The Adaptive Loop

Sun Tzu’s nine rules on the continual reiteration of position analysis.

“Military leaders must be experts in knowing how to adapt to find an advantage. This will teach you the use of war.”

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War 8:1:14-15 “We can learn from experience if we are ready to adapt that experience to changed conditions.”

J. C. Masterman

General Rule: Our picture of competitive situations is continually assembled over time.

Situation:

Our challenge is that we are never done adapting to changing condi- tions. We are flooded with information about change on a daily basis. On what information can we base our reactions? Without a system for

filtering, organizing, and prioritizing that information, we end up with a confused, haphazard view of our strategic situation. We may see some aspects that are important but miss others that are much more impor- tant. This challenge is made more difficult by the continual distraction of events. To which events do we adapt? Events demand our attention because they are happening now. What is close to us seems bigger than what is far away so whatever is happening now seems more important than what happened yesterday or the day before. But, from this same logic, what seems so important now will seem less so tomorrow. The challenge is knowing which events are important and which are merely urgent.

Opportunity:

The system of elemental analysis gives us all the pieces we need to assemble a meaningful picture of our situation (1.3 Elemental Analysis). However, all strategic positions are paths, constantly moving (1.1 Stra- tegic Paths, 1.1.1 Position Dynamics). Every time we formally analyze strategic positions, we are just getting a snapshot of the situation. That snapshot only shows where positions are now, not how they are chang- ing. We can only see our situations and its opportunities when we assemble this series of snapshots. In doing so, we create a moving pic- ture of the dynamics of the situations. We begin to see not only where positions are, but where they seem to be heading. This dynamic picture is the basis of our situation awareness.

Sun Tzu’s Rules:

Living in an adaptive loop is a state of mind that sees the world according to the following rules.

1. We are continually adapting our picture of our strategic situ- ation and the positions within it. As new information comes in, we

update our mental model of the situation, fleshing out our picture of the different missions, climates, grounds, leaders, and methods that affect us. As we move though the cycle of activities needed to advance our position, we continuously adjust our situation awareness. This is not analysis as a separate activity that starts and stops at a certain point in a linear process. It is literally our awareness, the framework within which we are constantly thinking (2.5 The Big Picture.

2. We recognize that the picture is hidden in its pieces. We should

be driven by a constant itch that we are missing something important. Our information is always flawed. Our mental models never completely capture objective reality (1.2 Subobjective Positions).

3. We use the five elements as keys to unlock the key aspects of the situation. While we don’t know what the strategic picture really looks

like, we do know how the five elements fit together within it. By putting together these elements, we start completing blocks of the picture (1.3 Elemental Analysis).

4. We must increase our sense of size and proportion. As we col-

lect more information from a wider variety of sources, we develop per- spective, fitting the blocks of elements together, comparing positions. We see that picture from different perspectives. A well-rounded picture of the relationships among positions (2.0 Developing Perspective).

5. We must improve our ability to see where the pieces fit. As we

build up our strategic picture, it gets easier and easier to add new pieces of information to it. As the picture takes form, we can see where new pieces of information fit more easily. We see where they reinforce the existing picture (2.6 Information Leverage).

6. We must develop our strategic awareness as an increasingly automatic, background sense. Through practice, we train our minds to

sort incoming information. At first, we must do this consciously, work- ing at it. Through practice, however, the process gradually becomes automatic, where we don’t have to think about it because it is a habit (6.1.1 Instant Reflexes).

7. Though we can’t always see it, we must sense that positions are always changing. Over time, adjusting the picture becomes habit.

Things are changing whether we are looking at them or not. They are changing even when we are looking at them and can’t see them chang- ing (1.1.1 Position Dynamics).

8. We must sharpen our recognition of when pieces don’t fit. As

the picture takes shape, information that doesn’t fit stands out. Misfit pieces can only be explained one of three ways: either our picture was wrong, the information is flawed, or the picture has changed (2.1.3 Stra- tegic Deception).

As we assemble a series of snapshots of time, we get a moving picture of the dynamics of the situations: not only where positions are, but where they seem to be heading (1.1 Position Paths).

Good situation awareness leads automatically to better decisions. While the other rules of good strategy are important, even critical in certain situations, they are all based upon having a well-developed sense of situation awareness. We are continually making decisions based on our current level of knowledge, our current understanding of positions.

While we may need to do a formal analysis of strategic positions at a certain times for specific reasons, real position awareness has to be a continual process, an integral part of gathering information, making decisions, taking actions, and harvesting the benefits of those actions.

Illustration:

A good analogy for this process is putting together a jigsaw picture puzzle.

1. We are continually adapting our picture of our strategic situa- tion and the positions within it. We cannot solve the puzzle all at once.

We must settle on a method of building up our knowledge in small increments.

2. We recognize that the picture is hidden in its pieces. Picture

puzzles make this easy by putting the picture on the cover. Competitive strategy requires assembling the pieces with out a picture. The picture is both in the pieces and hidden by them.

3. We use the five elements as keys to unlock the key aspects of the situation. We use edges and colors as clues to assembling a picture

puzzle. We start by putting pieces together in blocks of similar edges and colors.

4. We must increase our sense of size and proportion. As we get

the edges of the picture puzzle completed, we can start seeing where the other blocks of pieces fit.

5. We must improve our ability to see where the pieces fit. As we

because we see where the holes are. We start to recognize common shapes of pieces more readily and it takes less time to find the pieces we need.

6. We must develop our strategic awareness as an increasingly

automatic, background sense. By practicing putting together puzzles,

we sharpen all our recognition abilities. As the picture in the puzzle takes form, the pieces we need start to stand out from the pile. We find ourselves just picking up pieces and putting them right where they belong.

7. Though we can’t always see it, we must sense that positions are always changing. This doesn’t apply to today’s jigsaw picture puzzles,

but it suggests a whole new type of toy. Moving picture puzzles on the computer, where the picture is a repeating movie loop instead of a static picture.

8. We must sharpen our recognition of when pieces don’t fit. We

realize when we get off track by putting together two pieces that don’t belong together. When the remaining pieces don’t fit into the holes we have, we start looking for what we did wrong. If pieces from another puzzle are in the box, we wouldn’t notice it as first, but as our picture takes form, those “wrong” pieces stand out more and more clearly.

9. We must heighten our awareness of the directions of things. If

we had, moving picture puzzles, we would only be able to see how the movie “ended” after the picture gets put together.