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Showing posts from January, 2015

COMPLEXIFY: To Fix the Perversion of Over-Simplification

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It wasn't until I read my second book about US Air Force Colonel John Boyd's research and study that I came to appreciate both the simplicity  and complexity  of his work. At the same time, I realized I had previously been duped by those who first explained a  highly  over-condensed version of Boyd's Observe-Orient-Decide-Act cycle. This blog begins  my  apology to my students for wasting their time with fruitless explanations of glass cockpit canopies. It would be quite difficult to find a police officer in America who hasn't at least heard of the "OODA Loop." The story is probably much of the same: an Air Force trainer John Boyd taught his pilots about the decision-making cycle of Observation, Orientation, Decision, and Action. In aerial  dogfights, the pilot who more quickly cycles through the repeated phases of the OODA Loop wins! In polici ng, most officers have probably learned of the OODA Loop from a firearm instructor who applies it to gu