It is impossible to calculate all the factors in advance, some things have to be left to chance. however, he who does not care about anything, he deceives himself.
– Raimondo Montecuculi 1
Around 1810, after the battle of Jena, when Napoleon achieved a sensational victory over the Prussians, the Prussian generals Scharnhorst and Gneisenau concluded that the commanders behind the battlefield, due to the “fog of war”, they couldn’t get a pinpoint accuracy. view of what was really happening on the front lines and in the chaos of combat. Those who knew what was really going on were actually the subordinate commanders and officers in the field.
Since a battle is always fraught with uncertainty and characterized by unforeseen situations, the Prussian generals tried to find a planning concept, and a system of command, that would guarantee flexibility. This system must ensure that commanders in the field react quickly to the current situation and take the initiative. independently and without prior consultation with the High Command exploit an unexpected favorable situation or respond immediately to an unfavorable development. The result of this requirement was the auftragstaktik or, as it was later called by the Americans, Mission oriented command.
The Auftragstaktik It’s not just about delegating decisions to subordinate commanders; it implies a whole set of measures that had to be developed during the implementation of this concept. In fact, it required the reorganization of the entire German army, a process comparable to “reengineering of the corporation” This day.
The application of the Auftragstaktik meant that the supreme commander would formulate the general objectives that the officers had to achieve in the field and that he gave them relatively great freedom in the way in which the desired objectives were to be achieved. In other words: the goals were known, they knew what had to be achieved, but What that needed to be accomplished was left up to subordinate commanders.
This command system and its closely related Command Doctrine was a far cry from the rigid, hierarchical, and bureaucratic Befehlstaktik from that time This new form of planning and its command doctrine was perfected by von Moltke the Elder, who in the 19th century integrated it deeply into the organization of the German army.
Von Moltke devised a system in which the officers of the General Staff – immersed in a common philosophy – would be able to coordinate the actions of their units almost instinctively, without the need for specific orders from the higher command. The central idea behind this reorganization was decentralization of the command structure to achieve greater centralization of forces on the battlefield by tactical maneuver (flexibility). By exploiting modern innovations such as railways and the telegraph, Moltke hoped to increase this effect and bring in even greater numbers of troops to act at crucial moments.
As Moltke himself said:
“An order will contain everything that a commander cannot do on his own, but nothing more”
To implement this concept, the Germans understood that first officers and men had to be trained before it could be successfully carried out. This took years to implement because the idea has to cascade down to the lowest subordinate, Sgt.
The characteristic of the Auftragstaktikhence it was the great amount of attention paid, during the training of officers and men, to quickly assess and judge developments during battle and how to take the initiative.
result of this system “general” or “mission oriented” the planning was that tactical decisions could for the most part be left to the operational level and thus the desired flexibility was achieved. Furthermore, battle orders could be short with a ruthless concentration on the essentials because the more detailed planning of actions could be left to the commanders in field 2.
auftragstaktik it’s a politics concept that supposes the will to delegate. This concept, however, places great demands on the organization. It can only be successfully implemented when a (commercial) organization can meet the following conditions:
o Be able to formulate your objectives clearly and stick to the essentials;
o Have well-trained officers and sub-commanders (managers) capable of understanding the intent of high command (the CEO);
o Have well-trained officers and sub-commanders (managers), capable of judging
o situation quickly and choose to take the initiative;
o The willingness to cooperate;
o Have a transparent organizational structure;
o Have a good communication structure;
o Have a shared standardized system by which “front line” Situations are evaluated.
Responsibility for tactical conduct during battle was not delegated to sub-commanders in those days. Fashion.
This is one of the reasons why, with the introduction of this concept, the training of officers and men in these new ideas became of paramount importance to the Germans.
In today’s business organizations, training middle managers in these ideas, and giving them the freedom to act on them, is often neglected. The common practice is that taking the initiative is allowed as long as it is successful. If it is unsuccessful, then, at the very least, a downgrade can be expected. In contrast, in the German army taking the initiative was valued, whatever the outcome, but lack of initiative was punished!
This superior command attitude ensured that officers and men dared to take the initiative in any situation and, as it proved, to the advantage of German Army objectives. A German author wrote the following words in 1906, and they are still valid today 3:
“We don’t need soldiers with no will of their own who obey their leaders
unconditionally We need self-confident men [and women] that uses its entirety
intelligence and personality in the name of the intent of the superior commander”.
Another example of this attitude is the instructions for German paratroopers:
“You must understand the full meaning of an operation so that if your leader falls along the way, you can carry it out coolly and cautiously.”
The above illustrates that:
o The Germans even fully briefed the lower ranks on the objective of an operation.
o They hope that even the lowest ranks can lead.
o They have trained their men to do that.
The bottom line is that over the years, the Germans forged and implemented a successful and distinctive combat concept. Because they lost the war, interest in this German concept was also lost.
Business management focused on the Anglo-American method of hierarchical central planning and strict control cycles (“red tape”). Of course, this also influenced the way in which strategic planning developed in companies. This type of planning can be applied in a stable environment. But as the business environment became more turbulent in the 1960s and 1970s, this form of bureaucratic long-term strategic planning was found to be inadequate to cope with the often rapid and unpredictable changes in the environment.
For today’s dynamic business environment, success depends on flexibility, that is, how quickly business unit managers and professionals at the base of the organization are able to respond to the unexpected and take initiative. (without losing sight of the strategic objectives and the essentials). It is the methods of planning, command and delegation, developed by the German army, that offer the best promise of achieving this (innovative) flexibility.
A comparable concept of business management is that of empowerment as it spread in the 1990s. In its practical application, very little attention was often paid to the specific training of middle managers, teaching them how to analyze and judge the real situation and giving them the freedom to act accordingly, a central aspect of the successful implementation of the concept by the manager. German army.
Grades:
1. Raimondo Montecuculi was a brilliant Austrian general and military intellectual (1609-1680). He defeated the most numerous Turks in 1644 and wrote several books on strategy, logistics, and military conduct.
2. The command manual for D-Day was 133 pages, the German order to invade the Netherlands only 4 pages! See also Martin van Creveld, Fighting Power, Greenwood Press 1982, Chapter 12 Conclusions.
3. Ernst van den Bergh, Die seelischen Werte im Frieden und im Kriege (Ethical Values in Peace and War), a study in Militär-Wochenblatt 91 (Military Weekly) (91, 1906), Beiheft 6 (insert 6), 233, cited in Leistenschneider, 95.
