Leadership: Do You Consider Your Struggle “Barrage Fire” or “Aimed Fire” – Your Strategy Depends.

For this blog, I offer an Organizational Maneuverability aligned insight about overcoming what seems to be standing in the way of your new initiative once you have decided that this is where you and your team need to go. This insight comes from a Fighter Pilot’s Air Combat Awareness & Decision Making. Let me simply first offer to you the basic insight and then I will make an application to your leadership aspect in an unpredictable “VUCA” changing environment and as such, overcoming what is in the way of your initiative.

Do You Consider Your Struggle “Barrage Fire” or “Aimed Fire” – Your Strategy Depends.

The Fighter Pilot Insight

So First, let me highlight the insight of Fighter Pilot’s Decision Making in a battle and specifically, in an Air-Ground role where the fighter is flying to a target to drop bombs on the right target. It is commonly known that the fighter will likely, while over enemy territory, experience groundfire which could involve much from small arms fire to Air-Air missiles or guns and for guns has historically been referred to as flack.

The center of the insight is just this. As a fighter crew in the F-4, we knew to be aware of what we observed because there were generally 2 types that included:

Barrage Fire: Barrage Fire is when the explosions and flack were all over the place in sort of a big cloud. What this meant is that the enemy on the ground were unclear/unsure about some things and could not aim so they are just “Filling the Skies” with their explosions and hoping one would hit your jet.

The Response in Barrage Fire was that you simply pushed the power up and accelerated through it as quickly as possible.

Aimed Fire: With Aimed Fire, the explosions and flack clouds were typically all out in front of the nose of the aircraft. With Aimed Fire, it suggests that the enemy was specifically aiming for your aircraft and leading your jet.

The Response in Aimed Fire was that you maneuvered your aircraft to distract their aiming solution.

LEADERSHIP APPLICATION

Let us now look at how this is applicable in leading your initiative in an Unpredictable, Changing environment. Particularly with a new initiative, there are possibly 3 origins of challenge that you may face.

1. Internal Doubts, Fears or Concerns

2. External aspects that could be coming from others, perhaps who do not want you to succeed or would rather have all the attention on themselves.

3. Lastly, there will always be Unexpected things that you cannot predict or plan for.

The thing I would like to leave with you is simply this, as you consider these factors, or as some that might seem to arise, do they seem all over the place, like “Barrage Fire” or do they seem “Aimed Fire”? If your perception is Barrage Fire, keep going and get through it fast as it could be a distraction. If Aimed Fire, be clear on how you may need to Adapt as you progress and keep going.

What do you need to do differently to enhance your clarity on what is holding you back but also how you need to appropriately respond and reach the goal?

- Randy Swaim, Coaching for Relevance, LLC