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Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World
The retired four-star general and and bestselling author of My Share of the Task shares a powerful new leadership model
As commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), General Stanley McChrystal played a crucial role in the War on Terror. But when he took the helm in 2004, America was losing that war badly: despite vastly inferior resources and technology, Al Qaeda was outmaneuvering America’s most elite warriors.
McChrystal came to realize that today’s faster, more interdependent world had overwhelmed the conventional, top-down hierarchy of the US military. Al Qaeda had seen the future: a decentralized network that could move quickly and strike ruthlessly. To defeat such an enemy, JSOC would have to discard a century of management wisdom, and pivot from a pursuit of mechanical efficiency to organic adaptability. Under McChrystal’s leadership, JSOC remade itself, in the midst of a grueling war, into something entirely new: a network that combined robust centralized communication with decentralized managerial authority. As a result, they beat back Al Qaeda.
In this book, McChrystal shows not only how the military made that transition, but also how similar shifts are possible in all organizations, from large companies to startups to charities to governments. In a turbulent world, the best organizations think and act like a team of teams, embracing small groups that combine the freedom to experiment with a relentless drive to share what they’ve learned.
Drawing on a wealth of evidence from his military career, the private sector, and sources as diverse as hospital emergency rooms and NASA’s space program, McChrystal frames the existential challenge facing today’s organizations, and presents a compelling, effective solution.
As commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), General Stanley McChrystal played a crucial role in the War on Terror. But when he took the helm in 2004, America was losing that war badly: despite vastly inferior resources and technology, Al Qaeda was outmaneuvering America’s most elite warriors.
McChrystal came to realize that today’s faster, more interdependent world had overwhelmed the conventional, top-down hierarchy of the US military. Al Qaeda had seen the future: a decentralized network that could move quickly and strike ruthlessly. To defeat such an enemy, JSOC would have to discard a century of management wisdom, and pivot from a pursuit of mechanical efficiency to organic adaptability. Under McChrystal’s leadership, JSOC remade itself, in the midst of a grueling war, into something entirely new: a network that combined robust centralized communication with decentralized managerial authority. As a result, they beat back Al Qaeda.
In this book, McChrystal shows not only how the military made that transition, but also how similar shifts are possible in all organizations, from large companies to startups to charities to governments. In a turbulent world, the best organizations think and act like a team of teams, embracing small groups that combine the freedom to experiment with a relentless drive to share what they’ve learned.
Drawing on a wealth of evidence from his military career, the private sector, and sources as diverse as hospital emergency rooms and NASA’s space program, McChrystal frames the existential challenge facing today’s organizations, and presents a compelling, effective solution.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 6, 2015
About the author
Stanley McChrystal
22 books329 followersStanley Allen McChrystal (born August 14, 1954) is a retired United States Army General. His last assignment was as Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He previously served as Director, Joint Staff from August 2008 to June 2009 and as Commander, Joint Special Operations Command from 2003 to 2008, where he was credited with the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, but also criticized for his alleged role in the cover-up of the Pat Tillman friendly fire incident. McChrystal was reportedly known for saying and thinking what other military leaders were afraid to; this was one of the reasons cited for his appointment to lead all forces in Afghanistan. He held the post from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010.
Following unflattering remarks about Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officials attributed to McChrystal and his aides in a Rolling Stone article, McChrystal was recalled to Washington, D.C., where President Barack Obama accepted his resignation as commander in Afghanistan. His command of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan was immediately assumed by the deputy commander, British General Sir Nicholas "Nick" Parker, pending the confirmation of a replacement. Obama named General David Petraeus as McChrystal's replacement; Petraeus was confirmed by the Senate and officially assumed command on June 30. Days after being relieved of his duties in Afghanistan, McChrystal announced his retirement.
In 2010, after leaving the Army, McChrystal joined Yale University as a Jackson Institute for Global Affairs senior fellow. He teaches a course entitled "Leadership," a graduate-level seminar with some spots reserved for undergraduates. The course received 250 applications for 20 spots in 2011 and is being taught for a third time in 2013.
McChrystal co-founded and is a partner at the McChrystal Group LLC, an Alexandria, Virginia-based consulting firm.
