Principle of War #6 – Concerted action
Concerted Action: Unify and bring all elements to work simultaneously in the achievement of your objectives.
- Objective
- Offensive
- Mass
- Maneuver
- Intelligence
- Concerted action
- Unity of command
- Simplicity
- Security
- Economy
- Surprise
- Exploitation
This is the principle of coordination and synergy. When attempting to achieve an objective that involves various departments their actions must be in coordination with each other.
The main strategy we use for concerted action is the Kaizen event. Kaizen is translated to mean “good change”, and we normally refer to it as meaning “continuous improvement”.
A Kaizen event is a multi-department effort to make a significant organizational improvement. Because Kaizen events have people from different departments, with different points of view there is a significant change management challenge. To overcome this obstacle Kaizen events have key team member known as the facilitator. Facilitators are normally Green Belts who help the team behave in concerted action using varies strategies. You can think of them as the oil in the engine that keeps the gears moving. Facilitators are often the most under-appreciated team member.
Synergy
Note: Your ability to create concerted actions between people or departments is rocket fuel for your career.