What is the OODA loop?
The OODA loop stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. While originally developed in a military context by Colonel John Boyd, specifically aerial combat, it has in recent years expanded to a wide variety of industries. When it comes to security, the OODA loop is a helpful tool to use in conjunction with situational awareness to stay ahead of threats and potential risk – as well as just make everyday life a little easier.
The point of the OODA loop is, at its core, to help someone make good decisions. By accurately recognizing what is happening around us, and understanding it, we can make good decisions quickly, and act upon them. In a security context, by moving to a good decision faster, we are able to stay ahead of bad actors. We can also disrupt their OODA loop, which reduces the risk to ourselves.
Let’s break down the individual steps.
Breaking it down
Observe
The first stage of OODA is to observe. This is as simple as it sounds. We need to use our senses (primarily sight and hearing) to collect information on what is happening around us. Our bodies do this to a certain degree naturally. Our eyes are attracted to light and movement. Our ears can quickly pick up on sounds that don’t fit the scenario we find ourselves in – such as loud bangs or slams.
The trick here though is to allow our body to function the way it naturally wants to, and to enhance its abilities through practice. An easy way to do this is to reduce how much we stare at our screens, especially in public. When we are absorbed in our phones, our eyes have a vastly diminished capacity to notice what’s happening around us. We are in Condition White. If we add headphones, now we are completely oblivious to any potential hazards or inconveniences around us – our sight and hearing are both compromised.
While this is the first step in the loop, it is also a continual thread through the entire OODA process. Anytime new information is presented, we need to be ready to recognize it and start our loop over if necessary.
Orient
The second stage is to orient ourselves to what we have observed. This is the step of understanding what was presented to us in the Observe stage. Everything we observe is then filtered through our understanding of how the world works. This is influenced by our worldview, cultural background, the way we were raised, and even our current emotional state. A wide variety of factors is constantly affecting how we interpret the world around us. What one person may see as an existential threat might be another person’s Tuesday afternoon.
One important part of the Orient stage to consciously and deliberately think about how we interpret the world. What is actually a hazard for us, personally. What do we actually need to be worried about. This requires giving our attention to what is going on around us and being ready to interact with it. Over time, with practice, this will get easier.
Another important part of this stage is to make sure you have established a baseline for your environment. If you’re in a coffee shop, you don’t need to constantly orient yourself to every person that comes in to order coffee – that’s a normal occurrence for this environment. But if someone starts talking loudly and angrily, it might be worth looking up, observing what’s happening, and then orienting yourself to it: filter it through your understanding of the world and try to determine what may be happening and if it could affect you.
Decide
Once you have made your observations and oriented yourself to create an understanding of what is happening, it is time to make a decision. You have to decide if and how you will respond. The vast majority of the time, your decision will probably be to get back to whatever you were working on before the distraction.
But there could be times where the best decision to do something else:
- You may decide to continue watching
- You may decide to change locations
- You may even decide to interact with what you have observed
Act
After completing the decision stage, you then need to act upon that decision. Whether that is to engage, ignore, or wait, you are making a choice.
Once you make your choice and act upon it, you then move back into the observation stage. The OODA Loop is just that, a loop. It is a continual sequence that we are all constantly moving through. Like so many aspects of personal security, the magic is making it a practiced, conscious activity.
Remember, actions have consequences. If you decide to confront a possible threat, you are also deciding to accept the consequences of that action. The same is true if you decide to ignore a possible threat.
Conclusion
Moving through the OODA loop quickly is vital to making good decisions in response to what is happening around us. The faster we move through the loop, the faster we respond. It is also important to be ready to reset the loop whenever new information, or someone else’s actions, come into play. When dealing with bad actors, it can be incredibly helpful in avoiding a crisis by forcing them to constantly reset their OODA loop. If they can’t make adequate decisions fast enough, you’re going to stay ahead them.
With practice, the OODA loop can become an automatic activity that, most of the time, requires very little thought and energy. But by making a conscious decision to develop this practice you will make yourself a highly competent and prepared individual. You will not only reduce daily stress and avoid many inconveniences, you will also be one of the few people prepared to respond quickly in a crisis.
