Battle Rhythm

Guided Discovery.

Artist: GP Photography

Suggested Reading

• FM 6-0, Commander and Staff Organization and Operations

  • Pages 4-1 through 4-25 based on printed document (PDF pages 67-91)

  • Discussion of the processes and actions for effective and efficiency management of command posts

• Link to FM 6-0 on the US Army Publishing Directorate

• This week’s Study: Take Notes

• All excerpts below are from FM 6-0 unless otherwise noted with preceding hyperlinks

Guided Discovery

One more time.

What is rhythm (besides a dancer)?

Britannica: Unlike a painting or a piece of sculpture, which are compositions in space, a musical work is a composition dependent upon time. Rhythm is music’s pattern in time.

A pattern in time.

4-1. The battle rhythm is a deliberate daily cycle of command, staff, and unit activities intended to synchronize current and future operations.

Precious time available to leaders.

"You can ask me for anything you like, except time."
Napoleon

The battle rhythm is how time is allocated, used, and consumed by leaders.

Music can exist without harmony or melody, but rhythm is required.

Complex organizations and operations can function without many components, but battle rhythm is required.

Creating rhythm demands an understanding and appreciation of its elements, in music or your leadership role:

• Beat

• Tempo

• Time

• Polyrhythm

Arrhythmic sounds and organizations try our sense of order and create discomfort. People need a sense of order and comfort to understand their roles in a complex organization (or world). Order and comfort is created through rhythm, via thoughtful consideration of issues as important and banal as meetings.

4-1. A headquarters’ battle rhythm consists of a series of meetings (to include working groups and boards), briefings, and other activities synchronized by time and purpose.

Beat, tempo, time, and polyrhythm are as meaningful to the US Army and us, in business and our personal lives, as they are in music.

How do you stay on beat?
Do your different lives (professional, personal, other) have rhythm?
Are they in rhythm with each other?

Beat

Britannia: The mind apparently seeks some organizing principle in the perception of music, and if a grouping of sounds is not objectively present it imposes one of its own. Experiments show that the mind instinctively groups regular and identical sounds into twos and threes, stressing every second or third beat, and thus creates from an otherwise monotonous series a succession of strong and weak beats. In music such grouping is achieved by actual stress—i.e., by periodically making one note stronger than the others. When the stress occurs at regular intervals, the beats fall into natural time measures.

Not every beat is created equal.

4-2. Understanding the purpose and potential decisions of each meeting and activity is equally important. This understanding allows members of the staff and subordinate commanders to provide appropriate input to influence decisions.

Some beats are emphasized more than others. That does not make the other beats irrelevant.

Masterclass: Rhythm combines strong beats and weak beats. Strong beats include the first beat of each measure (the downbeat), as well as other heavily accented beats. Both popular music and classical music combine strong beats and weak beats to create memorable rhythmic patterns.

The emphasis on particular beats is a decision made by the leader. But team members need to understand why specific beats are emphasized.

4-6. A commander’s decisions ultimately guide the actions of the force. Decision making requires knowing if, when, and what to decide and understanding the consequences of that decision. As such, the development and management of the unit’s battle rhythm must directly support the commander’s decision-making style.

Do your company’s beats all feel the same? How should they be accented?
Have you ever been part of a memorable battle rhythm? What made it popular?
Can battle rhythm accidentally becomes more important than market responsiveness?

Tempo

Britannia: The tempo of a piece of music indicated by a composer is, however, neither absolute nor final. In performance it is likely to vary according to the performer’s interpretative ideas or to such considerations as the size and reverberation of the hall, the size of the ensemble, and, to a lesser extent, the sonority of the instruments. A change within such limits does not affect the rhythmic structure of a work.

The same is true for battle rhythm:

4-3. The battle rhythm changes during execution as operations progress. For example, early in the operation a commander may require a daily plans update briefing. As the situation changes, the commander may only require a plans update every three days. Some factors that help determine a unit’s battle rhythm include the staff’s proficiency, higher echelon headquarters’ battle rhythm, and current mission.

Tempo is derived as much from internal choices as from external influences. The expectant audience pressure which ratchets up the tempo in a performance is akin to the intensity of an operating environment. There might be a planned tempo, but the actual tempo in real-life performance varies dramatically according to need and constraints.