McChrystal's memoir, My Share of the Task, published by Portfolio of the Penguin Group, was released on January 7, 2013. The autobiography had been scheduled to be released in November 2012, but was delayed due to security clearance approvals required from the Department of Defense.
McChrystal is the son of Mary Gardner Bright and Major General Herbert J. McChrystal, Jr., and was the fourth child in a family of five boys and a girl, all of whom would serve in the military or marry military spouses. His older brother, Colonel Scott McChrystal, is a retired Army chaplain, and is the endorsing agent for the Assemblies of God.
McChrystal married his wife Annie in April 1977, and the couple has one adult son, Sam.
Following unflattering remarks about Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officials attributed to McChrystal and his aides in a Rolling Stone article, McChrystal was recalled to Washington, D.C., where President Barack Obama accepted his resignation as commander in Afghanistan. His command of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan was immediately assumed by the deputy commander, British General Sir Nicholas "Nick" Parker, pending the confirmation of a replacement. Obama named General David Petraeus as McChrystal's replacement; Petraeus was confirmed by the Senate and officially assumed command on June 30. Days after being relieved of his duties in Afghanistan, McChrystal announced his retirement.
In 2010, after leaving the Army, McChrystal joined Yale University as a Jackson Institute for Global Affairs senior fellow. He teaches a course entitled "Leadership," a graduate-level seminar with some spots reserved for undergraduates. The course received 250 applications for 20 spots in 2011 and is being taught for a third time in 2013.
McChrystal co-founded and is a partner at the McChrystal Group LLC, an Alexandria, Virginia-based consulting firm.
McChrystal's memoir, My Share of the Task, published by Portfolio of the Penguin Group, was released on January 7, 2013. The autobiography had been scheduled to be released in November 2012, but was delayed due to security clearance approvals required from the Department of Defense.
McChrystal is the son of Mary Gardner Bright and Major General Herbert J. McChrystal, Jr., and was the fourth child in a family of five boys and a girl, all of whom would serve in the military or marry military spouses. His older brother, Colonel Scott McChrystal, is a retired Army chaplain, and is the endorsing agent for the Assemblies of God.
McChrystal married his wife Annie in April 1977, and the couple has one adult son, Sam.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,012 reviews
September 16, 2015
Great story layered over extensive research. Must read.
December 30, 2015
Amazing book
One of the clearest and most compelling business books I have read lately.
McChrystal clearly explains through examples and history why traditional organizations based on hierarch and command and control are failing. He defines a new way to organize and manage teams in a way anyone can understand.
Even better he tells an amazing story about how the us army defeated al quaida in Iraq.
Very well researched and fascinating book. Anyone interested in improving their team effectiveness or leadership should read it.
One of the clearest and most compelling business books I have read lately.
McChrystal clearly explains through examples and history why traditional organizations based on hierarch and command and control are failing. He defines a new way to organize and manage teams in a way anyone can understand.
Even better he tells an amazing story about how the us army defeated al quaida in Iraq.
Very well researched and fascinating book. Anyone interested in improving their team effectiveness or leadership should read it.
March 11, 2018
Full review and highlights at https://books.max-nova.com/team-of-teams
Not bad for a celebrity business book. Was pretty interesting to hear how McChrystal managed a remote workforce of thousands through his daily Operations & Intelligence meetings - going to try to implement some of his ideas in our own weekly meeting. But really, the most interesting (and controversial) claim in the book was:
Not bad for a celebrity business book. Was pretty interesting to hear how McChrystal managed a remote workforce of thousands through his daily Operations & Intelligence meetings - going to try to implement some of his ideas in our own weekly meeting. But really, the most interesting (and controversial) claim in the book was:
Big Data will not save us because the same technological advances that brought us these mountains of information and the digital resources for analyzing them have at the same time created volatile communication webs and media platforms, taking aspects of society that once resembled comets and turning them into cold fronts. We have moved from data-poor but fairly predictable settings to data-rich, uncertain ones.Other than that, the book has some interesting (but somewhat stale) anecdotes/analysis of Frederick Winslow Taylor, Admiral Nelson, and MGH’s response to the Boston bombing, along with some first-person accounts of the war in Iraq.
February 3, 2018
Interesting stories and insights, but could have said in 100 pages what took about 250.
