Chet Richards worked closely with John Boyd. He remembers the OODA sketch showing up in his mail. Mark “Moose” McGrath and I asked Chet what Boyd meant by it, using The Essence of Winning and Losing as our guide.
The only official sketch
Chet says the sketch in The Essence of Winning and Losing is the only official illustration of the OODA loop. Boyd finished it shortly before he died. The sketch puts orientation at the center: genetic heritage, cultural traditions, previous experiences, analysis and synthesis, and new information.
Implicit guidance and control
We spend a long time on implicit guidance and control. It is the path that lets skilled people and teams act without stopping to deliberate. Chet explains how that capability grows through deliberate practice under harder and harder conditions. It shows up in military operations, sport and business. It is also where flow lives.
Shared orientation
High-performing teams build a collective orientation through shared experience. That gives them an implicit repertoire for coordinated action with little explicit communication. Seen from above, the team moves like a single organism. Opponents who think in straight lines struggle to keep up.
Chet also connects Boyd’s work to current neuroscience on predictive processing and how the brain conserves energy.
If you only know the four-box version of OODA, start with this one.
Where does your team act on implicit guidance today?
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