The Need for Organisational Resilience Chapter 5

• Setting conditions. An introduction to set the strategic and operational conditions

affecting the operation, including political considerations, threat conditions, environmental

conditions, civil conditions, information and media conditions, etc.

• Game moves. A series of ‘game turns’ considering the action - reaction - counter-action

of opposing actors, starting with the opposing actor deemed to have the initiative.

Assessment and recording of overall results

An assessment of probable results of any action - reaction – counteraction typically follows each

game turn within a cognition phase and is used to set conditions for the succeeding game turns.

Observations and conclusions drawn from the war game are recorded in line with the purpose.

(Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre 2013, 3–52)

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Outlook

During the fateful days in May 1940, the French relied very much on a centralised,

administrative manner of leadership. It might be a logical response to having a largely citizen

army at their disposal. Nevertheless, their officers were far from being laymen, ill-equipped

to make situated decisions. There are countless accounts where the right decision were

made, but due to administrative shackles, could not be carried out on time. On a range of

other occasions, the lack of sensitivity through to the absence of out-of-date intelligence, a

confusing picture emerged so that commanders could only do the obvious: following the

initial order, whatever the costs, or opting to fill the void of lack of orders with the opposite

extreme: falling back.

Adaptive leadership is crucial in a battle as well as in an organisation. In an organisation

it may be tempting to ‘tame’ people, by the strict imposition of standard-operating

procedures, and make people compliant to rules and procedures. In the case of Uber,

aggressive leadership needed to be ‘tamed’. It is, however, whether the initial disruptive

entrepreneurial spirit of Uber will be controlled to that extent to which is stifling, and

ultimately eradicating the adaptive leadership that any organisation needs to be maintained;

regardless whether it is centralised or decentralised leadership.

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