The Choice: Do, or Be

John Boyd and his Decision to Change the World

An excerpt from Raising a Man by Todd W. Skipton

Do you want to “fit in” and be popular? Do you want to conform to the norm and be a success? If
so, you’re normal, average and typical. It is the rare and uncommon great man who swims
against the tide and dares to do great things, in spite of the malice and misfortune caused by his
actions. Colonel John Boyd was the latter; his choice forever changed warfare and also changed
the worlds of philosophy, thought and behavior. This excerpt from Raising a Man profiles a great
man. His story, and others, is available at http://raising-a-man.org.

John Boyd
"Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac
with a mission." Peter Ferdinand Drucker (1909-2005), business analyst and author.

“Fanaticism is crucial.” James Brian Quinn, business professor.

U.S. Air Force Colonel John Richard Boyd was a fighter pilot who changed the preparation for, and
the art of, war in ways that still have far-reaching consequences years after his death. Boyd was
a maverick who swam against the tide of conventional thought his entire life. His injection of
scientific reasoning into what was thought to be the purely instinctive art of being an effective
fighter pilot has had ramifications in virtually every facet of American military and business
thought during the last 50 years. He was a highly-principled renegade who had unique, eccentric
ways of thinking and living, and he always held true to his beliefs no matter how stern or
vociferous the opposition. He was a man of integrity and was blessed with an extraordinary
breadth of critical thinking skills that have been widely adopted in the American military and the
global business community. Boyd threatened convention and the comfortable order that existed in
the Air Force command structure, and he made a lot of enemies with his unbending commitment
to truth and complete understanding, without regard for bruised egos and hurt feelings. He
plowed ahead with what he knew in his heart were radical, new, and improved ways of operating.

Boyd came to fame in the 1950s when he was a young fighter pilot. Boyd grew up in extreme
circumstances, father-less from a young age and with siblings with a health condition and a
mental condition, respectively, that denied him of almost all motherly affection in his youth. He
found in the Air Force a cause that eventually became his crusade: how to codify, classify, and
make replicable the skills necessary to be an exemplary fighter pilot, and military planner. Boyd
spent most of every day cataloging, categorizing, and classifying every possible maneuver
possible in a fighter plane into a mathematical formula that he was able to quantify and teach to
other pilots.
Until his efforts, the skills of a fighter pilot were considered more instinctive than replicable.
Virtually nothing had ever been written about the skills, thought processes, and results of
previous air war. As an instructor at the world famous Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force
Base in Nevada, Boyd taught fighter pilots from all branches of the military (including all the allies
of the U.S.) his new, extremely complex ways of thinking. To prove the effectiveness of his
concepts, he issued a standing challenge to all fighter pilots: fly against him in a simulated
combat drill (in the air, using real airplanes) with Boyd beginning in the disadvantaged position,
and within 40 seconds Boyd’s jet would be on their tail and they’d be forced to admit his
superiority at flying. Boyd was challenged hundreds of times, and legend has it he never lost.
Hence, his nickname became “40 Second” Boyd.

His intense, confrontational style also provided him with the sobriquet “Genghis John.” He was
not a soft and gentle man. He considered himself the finest fighter pilot in the world and he had
an all-consuming mission to teach others those same skills and ways of approaching the craft. His
“Aerial Attack Study” written report has been in use for almost 50 years, and nothing of
substance has been added to or deleted from it!

Boyd pushed himself, his students, and his planes as hard as possible. He had no time for
doubters, goof-offs, or anyone who took being a fighter pilot less than completely serious. Scoff
at him, once, and he never spoke with you again. He was not a nice, polite man who curried favor
from superiors or lived by the whims of doing what it took to be popular. He was obsessed with
thinking about and becoming the greatest strategical and tactical fighter pilot in history! His
concern was to take everything about flying to a far deeper level than anyone else had ever
imagined. His premise: it’s not only what you do that matters, it’s the measurable effects and
documented results that matter most. Boyd dissected every single documented dog-fight from
World War I, World War II, and the Korean conflict in order to teach his students how to think,
not just how to react. Force the action, don’t merely respond. One-on-one air combat was an
unforgiving arena – make a mistake, even in training, and the results were often fatal.

Boyd was a captivating teacher. There were no niceties; there was no small talk. He dazzled,
wowed and scintillated his students from the first moment, always seeking answers to the
question “how do we get better?” He dove right in to the most difficult issues and demanded the
same from his students. He never eased into a conversation or relationship: it was full speed to
the crux of the matter, all the time. Many contemporaries were overwhelmed by his intensity and
curiosity; Boyd never adapted his style to become more (or even a little) socially correct. He was
on a mission to learn new and better ways of thinking and preparing for war, and he steamrolled
all obstacles in his path.

The latter half of his Air Force career was devoted to his E-M Theory, short for Energy-
Maneuverability, which became the global standard for the design of fighter planes. Boyd and his
followers found serious, major flaws in a number of U.S. fighting machines and hammered
through re-design, rebuilds and reforms that saved countless numbers of lives, even though it
cost him (and them) many promotions and ultimately each of their careers. Politics, preservation
of power, and greed got in the way of producing the finest airplanes. Boyd and his loyal group
were eventually pushed aside with many of their ideas shunned, mocked, and partially ignored.
Enough was enough, and Boyd left the Air Force.

