Auftragstaktik vs Normaltaktiker

On a warry thread at the moment, World War II in particular, and being driven along by James Holland and Al Murray's awesome podcast series "We have ways of making you talk" ...

https://play.acast.com/s/wehaveways

Came across this gem, which, like so much of the infinite space and time of WWII, I had missed - ignorance is bliss, not least because it preserves some morsels for later life! ...

Auftragstaktik

In trying to understand why the Jerries were just so good at warfare, the usual old suspects have been well chewed over in the years since:  Blitzkrieg - combined arms training, the German General Staff - planning on steroids, Jerry hyper-engineering - the incredible MG34/42, Tigers, Panthers, the dreaded 88, et al.

For me it was all enough to explain why when the Gaffer and I used to play those ingenious hexagon grid board games, like this ...

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/22509/four-battles-army-group-south 

... the Jerry counters always had more attack strength, defence strength, and movement points than the equivalent Rooskie, Brit or Yankee counters of the same organisational size: regiment, brigade, division or whatever.  Unit for unit, they were just better for those reasons.

For those who haven't wargamed WWII and seen this astonishing "positive handicap" required for the Jerries to represent their historical capabilities, this little gem will suffice ...

Eastory - Ostfront 1941

Freeze the animation at some points and count the units of the same level on each side.  Overwhelmingly the Jerries were attacking, surrounding, and annihilating Rooskies in the 100's of thousands with less Jerry troops than were facing them in the cut-off pockets!

The missing link (for me, anyway, in my vast ignorance) in the Jerry chain mail of military supremacy is "Auftragstaktik".  And within that wiki article the clincher being ...

This has significant implications for any army considering the adoption of Auftragstaktik. To clarify, the classic German approach called for every commander to be trained to function effectively at two levels of command above his appointment; a platoon commander—an appointment that was, and is, an NCO one in the German Army—would be expected to control battalion actions, if need be.

What a stroke of simple genius - if that isn't a contradiction in terms!  (Well apparently it isn't, Von Clausewitz said "Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult").

The tendency of everyone who is promoted is to lord it over his subordinates and dwell on micro-managing them with detailed steps and plans, because the leader is well steeped in those jobs he once did before he was promoted, and well within his comfort zone working them.

In the "Normaltaktiker" - as the opposite way of doing things was termed compared to "Auftragstaktik" - with the command hierarchy behaving like this there is no scope for quick reactions, flexibility or initiative.  Everyone waits for "Mr Know-it-all" the boss to issue step instructions down the hierarchy, from the very beginning and including all changes.

And since "No plan survives first contact with the enemy" (Von Moltke the elder this time) that's a lot of waiting.  Meanwhile your enemy has run rings around you - quite literally as the Eastory animation illustrates!

Training people two levels higher than their current position is the key means of getting subordinates to get the gist and meaning of the superior's mission, enabling the junior to do the planning himself with very little detail required from on high.  He can fill in the blanks himself, before and after first contact.

My thought is why isn't this instigated more thoroughly in non-war operators?  Why aren't middle managers trained as CEO's?

The missions would flow down the hierarchy much more easily if everyone knew the job two levels up.

And two specific problems of management with "Normaltaktiker" would be resolved: -

(1) The good old Peter principle, whereby it is observed that everyone gets promoted one level above their competence, because it would become apparent two levels below before the damage is done that an individual was no longer capable of going higher.

(2) Passing the buck, because no-one could say "I was simply obeying my step instructions".

And now Blighty's insanely negligent and painfully slow-to-react state, from DomBo right down through the civil service, SAGE, PHE, NHSX and the NHS, is explicable.  Too much centralised, await your orders from on high, "Normaltaktik", and zero "Auftragstaktik"!

A pyramid of Peter principle and buck-passing hiding in plain sight and in desperate need of some "Auftragstaktik"!

SoD

Comments

[Mike Havron]

Suggest you look into Len Deighton's Blood, Tear & Folly for an account of the German's situation when invading Russia.

[David Duff]

Blimey, 'SoD', that took me on a trip down memory lane! Do you remember our first table-top wargame on a table in the garage at our old house in Ascot? That was 'real' soldiering!!!

[TDK]

"Why aren't middle managers trained as CEO's?"

Your assumption fails on two levels.

1. To generalise - No General Manager or CEO gets specific training for that level. There is general management training which everyone on the management track gets and there are courses that might be considered essential like "understanding a balance sheet" or "Getting to Yes" but nothing tailored precisely to cover the different requirement of a department manager when promoted to a divisional manger for instance.

2. I've worked for many big companies as both employee and consultant. By and large once a person is on the fast track they will continue to progress regardless of performance.
Example: I've personally seen a big 4 consultant (after spending an evening in bars and nightclubs) roll into work with no sleep, no shave, no wash, no clean clothes reeking of alcohol, and tell a meeting with the clients that the reason the project is behind is that the client isn't providing the staff to perform testing when I know the system isn't ready. The client called their bluff and by the close of business they had made us look ridiculous by sending staff to sit idle ready to do testing on an unfinished system. A month later that consultant was made director even though his crash and burn was widely known.
And I can give you a couple of dozen other examples.

[Doonhamer]

Thank you SoD. That is the first time I have/had heard of that policy.
I can understand why the captains of modern British industry would not adopt it.
1. No boss with his jaiket on a shoogly peg likes any competent person in any position to show up his incompetence.
2. Any person a couple of rungs below him is not, unless he has just got his PPE degree and is getting job experience, going to be from a proproper school.
I can think of other reasons, but I won't bore you.
The only company that would try this would be owned by a single strong person - probably the founder.

[Loz]

Doony, I agree with your 1.

Auftragstaktik is abhorred by management because it enables juniors to compete with them. It's like instigating a market under their feet to keep them on their toes.

Which is why I agree with your 2., that: that is why the ultimate top dog, if insecure, would not like it also.

But a secure strongman leader with political brains is the exception, as you say. He would go straight for it, so as to keep his underlings competing and grassing each other up to the leader in any negligences, incompetences, or worse still coup plans, while being secure himself.

So the startup company with founder owning all the equity is an example. That's why they're a pleasure to work for, merit gets you onwards and upwards.

Likewise AH, who was fond of keeping his security services in constant competition with each other and no doubt a proponent of Auftragstaktik as its top man, so to speak!

And there's the rub: to avoid one big AH wrecking the world just split him into 1,000 little AH's and let them compete.

A thousand CEO market, the anti-thesis of a thousand year Reich, yet fashioned from the same form: Auftragstaktik.

SoD