivism, i.e. work together, is a predominate anchor.

Previous experience: whatever knowledge has been acquired and is available for use in the current context. The level of formal and informal preparation in the adaptive toolbox.

Proximity to centers of gravity and critical vulnerabilities: the closer one is to a COG or CV the closer one is to the field level view. A goalkeeper defending a corner has a shorter timescale then her opposite number. Space/distance influences available time.

Friction and critical moments for concentration: timescales aren’t fixed, team cognitive functioning is influenced by friction and loss of concentration. It can change; going from slow, high level; to fast, low level gradually or in an instant and back again through different sources. See Decision-Action Model for Soccer for references.

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EmergenceHow command and control evolves across Distributed Situational Awareness

“Emergent properties exist where the ‘characteristics of the whole are developed (emerge) from the interactions of their components in a non-apparent way…’ Emergent behaviourarises out of synergy, which is the product of interaction at a component level. Arguably, the goal of any command and control system is to maximise this synergistic effect.. “When the [structure] is put to work, the human elements change their characteristics; they adapt to the functional characteristics of the working system, and they modify system characteristics to serve their particular needs and preferences”” [39]

Ant and termite colonies, flocks of birds, schools of fish, pedestrian patterns in New York City and soccer matches all demonstrate emergent properties and patterns. No one is in charge, everyone is to a degree. The system functions without any centralized directive. It runs on a few simple rules involving distance, direction, tempo and the actors simple goals framed by the environment. These rules are expressed as heuristics and interval logic.

In order to achieve a high level of emergent behavior players need to rapidly assess who is important and how to interact with them, i.e. lead, follow, disrupt or destroy. Looking for others to interact with is a first level human and soccer systemic need.

“To the person who waits to receive either “the vision” to lead or the coaches call, this may also seem a mixture of good and bad news. The adaptive demands of [soccer] require leadership that takes responsibility without waiting for revelation or request. One may lead perhaps with no more than a question in hand.” [25]

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DominanceThe desired end state – of both teams

Why is dominance important? Soccer is played by two adversaries, it is a contest of opposing wills. Neither team willingly consents to the will of the opponent. They must be compelled.

Dominance is to authority what a mugger, swindler or conman is to the police. The policeman’s authority is the product of a social contract, i.e. mutual consent while the criminal uses force, coercion, or guile to gain an advantage without consent. [25,26] Given that the game is played within the spirit of the laws and good sportsmanship authority exists within teams while attempts to dominate occurs between them as the opposing players interact. This interaction creates Clausewitz’s beautiful trinity of reason, emotion and chance. Without the tension of dominance soccer exists only on paper, only as theory.

Teams rely on their command and control interactions for cohesion. Their resiliency is reflected in the level of teambuilding. Both opponents will attempt to disrupt, degrade or sever the others command and control structures while protecting and strengthening their own.

Attempts for domination occur in small ways, among a few players, for brief periods and at different places. These moments will be distributed across time and space, as serial or parallel events. Most will be invisible to a single pair of eyes. The team that can sense where and when they occur (team cognitive empathy) and adapt fastest to them, will have an advantage. The goal is to influence the opponents timescales; get them to think/act too fast, over-react, or too slow, under-react, to a changing environment. When successful, a team will be playing inside their opponents OODA cycle, and their opponent will be left chasing after the game. [7,9]

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Summary

This part of the series is meant to bring Teambuilding, Playing at the Speed of Thought and Heuristics together in a system. Agility, flexibility, variety, rapidity and adaptability are all concepts that run through and connect everyone on the field.

Emergence is an important idea. It’s a bottom-up approach to group, perceptions, decisions and actions. The “lone warrior coach or hero player” cannot manage all of the decision/actions taking place on the field. The number of potential interactions, where, when, how long they last, when do they start, which one bleeds into which is too vast for a single cognitive system to track and deal with. Instead interactions are initiated and managed by those tasked with carrying them out. Leadership and management grow organically, on the spot, based on the job, available talents and resources. Small teams, two, three or four players working interdependently and guided by the auftragstaktik make it hard for the opponents to counter, (see slide 16). Since there is no fixed center of gravity the opposition is faced with an opponent who “comes from everywhere and comes out of nowhere.” When combined with boldness and surprise a team has a potent weapon. [29,30]

Emergence requires a system perspective, it’s synergistic in nature. [39] ‘Synergy comes from the Greek word synergia, meaning joint work and cooperative action. Synergy is when the result is greater than the sum of the parts. Synergy is created when things work in concert together to create an outcome that is in some way of more value than the total of what the individual inputs is.’ The idea of synergy runs contrary to “the lone warrior” of individualism. Organic inter-subjectivity puts people (plural) first.

