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The OODA Loop is a key concept in military and strategic decision making. The idea is that at every given moment, a decision maker is running a loop of Observe-Orient-Decide-Act: Observe your surroundings, adjust your mental model accordingly, decide on the best course of action and execute it. In a military setting getting inside the enemies OODA loop is a key goal. If you can assess and act much faster than an adversary you can act before your adversary has even reacted to your last move. An extreme example of this is the Mongol armies riding on horseback: They would often travel as fast as the fastest means of communication at the time. The moment you realised the Mongol Army was marching on your city was when they appeared in front of your gates. In less extreme cases it meant that armies would encounter them unprepared or out of position. Cycle time becomes a critical metric. Not just in war but in all other domains of state power.
The OODA loop is a helpful mental model when thinking about how companies or governments have to make decisions. Critical issues arise when reality itself gets "inside the loop". The state of German politics is a good example of this. German politics are consensus driven and big policy decisions are often deliberated for a long time. Groups of experts are sent on a fact-finding mission before making any decisions.
In Germany there is currently a commission underway to figure out how to fix the exploding cost of health care. Their solutions will not be presented until the end of 2026, meaning any short-term changes or disruptions might just not even be considered. Some might even consider this fast. There are projects underway for cheaper pharmacies that have been going on for 16 years(!). Of course by the time any recommendations have been translated into policy reality might be fundamentally different.
Citizens get the sense that politicians are fighting the last war and a frustration that seemingly nothing gets done. Instead of progress. Citizens just see announcements. These announcements are rarely implemented and even when they are implemented they do not match the current reality. After cycles of announcements without improvements, the declaration starts to ring hollow. If announcements are a substitute for action every subsequent announcement is less credible.
Government at the speed of reality is required to not lose the trust of the electorate. The government needs to justify itself not just through budgets and proclamations but through tangible improvements in people's life. If it takes years to acknowledge problems that are real, any action will come too late and often encounter cynism. The government might just endlessly be stuck in the first two steps of the ODDA loop because reality changes too quickly. Implementation and action can never be realised. Politicians have gotten used to the fact that enacting change takes a lot of time and requires a consensus among a lot of stakeholders.
Especially, in areas where success is measured in a feeling rather than in data, this can be fatal to trust. If you feel your town has fallen economically behind it does not matter how often you read about new investment initiatives or tax credits.
It is even worse when it comes to the justice system, with social media constant pressure. You can watch real crime take place that is well documented and it still takes the prosecution months or years to bring a case. In part because they want to make sure that they do not lose any high profile case but also because the gears of justice have overgrown with process.
This leads to a sense of lawlessness and injustice which is in part an outcome of a mindset that values process over speed. It fails to take into account that the speed at which justice is delivered is a vital part of this outcome. If it takes years to prosecute crimes it feels as if the perpetrators have gotten off easy.
We perceive to live in a world with ever faster technological change, while our institutions have been honed over decades to follow ever more evolved processes. This impedance mismatch means that politics appears to always be ten steps behind reality, especially in Europe where good process is seen as an unalloyed good. We see a yearning of our leaders for easier times and slower change so they can catch up and finally get through their backlog of adaptation. This is a fantasy. We need to update our institutions to match reality. Only if we can shorten the cycle time and get back in lock step with reality can we restore trust and credibility. The credibility that those in power can actually handle and act on the reality of the present day, rather than based on learning from years ago.