For the first 18 months of his retirement, Boyd secluded himself in isolation, embarking on a
massive self-study of warfare, learning, and creativity. He devoured any military writing he could
find, reading it, absorbing it, tearing its ideas apart and rebuilding disparate thoughts into his
unified whole. His readings led him to an in-depth study of philosophical and self-realization texts
that coalesced with the military concepts. He described this time of personal growth as “Out
there, business as usual. In here, thunder and lightning!”

Takuan Soho (1573-1645) was a Japanese author and Zen Buddhist master who wrote Unfettered
Mind, an erudite, mystical examination of the process of thinking, being and doing. Soho said,
“One is not likely to achieve understanding from the explanation of another.” Meaning, true
learning happens only by doing. Profound knowledge is discovered within oneself, but only
through daily activity and external situations that elicit inner understanding. A particular, severe
situation rife for self-discovery in that era was a swordfight. Soho was a contemporary of the
greatest Samurai and sword fighter in recorded history: Miyamoto Musashi, (1584-1685), who
had over 50 one-on-one "to the death" swordfights with various enemies. Musashi always found a
way to win his duel; once he used an oar from a boat against a master swordsman's blade and
prevailed.

Musashi wrote what many military historians consider the ultimate guide to warfare strategy, The
Book of Five Rings. Musashi was inspired to write this comprehensive treatise after meeting the
frail Soho. Musashi was the most feared man in the land and a vain man who lived a very ego-
filled life. He took what he wanted and bullied people and even killed them if they disagreed with
him. Soho looked Musashi straight in the eyes and laughed! Soho called him “a little child … no
more enlightened than a wild animal.” Musashi had killed many men for less insult than this.
However, the bravery and unflinching honesty of Soho so utterly discombobulated, derailed and
affected Musashi that he instantly put aside his sword and became one of Soho’s students.

This little, physically unimposing, soft-spoken man had the courage to speak the truth to the
deadliest warrior alive! In this instant, Musashi recognized true power, fortitude, and strength.
After a period of study under Soho’s guidance, Musashi eventually isolated himself in a cave and
wrote his masterpiece.

Boyd emerged from seclusion with his fully-formed philosophy “Patterns of Conflict,” a 6 to 8 hour
military briefing presentation. This grand overview built on and expanded upon almost everything
ever previously written about any type of conflict up to and including war. It was an all-
encompassing brief and was presented to prominent military officers and politicians around the
globe. Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto (1848-1923), the Italian economist and philosopher,
introduced the concept of the Pareto Principle, or Pareto’s Law, that separates the insignificant
many from the significant few. Boyd took this to heart, and his presentation honed in on the
essential knowledge necessary to prevail in a conflict. Anything considered less than mission
critical was cast aside – ironically, the briefing became more intensive and lengthy because it
dealt only with the most important issues. Nothing trivial or non-essential remained.

Boyd taught his men how to think, and somehow he transmitted his white-hot obsession for
detailed learning and the application of ideas to these followers. He, and they, knew that their
ideas were greater than any individual agenda and more important than any branch of the
military itself and beyond the scope of any traditional bureaucracy. He believed that a winner
prevails in spite of uncertainty and chaos, and he was the living proof!

A new generation of military leaders (the United States Marine Corps, foremost) adopted many of
his ideas, and implemented many of his philosophies. His comprehensive theory of combat is
credited as directly leading to an overwhelming victory in what is known as the First Gulf War.
Another radical Boyd idea still in heavy rotation is the OODA Loop, or the Observe, Orient,
Decide, Act triaging of decision-making, using time as a dominant parameter. This OODA method
derived its intellectual heart from Boyd’s “Destruction and Creation” paper on the theory of
learning. “Destruction and Creation” introduces a concept that if our mental thoughts and
processes become fixed and focused on our internal dogmas without consideration for the
evolving, chaotic world around us, we experience mismatches with reality, and confusion and
disorder and uncertainty and chaos ensue. In other words, everything we know about the world
around us eventually becomes wrong, unless we rebuild our internal thoughts and image to
correspond to both the reality around us and the thoughts within us.
Boyd’s ideas were dynamic and subject to personal review when he learned something new or
when circumstances changed. A major epiphany late in his Air Force career became a primary
focus during the last several decades of life as he developed his philosophy of “To Be or to Do.”
Boyd said, “… one day you will come to a fork in the road. And you’re going to have to make a
decision about which direction you want to go.” {pointing} “If you go that way you can be
somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your
friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good
assignments.”

Boyd pointed in the opposite direction. “Or you can go that way and do something – something
for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something,
you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not
be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to
your friends and yourself. And your work might make a difference. To be somebody or to do
something … Which way will you go?” he asked.

You have a similar choice. Choose wisely, and you may change the world, as did John Boyd.

“Life is the sum of all your choices.” Albert Camus.

“The will to win is not as important as the will to prepare to win.” Bobby Knight.

“When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned
skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” Leonardo Da Vinci.