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Summary

Dominance is not a word that some people want to associate with soccer, especially youth soccer. This form of dominance is not the disrespectful, egocentric type but the product of a superior performance.

A performance has two parts, the process and the product. Process is how things get done, the product is the end result. Process can never reach an optimal state, there is always room for improvement. On the other hand the end result can reach an optimal state, good enough, (see Heuristics). Gerd Mueller scored a lot of imperfectly processed goals, but they all counted. If children are too develop skill they “require rapid and unequivocal feedback about the correctness of thoughts and actions.” [27] Product meets this requirement, while the process is ambiguous.

Process has an inward, therefore isolating focus while the end result is an outward interactive focus. [7] The former traps one in step-by-step thinking aimed at internal states, the later frees one for self expression and leaps of imagination. Furthermore, isolation hinders interactive timescales and stifles emergence while an outward focus, “keep your eye on the prize” amplifies them. When how to do it dominates what to do friction results. [41]

Finally, dominance is not just about brute force, intimidation or speed. Teams can dominate through surprise and outwitting the opponent. The later calls for an attentive, appreciative, empathetic approach as opposed to the formers assertive one. Finding and exploiting critical vulnerabilities requires sensitivity to the smallest environmental mismatches, something brute force will likely miss. That said, when the problem is a nail, use a hammer.

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Organic Command and Control, Distributed Situational AwarenessAdaptive Leadership and Management – in the field

“Marine Captain Paul Tremblay, described his own use of Boyd's principles when he moved… to an all-out assault against hardcore Taiban.

“So instead of a massed landing right on top of the enemy, Tremblay split his force in two and came in simultaneously from the north and south. Then he split them still further into 15 small units, each maneuvering independently and aggressively to take the enemy from a different direction.

"We swarmed like ants," Tremblay said. The overwhelmed Taliban commanders could not keep up with so many separate threats and lost control of their panicked men, who began to flee.

Such highly decentralized "distributed operations" are what many Marine and Army officers consider the wave of the future. "That's where our success is resonating from, is the small unit level," Brig. Gen. Clardy said. "Everything had to be decentralized.”

But these tactics also run the risk that each small unit might be isolated, caught, and overwhelmed. In Iraq and Afghanistan, US troops have relied on modern communications to call for help… [Teambuilding and the adaptive toolbox]

But one officer countered, "guys may be shootin‘… but we're shooting at them also." Instead of hanging back for fear the enemy may disrupt our operations, he said, we need to press forward aggressively to disrupt his.”” [21]

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Selected references

1. ACKOFF, R. & ADDISON, H. 1988, Management F-Laws, How Organizations Really Work (Axminster, U.K: TriarchyPress).

2. ARTMAN, H. GARBIS, C. 1998, Situation Awareness as Distributed Cognition (Proceedings of ECCE’98, Limerick).3. ARTMAN, H. 1999, Co-operation Within and Between Hierarchial Units in Dynamic Decision Making (Ergonomics, Vol.

42, No. 11, 1404-14-17).4. ARTMAN, H. WAERN, Y. 1999, Distributed Cognition in an Emergency Co-ordination Center (Cognition, Technology &

Work, 1: 237-246). 5. ARTMAN, H. 2000, Team Situation Assessment and Information Distribution (Ergonomics, Vol. 43, No. 8, 1111-1128). 6. BEA, R. 2011, Managing Rapidly Developing Crises: Real-Time Prevention of Failures (Deepwater Horizon Study Group,

Working Paper). 7. BOYD, J. 2006, The Strategic Game of ? and ? (http://www.dnipogo.org/boyd/strategic_game.pdf).8. BOYD, J. 2005, Organic Design for Command and Control (http://www.dnipogo.org/boyd/organic_design.pdf). 9. BOYD, J. 2010, The Essence of Winning and Losing10. (http://pogoarchives.org/m/dni/john_boyd_compendium/essence_of_winning_losing.pdf). 11. BREHMER, B. 2009, The Dynamic OODA Loop: Amalgamating Boyds OODA Loop and the Cybernetic Approach to

Command and Control (Department of War Sciences, Swedish National Defense College, 1-14).12. BURBECK, S. 2007, Complexity and the Evolution of Computing: Biological Principles for Managing Evolving Systems

(Muticellular Computing, V2, 2, 1-41).13. CHOW, J. et al. 2007 The Role of Nonlinear Pedagogy in Physical Education (Review of Educational Research 2007, Vol.

