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.