I’m mostly finished with Osinga’s book on Boyd’s theories, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd. It’s been interesting, nothing new, but a further illumination of Boyd’s ideas. The one thing that keeps coming to mind is the connection between Boyd’s thoughts which revolve primarily around uncertainty and how to deal with it, and Taleb’s ideas encapsulated in The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. I’m not sure what it is, or how to link the two. I think they both are dealing with the same conceptual issue, and I think they both are approaching it from two different directions, but I’m not sure if they’re coming from slightly different angles or if they’re diametrically opposed.
They both focus on the idea that it’s impossible to know everything, and that unknowable portion is the important part. Boyd focuses on either decreasing the unknowable by continuing to reorient to it, to be open to it in order to change, and that ignoring it leads to death or failure. Taleb instead looks at the impact of what we cannot know, and proposes that indeed what you don’t know is very important. He uses the term black swan for those improbable events with huge impacts.
I look at his ideas and Boyd’s, and I get the feeling that what is being described is simply two sides of the same coin. Taleb is focused on the environment, he explains what is out there–or more accurately, he explains what we don’t know that’s out there that is going to impact us. He highlights that there are monsters in the closet, there are risks that can undo everything, even if they have not been seen. Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence, to use a cliche. Boyd on the other hand is looking at decision-making, so people and organizations. He addresses the issue from the context of making decisions based on an ever changing and unpredictable environment. His focus is on dealing with uncertainty, learning to deal with it, learning to use it, learning to cause it for those you want to destroy.
It seems to me that the dire circumstances that Taleb highlights, the black swans that exist that can not be planned for or avoided, are things that Boyd’s theories are tailor-made to address. It’s not a matter of having contingencies in place for everything, though that’s not necessarily a bad idea, it’s a matter of having the flexibility to adapt to unforeseen circumstances, no matter how extreme. Even more so, it’s important to have the ability to spot these circumstances in order to allow that flexibility to function.
How you set this up I’m not sure, but I think Lean Production is one thought. Decentralized control, allowing those closest to the proverbial fire make decisions is another thought. Then again, that’s not the point. At some point I’ll have to dig further into both Boyd and Taleb and see if I can draw more mental bridges.
Tags: boyd, Taleb, Lean Production, Osinga
