Intellectual Lineage
32 Years: From Boyd's OODA Loop to Multi-Agent LLM Orchestration
This is not a 3-year story. This is a 32-year intellectual foundation (1994-2026) built through systematic study, operational application, and continuous synthesis. The LLMs didn't create the systematic thinking—they amplified thinking that took three decades to develop.
TL;DR: The Short Version
Look, I know everyone is busy, so here's the short version:
I played Army and Sports most of my adult life. So in a way, I'm institutionalized. That means I think in systems, processes, and ground truth validation—because that's how you survive and win in those environments.
Over 32 years (1994-2026), I systematically studied Boyd, Deming, Drucker, Goldratt, Toyota Production System, and Lean. In 2019-2020, I proved the operational methodology worked with 52 Leader Standard Work files tracking 9 production lines hourly. In 2023, I used Copilot voice-to-text to scale that same methodology (3,000 pages, 7 months, $1.8M savings). Then in 2023-2026, I used multi-agent LLM orchestration to amplify it further (5,381 conversations, 35.3M words, $546M enterprise value identified).
The AI didn't create the thinking. It amplified systematic thinking that took 32 years to build and 2 years to operationally prove.
What You Should Do With This
1. Don't try to replicate the 32 years. You can't. But you can learn from the pattern: systematic study + operational proof + technology amplification.
2. Start with capture. Document what you actually do, not what you think you do. Use voice-to-text if it helps. The discipline of capture reveals patterns you can't see otherwise.
3. Validate with operators. The people doing the work know where the problems are. Go to the Gemba (the actual place). Ask: "The computer says this, you say this—tell me what's the truth."
4. Bridge the Power Lab gap. Organizations fail because Tops don't see operational reality, Middles don't translate it, and Bottoms get blamed for systemic issues. Build a systematic bridge from Bottom knowledge to Top decision-making.
5. Use LLMs as formatting tools, not insight generators. They're excellent at structure, synthesis, and scale—but you still need to know what to capture, how to validate, and what patterns matter.
The Timeline
Key Synthesis Moments
The Snowmobile (2018)
"Connecting Dots: TPS, The Lean Startup Movement, Business Model Generation, Business Model You, Entrepreneurship, OODA Loop"
Boyd's concept of hybrid architectures applied to business processes
The Lineage
"Deming → Drucker → Taichi Ohno → Shigeo Shingo → TPS → Lean → Goldratt → Boyd"
Deliberate, systematic study of interconnected process improvement methodologies over 24 years
Military → Civilian Translation
"24 years of military service does not easily translate into civilian professional experience. My mental model is always translating business thinking processes into a military framework. Understanding the actions and processes behind the language. The word is only a description of the action."
The innovation: translating military process discipline into civilian business contexts
Process, Process, Process
"Intuitively military systems and athletic systems are built around a series of interconnected processes all meant to move a group of humans in a common direction with the shared understanding of the overall goal."
Recognition that systematic thinking transcends domains
Key Quotes
The Awakening (1994)
"After a series of bad choices"
The moment that led to discovering Boyd's OODA Loop—recognizing that systematic thinking was needed.
The Great Experiment (2013)
"Can you find a way to partner with a company to help Soldiers and Athletes gain experience and build a business around this?"
Exit the Military—the question that launched four years of experimentation.
The Lesson (2016-2017)
"I was not grounded in my own life which is why I wasn't clear on business processes and stakeholder's intent or patterns of life."
Three failed opportunities taught the importance of being grounded before attempting to scale.
The Recognition (2018)
"Execution as a strength but I did not recognize how closely business processes resembled processes learned in the military and on the fields of friendly strife. I did not turn the inner eye upon myself which clouded my thinking during this time of transition."
The reset moment—recognizing that military process discipline directly applies to business.
Seeing the Snowmobile (2018)
"24 years of military service does not easily translate into civilian professional experience. My mental model is always translating business thinking processes into a military framework. Understanding the actions and processes behind the language. The word is only a description of the action."
The breakthrough: recognizing the translation layer between military and civilian process thinking.
The Pattern (2018)
"Intuitively military systems and athletic systems are built around a series of interconnected processes all meant to move a group of humans in a common direction with the shared understanding of the overall goal. Process, Process, Process is all I hear in my current business."
Recognition that systematic thinking transcends domains—military, athletics, business all share the same fundamental process discipline.
The Lineage (2018)
"Deming → Drucker → Taichi Ohno → Shigeo Shingo → TPS → Lean → Goldratt → Boyd"
The complete intellectual lineage—24 years of study condensed into a single synthesis chain.
From Foundation to Operation: The Connecting Quotes
The Synthesis
"Where I come from" isn't just the military—it's 32 years of intellectual development creating a mental model where ground truth validation (Boyd), operator knowledge work (Drucker), process discipline (Deming), Gemba (TPS), and constraint identification (Goldratt) are standard operating procedure.
The Problem (The Backstory, 2023)
"There was a delta between what actually happened on shift, especially on night and weekend shifts, versus what was communicated during meetings or briefs, and the operators kept getting blamed for what was not getting done or what went wrong when some of them were repeat or systemic issues, and everybody just got used to it and just dealt with it."
The operational problem: organization's mental model didn't match reality. Operators blamed because leadership operated on bad information.
