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Features

Published January 2009

The OODA Loop and Learning

  

  Duane Spivey

A common criticism of learning leaders is that they don’t “get” strategy. The first step is having a strategic focus on thought processes, evaluation and execution.

Be a businessperson first and a learning professional second, and measure the impact of learning on the business: These two tenets have been rallying cries in developing a learning strategy in the past few years. Much advice has been dispensed on these subjects, and numerous articles have explained or described how to make learning part of the business ecosystem. But what tools can learning executives employ that allow them to make decisions in a fast-paced marketplace that doesn’t allow for exploring all the options with all the information?

Several CLOs have told their CEOs that they believe learning is organizationally strategic and should be thought of in that light. However, the look on many of those CEOs’ faces gave them a clear response: Just saying it doesn’t make it a reality. In fact, many of them don’t see how learning could really change the enterprise — because they don’t see how the learning function is strategically connected to the vision and mission of the organization.

To move beyond being a training department and becoming an organization that aligns employee learning with organizations’ business goals, learning executives need to be connected to every part of the organization. To do that, they need to be business professionals, as well as learning professionals.

While there has been a cornucopia of information available on measuring learning, not as much attention has been given to how learning professionals can be businesspeople first. Is there a tool or model learning leaders can use to connect learning initiatives to business goals and show up as serious players on the executive team? Yes, and it’s called the OODA (pronounced “oo-da”) loop.

The Loop
While it may have a funny name, the OODA loop has been employed as an effective tool by the likes of the United States Marine Corps to develop its maneuver warfare doctrine, which in turn dictates battle strategies. It also has been used by General Re Insurance, Intel, Nokia and several other corporations to produce a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Created by Col. John Boyd, the OODA loop — which stands for observe, orient, decide and act — was originally designed as a way to understand conflict and provide military leaders with a model or method for making decisions and assessing their impact. This is done in an ever-changing and chaotic world in which actors seldom have all the relevant information.

Some say the OODA loop helps develop strategy, while others say it also can be used as a tactical tool. Either way, line-of-business executives have used it for marketing, sales and operational improvements for more than a decade. As more organizations come to realize the importance of learning to their success, learning executives can use the OODA loop as a means of helping line-of-business leaders understand how to create and implement learning programs that will help them compete.