Targeting Logic for Leaders (Made Simple)
Most civilian leaders don’t realize this, but special operations and intelligence units solve problems the same way elite businesses do:
By defining targets, not just tasks.
You can call it targeting, strategic focus, priority-setting — doesn’t matter. The engine is the same.
Here’s the simplest version of targeting logic you can apply today, whether you’re leading a team, launching a product, or trying to stop operational fires from spreading.
THE CORE QUESTION:
“What EXACTLY are we trying to influence?”
Most leaders think they know this.
Most are wrong.
In combat, the first step of any operation was identifying the true target — not the noise, not the distractions, not the politics. The target.
In business and leadership, your target might be:
a process
a behavior
a decision-maker
a customer action
a bottleneck
a failure point
But if you don’t define it, you can’t influence it.
THE 3-STEP TARGETING SNAPSHOT
Use this anytime a problem emerges:
1. Target (What exactly must change?)
Not a paragraph.
Not a vague aspiration.
One sentence.
Example:
“Reduce customer ticket backlog by 30% in 14 days.”
2. Trigger (What makes it move?)
Every target has a pressure point.
Identify it.
Example:
“Ticket volume is spiking because new users aren’t onboarding correctly.”
3. Tactic (How do we influence it?)
This is where most leaders jump too early — but if you’ve defined 1 and 2, this part becomes obvious.
Example:
“Fix the onboarding email flow and improve the self-help guide.”
This is exactly how we did it overseas:
Target → Trigger → Tactic.
Nothing fancy. No wasted motion.
WHY THIS WORKS
Teams thrive when they know what the actual target is.
Executives thrive when they stop treating symptoms and start influencing triggers.
Operations thrive when tactics aren’t chosen blindly.
It’s targeting logic — but civilian-ized.
If you want to see full operational case files with FRA⁴ME, BRA⁴CE, and TRA⁴CE breakdowns, those are inside the weekly TraceIntel Dispatch.