The Military Analogy - Part Three

About Theory and Practice

Christian M. Wegner, April 2022

“Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.”

Carl von Clausewitz, On War

As it is the case with some generals in war, in business some managers seem to forget that theory and practice are two different things, and wonder that best strategies sometimes fail. This is especially the case when people with insufficient operational background develop strategies or give orders.

“Friction, as we choose to call it, is the force that makes the apparently easy so difficult,” von Clausewitz rightly observes.

The element of friction is also always present in business, and only people who have spent enough time in operations understand its relevance and consequentially can deal with it. Each business has its own blend of frictions, and it would be a mistake to expect that somebody familiar in one field automatically understands what kind of friction is relevant in another one.

A common element of friction is people. “The battalion always remains composed of a number of men, of whom, if chance so wills, the most insignificant is able to occasion delay and even irregularity.” The more a business requires individual creativity and cooperation between people, the more friction needs to be taken into account. For example, functional organizations with many parties and interfaces in the value chain are especially prone to high friction because here the role of the human factor is very high. The human factor also sets limits to processes and standardization. In complex businesses, not everything can be covered by rules, and knowledgeable and committed people are the decisive factor of success. Practice has proven that in such businesses the most precise process descriptions are bound to fail if people do not flexibly adapt their acting or are refusing to give their best effort.

In situations when friction impairs the proper function of organizations, the engagement of external consultants rarely yields the expected results. These people are often lacking the specific operative experience in that particular field, and therefore tackle the problem though a generic approach—and thus produce only generic solutions. Often, the success of such an endeavor pays tribute to the huge gap between theory and practice.

“This is the reason that the correct theorist is like a swimming master, who teaches on dry land movements which are required in the water,... This is also why theorists, who have never plunged in themselves, or who cannot deduce any generalities from their experience, are unpractical and even absurd, because they only teach what every one knows—how to walk.”

Numerous strategies and business plans of companies are not anchored well enough in the reality of the business and consequentially fail in their practical implementation.

Many of the self-appointed business experts talking these days about leadership, organizational development, and transformation have never managed an organization or a business. Therefore, many ideas promoted today may sound well in theory but fail with regard to their practical applicability.