4-16. The type and intensity of operations are both important considerations when developing or modifying a unit’s battle rhythm. During high-tempo operations involving offense and defense (such as large-scale combat operations), planning and timelines for making decisions are often shortened. For operations dominated by stability (such as counterinsurgency), the planning and times for making decisions are often longer.

Matching the tempo to circumstances and intent, and understanding when it needs to change, is the work of the leader.

What causes tempo to shift? When should this be embraced? Discouraged?
At what tempo do you best operate? Why?
Should tempo be varied occasionally even when there is no requirement for change?

Time

Rhythm is music’s pattern in time and is the synchronization of time and purpose, but the use of time and timing in rhythm is a significant factor toward determining whether a rhythm is crisp and clear or cluttered and chaotic.

Masterclass: A musical time signature indicates the number of beats per measure. It also indicates how long these beats last.

For a leader, the question is how much is just enough: how many beats can you get in the schedule before the structure becomes overbearing and counterproductive?

4-19. When developing the battle rhythm, it is important to incorporate additional time for thinking, battlefield circulation, planning, analysis and personal time (including sleep, relaxation, and exercise). A common error in battle rhythm development involves scheduling numerous events where the commander, staff principals, and action officers attend a continuous progression of meetings, working groups, and other events. In this environment, the commander or members of the staff lack the time to think or work on projects. The negative impacts of a “jam-packed” battle rhythm go beyond the commander and staff and affect subordinate units.

Successfully allocating time within a battle rhythm is a result of choices and is not an accident.

4-13. Developing an effective battle rhythm requires detailed planning and analysis. Rarely does a unit start from scratch when developing its battle rhythm. Unit operations normally provide a standard battle rhythm in which the unit expects to operate. … In addition to understanding the commander’s decision-making style and preference, the staff considers the following when developing the unit’s battle rhythm:

• Higher echelon headquarters, support, and supporting events and report requirements.

• Type and intensity of operations.

• Logical arrangement of events.

• Time available.

Time available! Understanding how much time is actually, reasonably, available, is difficult in the best of circumstances. Even more when a higher headquarters requires its own timing and rhythm to be used as inputs and guardrails and the layering addes even more complexity.

4-17. The commander’s guidance and decision-making requirements, an analysis of the higher headquarters’ battle rhythm, and an understanding of the type and intensity of operations all help the staff to identify events for inclusion in the unit’s battle rhythm. Before sequencing events, it is helpful to associate actual time windows to planning horizons and identify major decision-making events associated with each planning horizon. This understanding helps the staff logically sequence events so that outputs from one battle rhythm event provide inputs to others, in support of the commander’s decision-making requirements, by planning horizon.

Is your organization’s battle rhythm aligned with available time? How is time defined?
What do you do when your schedule seems too full?
Is there time in your battle rhythm for thinking? If not, how can you create it?

Polyrhythm

Masterclass: To achieve a particularly ambitious sense of rhythm, an ensemble may employ polyrhythm, which layers one type of rhythm on top of another. For instance, a salsa percussion ensemble may feature congas and bongos playing 4/4 time, while the timbales concurrently play a pattern in 3/8. This creates a dense rhythmic stew and, when properly executed, it can yield incredibly danceable rhythm patterns. Polyrhythms originated in African drumming, and they’ve spread to all sorts of genres worldwide, from Afro-Caribbean to Indian to progressive rock, jazz, and contemporary classical.

Incorporating the beat, tempo and time of multiple echelons of an organization or business to create a unified battle rhythm is intimidating. A musical version of this is polyrhythm. The corporate version is integrated, nested operations.

Both require intense planning and analysis of dependencies to inform sequences.

4-15. A technique for initially developing the unit’s battle rhythm is to analyze the higher echelon headquarters’ battle rhythm, including identifying higher headquarters meetings and reports that require the unit’s participation or input. The staff also identifies information requirements and meetings of supporting units. This helps the staff identify internal meetings and report requirements. It also helps determine the scheduling of internal meetings and reports so staffs can provide timely input to the higher echelon or supporting headquarters. For example, the higher headquarters will require subordinate units to submit target nominations and requests by a certain time per the published battle rhythm. To ensure timely input to higher headquarters, the subordinate staff members perform a time analysis on when they need to conduct their internal targeting working group and targeting board so target nominations reach the higher headquarters on time.