77, No. 3, 251-278).14. CRAWFORD, M. 2010, Shop Class as Soul Craft, An Inquiry Into the Value of Work (New York: Penguin Books).15. DAWES, R. 1979, The Robust Beauty of Improper Linear Models in Decision Making (American Psychologist, Vol. 34,

No. 7, 571-582).16. DEGELE, N. Winter 2008, On Controlling Complex Systems – A Sociocybernetic Reflexion* (Journal of Social

Cybernetics, Vol. 6, No. 2, 55-68).

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Selected references

17. DORNER, D. 1989, The Logic of Failure, Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations (New York: MerloydLawrence Book).

18. DUGGAN, W. 2002, Napoleon’s Glance, The Secret of Strategy (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press).19. DUGGAN, W. 2007, Strategic Intuition, The Creative Spark in Human Achievement (New York: Columbia Business

School Publishing).20. FAIRHOLM, M. 2004, A New Sciences Outline for Leadership Development (The Leadership and Organization

Development Journal, Vol. 25, No. 4, 369-383).21. FREEDBERG, S. Oct. 12, 2012, Marines, Army Stare Into Face of Future War; Afghan Lessons Relevant? Aol Defense.

(http://defense.aol.com/2012/10/12/marines-army-stare-into-face-of-future-war-afghan-lessons-rele/).22. GIANG, V. Sept. 11, 2012, 3 Things That Separate Leaders From Managers (Business Insider:

http://www.businessinsider.com/3-things-that-separate-leaders-from-managers-2012-9). 23. GIBSON, E. 1988, Exploratory Behavior in the Development of Perceiving, Acting, and Acquiring of Knowledge

(Annual Reviews, 39: 1-41).24. GIGERENZER, G. SELTEN, R. 2001, Bounded Rationality, The Adaptive Toolbox (Cambridge MA: MIT Press).25. HEIFETZ, R. 1994, Leadership Without Easy Answers (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).26. HEIFETZ, R. LINSKY, M. 2002, Leadership on the Line, Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading (Boston MA:

Harvard Business School Press).27. KAHNEMAN, D. 2011, Thinking Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux).28. LINSKY, M. April 13, 2011, Adaptive Leadership – Leading Change (TEDxStCharles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af-cSvnEExM). 29. MARINE CORPS, U.S. 1997, MCDP 1, Warfighting (http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/mcdp1.pdf).30. MARINE CORPS, U.S. 1996, MCDP 6, Command and Control

(http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/mcdp6.pdf).31. MITCHELL, M. 2009, Complexity, A Guided Tour (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press).

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Selected references

32. RAO, V. 2011, Tempo, Timing, Tactics and Strategy in Narrative-Driven Decision-Making (Ribbonfarm Inc).33. RICHARDS, C. 2004, Certain to Win, The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business (Xlibris Corporation).34. SCHECHTMAN, G. 1996, Manipulating the OODA loop: The Overlooked role of Information Resource Management in

information Warfare (MS Thesis, Air Education and Training Command).35. SMITH, L. THELEN, E. August 2003, Development as a Dynamic System (TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.8,

343-348).36. STANTON, N. et al. 2006, Distributed situation awareness in dynamic systems: theoretical development and application

of an ergonomics methodology (Ergonomics, Vol.49, Nos. 12-13, 1288-1311).37. VANDERGRIFF, D. 2006, Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to Deal with the Changing Face of War

(Washington, D.C., Center for Defense Information Press).38. VANDERGRIFF, D. 2008, Building Adaptive Leaders: The Army can Adapt its Institution (pt.1)

(www.smallwarsjournal.com).39. WALKER, G. STANTON, N. JENKINS, D. & YOUNG, M. 2010, A Human Factors Approach to Analysing Military Command

and Control (http://www.dodccrp.org/events/11th_ICCRTS/html/papers/022.pdf).40. WASS DE CZEGE, H. 2011, Operational Art: Continually Making Two Kinds of Choices In Harmony While Learning and

Adapting (Army Magazine, 46-56).41. WATTS, B. 1996, Clausewitzian Friction and Future War (McNair Paper 52, Institute for National Strategic Studies).42. WEICK, K. 1993, The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster (Administrative Science

Quarterly, 38, 628-652).43. WEICK, K. SUTCLIFFE, K. 2005, Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking (Organizational Science, Vol. 16, No. 4,

409-421).44. WEICK, K. SUTCLIFFE, K. 2007, Managing the Unexpected, Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty, (San

Francisco, Ca: John Wiley & Sons, Inc).

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Thank you“I’ll live or die by my own ideas.” Johan Cruyff

Presentation created October 2012 by Larry Paul, Prescott Arizona.All references are available as stated.All content is the responsibility of the author.For questions or to inquire how to arrange a consultation or workshop on this topic you can contact me at larry4v4@hotmail.com, subject line; decision/action model.For more information visit the bettersoccermorefun channel on YouTube.