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#381 - General Stanley McChrystal - Military Strategies For Dealing With Risk

Modern Wisdom

CHAPTER

The Best Organizations Deal With Risk

When organizations were des ined to deal with risk, they were most effective when they designed themselves to be very adaptable. In the early years of special operations, we started doing things relating to counterterrase operations. And you'd sometimes see demonstrations put on by commanders for outsiders and people would just be in awe. We learned that you don't actually train that way. You have to do is train so that it always goes badly.

00:00
Speaker 2
What do you think, looking back on your time in the armd forcesn and risk, what was some of the things that they got right about the way that they judged risk?
Speaker 1
I think when organizations were des ined to deal with risk, they were most effective when they designed themselves to be very adaptable. In the early years of special operations, we started doing things relating to counterterrase operations. And you've probably seen i movies where commanders will go in a building and the first gow go left, the next goll go right, and everybody goes as though it's a ballet that's been rehearsed a hundred times. They throw things up in the air gy catches it, and they move around like that.
Speaker 2
That's how it goes, right?
Speaker 1
I assume it does in movies. Anyway, i never saw an op like that. And so when i first got into special operations, that stuff was kind of popular. And you'd sometimes see demonstrations put on by commanders for outsiders, and people would just be in awe. We learned that you don't actually train that way. You have to do is train so that it always goes badly. You have the first guy go in and you designate him as a casualty to fall down, and then you make the organization deal with that unexpected reality. And so the more you make them able to adapt to whatever happens, the lights go on, lights go off, you know, any number of things, they become problem solvers in a constantly changing set of unknowns. Then they become resilient. They become confident. They become used to adapting. They aren'ta thrown off their game by that. And so the best organizations build that into their diana. It doesn't come naturally because doctrine and procedures are designed to get everything lined up. If you 're a senior officer and you come up with a plan, you put together a battle plan, you brief body, and you have some ridiculous belief that that's what's actually going to happen. It never does. As they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Once you're in contact, the plan goes to hell. But the planning can give you the confidence in the ability to know what your options are, to know how to what we call, in a react to the unexpected. What
Speaker 2
about communication?

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