The Method (The Backstory, 2023)
"I used Copilot to capture what I was seeing on the floor, and then after I captured that, I would go back to my computer, look at a dashboard... Went and talked to an operator, just got validation on what right looked like, and then went back and kind of like made a note, and I used situation, complication, question, answer format really to kind of articulate that."
The complete synthesis in action: Gemba (TPS) → Boyd's OODA → Deming's validation → Drucker's operator knowledge → Military documentation discipline.
The Resistance (The Backstory, 2023)
"They didn't really understand it. It gave them information, but they were not used to this level of detail and discipline. It kind of threw them off for a loop, and so I just did it on my own basically for seven months on every shift that I was on, collected 3,000 pages of documents."
Proves the outlier nature: 32-year intellectual foundation + 24 years military service created a capability that couldn't be easily replicated. "This level of detail and discipline" = Deming + Drucker + TPS + Lean + Goldratt + Boyd applied systematically.
The Result (The Backstory, 2023)
"During that time, leveraging my multi-domain expertise, I figured out how we could get $1.8 million in cost savings, leveraging the patterns I've seen, expertise from operators, and what we could fix ourselves versus waiting for capital expenditure to address the issue."
7 months, 3,000 pages, $1.8M identified. "Multi-domain expertise" = 32 years. "Patterns I've seen" = Boyd. "Expertise from operators" = Drucker + TPS. "What we could fix ourselves" = Goldratt's Theory of Constraints.
The Innovation (The Backstory, 2023)
"At the mill, I was the first one to ever say, hey man, the computer says this, you say this, tell me what's the truth, how do we fix it? Has anybody in here done that? Okay. Because where I come from, that's how everybody operates. We have to solve the real problem together."
"Where I come from" = 24 years military service where ground truth validation is standard. "We have to solve the real problem together" = Boyd's implicit guidance + Drucker's knowledge work (operators as experts).
The Pattern Across Firms (The Backstory)
"I've seen the Delta get missed at three different manufacturing firms. Been a part of it. At another Manufacturing Company, I was the first one to ever bring the operators in and have them brief out after the Kaizen event. Because it was their plan and knowledge that created the real value."
Validates the synthesis: intellectual foundation + military baseline creates capability that consistently identifies problems others miss. "Their plan and knowledge created the real value" = Drucker's core insight.
The Power Lab Bridge: Solving Organizational Disconnect
Barry Oshry's Power Lab Framework
Tops: Overwhelmed with complexity, pulled in multiple directions, responsible for everything but unable to see execution reality.
Middles: Torn between tops and bottoms, translating in both directions, often feeling powerless and caught in the middle.
Bottoms: Have operational knowledge but feel unheard, blamed for systemic issues, disconnected from decision-making.
The Evolution: From Manual to AI-Amplified Bridge
Phase 1: Manual Leader Standard Work (2019-2020)
52 Leader Standard Work files with 94.2% workday coverage, 12-day longest consecutive streak
Assembly Audit Template: Hourly tracking across 9 production lines simultaneously—available time, operator count, downtime minutes, and specific issue documentation for each hour
The Bridge: Systematic capture of Bottom knowledge (operators) → Manual validation and verification (Middle role) → Structured documentation for Top decision-making
This is the same methodology used in 2023, just with different tools. The operational discipline was fully formed in 2019, proven over 52 days of systematic documentation.
Phase 2: AI-Assisted Capture (Feb-July 2023)
Copilot Mobile: Voice-to-text capture while on the floor (vs. manual Excel entry)
AI Formatting: "I need this in a SQCA format" → Situation/Complication/Question/Answer structure (vs. manual template completion)
Scale: 3,000 pages in 7 months (vs. 52 files over ~52 days) = 3.17x daily intensity increase
Same validation process: "Went and talked to an operator, just got validation on what right looked like" + "Verified with dashboards and MES systems. All done manually."
Result: $1.8M cost savings identified through "patterns I've seen, expertise from operators, and what we could fix ourselves versus waiting for capital expenditure"
AI was used for formatting and scaling, not insight generation. Core methodology unchanged: real-time capture, operator validation, system verification.
Phase 3: Multi-Agent Orchestration (Aug 2023-Jan 2026)
Scale: 5,381 conversations (6.05 per day), 35.3M words of synthesis, 4 AI accounts across 2 platforms
Systematic amplification: Analyze 1,408.7 hours of downtime, engage 39+ personnel, produce 150 formal deliverables
Framework synthesis: Boyd, ECHO, Cynefin, Wardley, Drucker, Ultraworking applied systematically across enterprise operations
Result: $546M enterprise value identified without capital expenditure
The Power Lab Bridge at scale: Bottom knowledge (operators) + systematic validation + framework synthesis + formal deliverables = Top-level enterprise value ($546M).
The Pattern Across Three Manufacturing Firms
"I've seen the Delta get missed at three different manufacturing firms." The Power Lab disconnect is not company-specific—it's a systemic organizational pattern.
The Complete Picture
The Innovation
This is not an outlier because of LLM usage. This is an outlier because of 32 years of systematic intellectual development, operational discipline, and process mastery—amplified by LLMs during a 2.5-year window when the technology finally matured enough to support the methodology.