One big difference between the paths is the speed of the energy information flow. Implicit guidance and control implies a direct connection from Orientation to Action, it’s a learned reflex. Decision (hypothesis) implies an intermediary step between the two. This position is supported by the definition of hypothesis as “a tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences.” Note that the name Boyd chose for the end state is Action (Test).
Now focus on the word tentative and its synonym uncertain in the realm of decision-making literature. In some of the popular decision-making models you are taught to go through a series of steps in order to reduce the degree of uncertainty. In specific situations this does help you to make a better decision, particularly in complicated matters. You can test the tentative assumptions to reach a more optimal result.
For example, suppose you are given the chance to choose a new car from a selection of twenty different and various models, everything from SUV’s to sports cars, a complicated problem. You have all the time and resources you need to make your decision. You can research, test-drive and question others in order to gather as much information as necessary. You can weigh your wants and needs against each other in different combinations. In this model you gather information, compare, contrast and test in order to remove uncertainty. This works until you get into a time competitive contest with an active opponent.
For example, take the same scenario but now you have 24 other people involved with the same goal. That means twenty people will leave with a new car; five will be empty handed. Of the twenty few will have an optimal match of a vehicle to their wants and needs. This is because, faced with the knowledge that you can be one of the five left out the tendency will be to rush the decision. You will have to go with your first best choice. If you deliberate too long you’ll lose. This is Klein’s Recognition-primed decision model. Running through a number of steps, getting feedback, working up comparison contrasts to wants and needs leaves you on the bus going home empty handed.
Furthermore, you have to connect the decision to the action. You have to do something, raise your hand, get the keys, sit in the car, something to indicate that you have made your decision. So what happens when someone else beats you to the action first? You lost that battle and have to choose another car. That means you engage in another OODA loop because whoever beat you to your choice got inside yours.
In the first scenario, when times on your side you can take a very academic approach to problem solving. You can use the higher functioning parts of the brain, i.e academic to reason your way to what maybe a good decision. You can work with rules and logic. When time isn’t available, this model is a sure way to lose. You’ll need to function with the constraints of limited information and time. Your existing genetic heritage, cultural traditions and previous experience will be driving your decision process. It’s what you brought with you to the table at that moment. Your trump card will be your Dialectical Engine. If you can analyze, synthesize and act faster then the others you should be driving home in something better than the last car on the lot. (Should is an important caveat. It represents among other models, Taleb’s Black Swans, Clausewitz’s chance, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Paget’s definition of mistake as well as the presence of what are commonly called ‘levels.’)
In the time competitive world of soccer deliberate thinking is often the road to ruin. Intuitive thinking, while filled with problems such as biases, is the way to win. George Patton may have summed up this post best when he said, “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
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