The action: Make sure everyone (including you) knows the overarching purpose of what you are doing.
In case Signals can neither be seen or perfectly understood, no Captain can do very wrong if he places his Ship alongside that of an Enemy.
Horatio Nelson, Trafalgar Memorandum
The long form: Delegating is hard! We have all tried it. We have all seen how others make a royal mess of a seemingly easy task. We have all reverted to the saying, “If you want something done well you have to do it yourself.”
And if we absolutely have to hand over the task, we also pass on a set of detailed instructions for how we would have done it, and watch over the delegate like a hawk. Others may call it micromanagement – we call it “holding others accountable”.
Things do not get much more complex than on a battlefield. For this reason the Prussian army moved away from a rigid philosophy of “only do what you are told”, to “act in accordance with the commander’s intent.” That is why Prussian field marshal von Moltke writes:
In general, one does well to order no more than is absolutely necessary and to avoid planning beyond the situation one can foresee. These change very rapidly in war. Seldom will orders that anticipate far in advance and in detail succeed completely to execution.
The higher the authority, the shorter and more general will the orders be. The next lower command adds what further precision appears necessary. The detail of execution is left to the verbal order, to the command. Each thereby retains freedom of action and decision within his authority.
Helmut von Moltke, Instructions for Large Unit Commanders (1869)
In a military planning process, the commander’s intent is the overarching purpose of the operation. It gives everyone a clear goal to move towards, as well as context and information (f40). In the first quote above, Nelson is saying “Look, our plan is great, but when things fall apart – as they soon will – you are probably doing things right if you just start firing away at an enemy ship.”
It also gives people freedom to show initiative and leadership. A later army manual states the most distinguished leaders’ quality is the joy of taking responsibility.
By giving a clear direction with your overarching intent, you allow people the joy of taking responsibility and you avoid robbing them of their pride of workmanship (f40).
First Forty 