[dvtrn]

A real mission statement is suppose to provide a lens through which tough decisions can be viewed, similar to the military idea of “commanders intent”.

I think a well written and deliberately structured playbook of org strategy (or departmental playbooks) is better than a mission statement for this.

Taking your military reference: these are akin to Field Manuals. Commander’s intent is meaningless unless there’s an established tradecraft behind it that governs how to execute on that intention in a way that brings alignment to behavior, initiative and decentralized execution of said intent.

Mission statements probably give you a “North Star”, but they don’t-on their own-necessarily help teams execute

[bumby]

I agree with your overall view, but I don't think the understanding of commanders intent is quite right. Field manuals are meant to give the tactical, detailed guidance. "Commanders intent" is specifically meant for times when there is no detailed guidance. It's meant to guide decisions when the situation is unique enough, or moving quickly enough, to require improvisation because there is no standard procedure or field manual to guide it. Instead of a strict procedure, it's meant to give a philosophical decision framework.

"Provide the most value to shareholders" and "Provide more value than you capture" are two high-level (granted, not the most specific) mission statements. But if you can imagine an ethically ambiguous decision point, you can see how each can lead into diverging choices. Whether mission statements truly guide decisions or are just lip-service is largely a leadership issue.

[dvtrn]

Maybe my view is merely more radical than tradition requires: if executors and operators of intention find themselves in an ethically ambiguous situation, crippled by analysis paralysis, the commander has failed to sufficiently articulate his intentions and directives and possibly even in the training of standards and requirements.

The entire purpose of commanders intent is to make the mission clearly known, and allow for decentralized decision making of the tactical day-to-day. It should never replace tradecraft, yet it also shouldn’t stand in the way of independent thinking either.

Instead, those ethical decisions should include commanders’s intent.

Gen. Bruce Clarke has a brilliant book on this, “About Face”-with many lessons on this echoed more recently by the likes of Gen. James Mattis (“Call-Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead”) and the popular Jocko Willink (“Leadership Strategies and Tactics-FM-02”). Therefore I say thusly: commander’s intent informs tradecraft, tradecraft is commander’s intent manifested.

Edit: I believe I got the Clarke book wrong, instead it appears to be a collection of his writings on leadership, he himself didn’t give it this name apparently.

[bumby]

I'm familiar with the books you mentioned (haven't read Mattis' yet though) but I think you are probably referencing the About Face book by David Hackworth. Jocko also had covered this book ad nauseum on his podcast.

I'm not sure we're disagreeing on much other than you can't have a field manual for everything which is where the commanders intent comes in. Yes, field manuals should align with the commanders intent just like standard procedures should align with a mission statement. But the commanders intent is there for the times when there isn't clear guidance. Same goes, IMO, with a mission statement to align the values of a company. When a decision maker comes across a situation not explicitly covered by a standard procedure/field manual, they need to ensure whatever decision they make aligns with the overall mission/commanders intent.

If the leader "has failed to sufficiently articulate his intentions" that means there is no well-understood commanders intent. The leader has failed to articulate the why behind the mission. The same is true (as previously stated) for poorly formed mission statements. They don't articulate the values of an organization in a meaningful way to guide decisions. If you are making the case that there should be clear tactical, detailed guidance provided on all scenarios, that is the opposite of decentralized command.

>Instead, those ethical decisions should include commanders’s intent.

This goes without saying. That is exactly why I said it provides the framework for decision making.