Red Teaming: How Your Business Can Conquer the Competition by Challenging Everything
Bryce G. Hoffman
Description
Red Teaming is a revolutionary new way to make critical and contrarian thinking part of the planning process of any organisation, allowing companies to stress-test their strategies, flush out hidden threats and missed opportunities and avoid being sandbagged by competitors.
The term was coined by the U.S. Army, which has developed the most comprehensive and effective approach to Red Teaming in the world today in response to the debacles of its recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Red Teaming is both a set of analytical tools and a mindset. It is designed to overcome the mental blind spots and cognitive biases that all of us fall victim to when we try to address complex problems. It is a simple and provable fact that we do not know what we do not know. The good news is that, through Red Teaming, we can find out.
Key words: Strategy, critical thinking, decision making
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My Notes
Six or seven years ago, the Ministry of Defence was having a bit of a heart aching moment, and it decided it might ‘possibly’ have made some bad decisions. There was a big drive on how we were making decisions. Part of the drive came into the idea of evidence-based decision-making, which sounds fine – in fact, it is very difficult to argue against. But you’ve got to have the tools to decide upon the value of the evidence you use to then make decisions.
We essentially applied ‘Red Teaming’ techniques in an analysis of the paper, the plan, the philosophy that is being put forward. This eliminates group think.
Red Teamers spend their days ‘planning unscheduled sunrises’.
‘If this whole thing goes to hell, how is it going to go to hell?’ Just doing that can be enough to save you from a world of grief.
Psychology of Red Teaming
Planning fallacy – In these days of big data, there is no excuse for business planners not to ground their estimates on the bedrock of statistical evidence.
Temporal discounting – leads us to downplay the future negative consequences of decisions that have possible consequences right now, and it helps to explain why we tend to focus on the immediate consequences of an action without fully considering the long-term effects. This forces organisations to consider the long-term impact of their decisions as well as the short term.
Starting to Red Team - He and his team rarely tell senior leadership their favourite ideas are wrong. Instead, the red teamers acknowledge the value of those ideas, then point out their shortcomings. The red teaming process needs to be plugged into the very top of an organisation, to people that are in charge of leadership, decision making and data. The Red Team needs to be separate, so they have space and independence to think differently.
Creating a Red Team – The leader: Must know how and when to ask questions, knowing your audience and personalities with which you are dealing and for whom you are crafting your message, and using and demanding precise language. The leader needs to be strong, confident, and secure enough in his or her position to speak truth to power, to demand the data the red team needs to function, and to keep its members on track, on point and on schedule. You have to be empathetic and legitimately want to help people solve a problem. The first step is figuring out what the problem actually is.
The problem-solution framework
Starting to Red Team
While red teaming cannot predict the future, it can reveal the universe of possible futures.
The Red Team’s job is not to develop the plan, but to make the plan better.
Ideally Red Teaming should start after a plan has been created, but before it has been approved.
Your Red Team needs to produce a product. What that product looks like will be determined by the nature of the problem itself; there is no standard template. And it needs to deliver that product in a timely manner in order to be actionable. If there is no time left to modify a plan, then there is little point in second-guessing it.
Red Teaming the Problem
The way you state your problem frames your decision. It determines the alternatives you consider and the way you evaluate them. Posing the right problem drives everything else. Define the problem!
Poorly articulated problems are shown below;
Too broadly – how do we grow our business?
Too narrowly – How do we grow our business by 12 per cent each year without adding additional products, hiring new staff or expanding into new territories?
Contain inherent assumptions – How can we ensure our patented process remains the industry’s first choice?
Contain a presumed solution – How can we use Six Sigma to improve our quality while boosting productivity.
Fox example - How can we ensure our patented process remains the industry’s first choice? You might restate the problem more bluntly: We believe there is no better process possible than ours, but we’re worried someone will invent one. If you did, it would reveal the assumption inherent in the original question – that the company cannot improve its process. Hopefully, it would also lead your Red Team to answer the more important question. Is there any way we can do what we do, faster, better or cheaper? You will then not have to worry about your competition, but also strengthen your business.
You can shift the focus entirely. Instead of asking: How can we increase sales? Ask; how can we reduce costs? Turning a problem on its heads can reveal valuable new insights and perspectives.
The goal of the Red Team should be to consider as many different ideas, explanations and alternatives as possible before attempting to decide which one is the most desirable or correct.
Think-Write-Share
This is the same as the sticky note exercise. It forces people to ‘own’ their answers as they have written them down. They can also not modify their idea, based on what they hear from the rest of the group.
Another good technique is ‘everyone speaks once, before anyone speaks twice’. This also sometimes means bosses have to suspend rank.
The idea of Red Teaming is ‘none of us is as smart as all of us’.
Q&A example
Use note-its to answer below questions;
How could this plan fail?
Why have we been unable to achieve this goal?
Where is the weakest link in our supply chain?
What is the biggest threat to the success of this strategy?
Five Whys
Ask why five times to get to the root cause of a problem. The root cause of any problem is the key to a lasting solution. This was a Toyota standard procedure to problem solving.
Five whys example;
1. Why did the robot stop?
The circuit has overloaded, causing a fuse to blow.
2. Why is the circuit overloaded?
There was insufficient lubrication on the bearings, so they locked up.
3. Why was their insufficient lubrication on the bearings?
The oil pump on the robot is not circulating sufficient oil.
4. Why is the pump not circulating sufficient oil?
The pump intake is clogged with metal shavings.
5. Why is the intake clogged with metal shavings?
Because there is no filter on the pump.
Producing a useful product
The Red Team needs to report its findings, in a way the rest of the organisation can use.
Concrete action plan – If the Red Team recommends specific changes to the organisation’s plan, it should provide a phased implementation strategy that allows the organisation to begin moving in the right direction ‘right now’. This should be as specific as possible, and it should always include a time element.
Measurable – Specific metrics the organisation’s leadership can monitor to measure the progress toward the objectives of the Red Team. ‘You can’t manage what you can’t measure’ (again!!!).
Effective communication starts with listening, not speaking. And always positive.
Go forth and red team
We all contain some kind of power to affect what we do. We can control our attitude and approach, and how we interact with other people. But people tend to think they have no control. But, it’s simply a matter of asking; What can I do to make a small difference? What can I do to light a candle? The idea is not to fix the problem, but just to improve the situation. Of course, when you start to get a lot of people thinking this way, inside an organisation, it can change everything for the better.
“You will need courage to speak truth to power. You will need the courage to point out the flaws in the plan, even if it was written by your boss, or your boss’s boss. You need the courage to explain ‘why’ the way we’ve always done things around here, is not necessarily the best way, and you will need the courage to suggest a better alternative. Red Teaming is for those who want to make a real difference in organisations.”