The US Army suggestions a series of checks to determine whether an established battle rhythm is achieving results in a multi-echelon environment.

4-21. The COS or XO may ask the following questions as considerations for approving the battle rhythm and meeting events:

• Does the battle rhythm support the commander’s decision-making style and requirements?

• Is the battle rhythm nested with higher events?

• Does the battle rhythm match the events happening on the ground and the intensity of the operations?

• Does the battle rhythm allow subordinate units to establish their routines?

• Is there time between routine events to allow for leaders and staffs for other activities to include personal time?

What are best practices for synching multiple echelons of battle rhythms?
Does backwards planning solve all coordination issues? When can it fail?
What is the correct balance between a battle rhythm that accommodates a leader versus one that accommodates a staff?

The Building Blocks of Battle Rhythm: Meetings

4-24. Efficient meetings help build and maintain shared understanding, facilitate decision making, and coordinate action. To ensure meetings are organized, a unit’s standard operating procedures should address—

• Purpose.

• Frequency.

• Composition (including the meeting’s chair, participants, and note taker).

• Inputs and expected outputs.

• Agenda.

What percentage of the last ten meetings you attended or chaired had explicitly stated structure? I’d guess below 25%.

Part of the reason is that meetings are like vampires…difficult to kill. Pressure test your meetings to determine real value.

4-21. For each meeting—

• Is the meeting necessary?

• Is there a clear purpose to the meeting?

• Does the meeting feed other meetings and ultimately lead to timely decisions?

• Did the staff identify and synchronize the inputs and outputs of the meetings?

• Do those involved have sufficient time to prepare for the meeting?

• Does this meeting avoid duplicating other meetings?

• Are the proper attendees at the meeting?

When does meeting cadence become a substitute for actual leadership presence?
What percentage of "strategic" meetings are actually status reports? What needs to change?

4-60. There is not a standard battle rhythm for every situation. Each commander has a unique personal decision-making style and staff interaction preference. Different echelons, types of units, and types of operations require commanders and staffs to develop their unit’s battle rhythm based on the situation.

Questions for Individual Reflection

1. When does your "battle rhythm" actually prevent the critical thinking it's supposed to enable?

2. What decisions are you making in meetings that should never require a meeting?

3. Which of your recurring meetings exist primarily to manage your own anxiety about control?

4. What critical decisions are you avoiding by hiding behind collaborative processes?

5. How do you know when your leadership rhythm serves the mission versus serving your ego?

Professional Discussion Prompts

1. How do you prevent your executive team from becoming professional meeting attendees?

2. When does "nesting" with the board's rhythm compromise your ability to lead effectively?

3. How do you maintain strategic agility when your organization runs on predictable cycles?

4. When does operational discipline become an excuse for avoiding uncomfortable conversations?

5. Should acquisition targets be evaluated based on their ability to sync with your operating rhythm?

Personal Discussion Prompts

1. How has your professional "battle rhythm" infected your family time and personal relationships?

2. What personal decisions do you avoid by staying busy with professional coordination activities?

3. What personal relationships suffer because they don't fit your preferred "meeting cadence"?

4. What personal activities do you sacrifice to maintain your professional rhythm?

5. How do you differentiate between leading your family and managing them?

Exercises

1. The Meeting Elimination Test

   1. Exercise:

      1. Teams select their most sacred recurring meeting and design a 30-day experiment to eliminate it

      2. Create alternative mechanisms for information sharing and decision-making

      3. Develop metrics to measure impact on both efficiency and effectiveness

   2. Debrief:

      1. What essential functions did we think the meeting served that actually aren't essential?

      2. How did relationships and information flow change without the formal meeting structure?

      3. What does this reveal about our assumptions regarding how work actually gets done?

2. Tempo Mismatch Challenge

   1. Exercise:

      1. Teams identify areas where their operating rhythm mismatches market or customer tempo

      2. Map customer decision cycles against internal meeting cycles

      3. Propose rhythm modifications that better align with external stakeholder needs

   2. Debrief:

      1. Where does our internal coordination slow down our external responsiveness?

      2. How do our customers experience our need for internal synchronization?

      3. What competitive advantages are we surrendering to maintain operational comfort?

Feel free to borrow this with pride and use with your teams, professionally or personally. If you do, please let me know how it went and tips for improvement: matt @ borrowingwithpride.com