December 4, 2019
Team of Teams by Gen. Stanley McChrystal talks about organisational dynamics and leadership in the US army. Stanley McChrystal is a US General who lead Special Task Forces and had to modify his army’s organisation to better fight Al-Qaeda militants in Iraq. The book is a personal memoir of transforming Joint Special Operations Command. It describes how to adapt old hierarchical structures to fit the current complex world and create an agile organisation that can rapidly react to outside quick challenges. The book presents steps as well as strategies regarding resilience and adaptability with regards to confronting difficult situations. The aim of the book is to show that the strategy used in Iraq could effectively be applied to businesses as well as different institutions.
Anyway, McChrystal starts with Iraq where he found that the standard model of commanding the US army didn’t work. This was not a war of planning and discipline, but more agility and innovation situation. in the old model of business, planning was one of the most important keys to overall success but in the past, the world and industries weren’t changing as quickly as now. Of course, the planning process is still crucial, but now it’s about agility and innovation. The book says that today’s world is less about how to optimise for the known, the relatively stable set of variables. We should be rather looking for to innovate and change with the times.
Next, the book talks a lot about empowerment, care and relentless nurturing of competence and ability of your team. What innovation requires is a great team of people underneath you, the team that can come up with ideas. The author compares this process to gardening which needs your time and patience. When it comes to caring, McChrystal writes a lot about competition and even antagonisms between different units in the US army. Military culture has a sense of tribalism where different components see themselves as being better than others. Then he presents his approach to consolidate his teams and develop a way to establish links between them as teams whose members know one another perform better. Such teams can self monitor each other which save a lot of time regarding day to day supervision, of course, if needed. This also implies continuous communication at all times.
In addition to empowerment, McChrystal presents transparency as something extremely important in the lower military ranks. They watch the actions of their leaders and not only listen to what they have to say. Each member of the US army needs to feel they have a stake in the outcome, therefore, they need motivation and reward. As a manager, you have to remember that your team is made up of people who each have a certain role to achieve a specific goal. The funny thing here is that the author supports this thesis by saying that: “If you ask people what their vision is, it’s not: ‘Hey, I’m here cutting this stone.’ It’s: ‘I’m part of a team-building a cathedral.” I’ve used the same anecdote in my public speech 2 weeks...(if you like to read my full review please visit my blog https://leadersarereaders.blog/team-o...)
Anyway, McChrystal starts with Iraq where he found that the standard model of commanding the US army didn’t work. This was not a war of planning and discipline, but more agility and innovation situation. in the old model of business, planning was one of the most important keys to overall success but in the past, the world and industries weren’t changing as quickly as now. Of course, the planning process is still crucial, but now it’s about agility and innovation. The book says that today’s world is less about how to optimise for the known, the relatively stable set of variables. We should be rather looking for to innovate and change with the times.
Next, the book talks a lot about empowerment, care and relentless nurturing of competence and ability of your team. What innovation requires is a great team of people underneath you, the team that can come up with ideas. The author compares this process to gardening which needs your time and patience. When it comes to caring, McChrystal writes a lot about competition and even antagonisms between different units in the US army. Military culture has a sense of tribalism where different components see themselves as being better than others. Then he presents his approach to consolidate his teams and develop a way to establish links between them as teams whose members know one another perform better. Such teams can self monitor each other which save a lot of time regarding day to day supervision, of course, if needed. This also implies continuous communication at all times.
In addition to empowerment, McChrystal presents transparency as something extremely important in the lower military ranks. They watch the actions of their leaders and not only listen to what they have to say. Each member of the US army needs to feel they have a stake in the outcome, therefore, they need motivation and reward. As a manager, you have to remember that your team is made up of people who each have a certain role to achieve a specific goal. The funny thing here is that the author supports this thesis by saying that: “If you ask people what their vision is, it’s not: ‘Hey, I’m here cutting this stone.’ It’s: ‘I’m part of a team-building a cathedral.” I’ve used the same anecdote in my public speech 2 weeks...(if you like to read my full review please visit my blog https://leadersarereaders.blog/team-o...)
August 28, 2015
Working in the business world for the past 15 years, I have been bombarded by business books. I appreciate many of them and some of them I still reference on a regular basis. They have helped shape me professionally but none of them can I safely say have truly changed me.
For the past few years, I have been scratching my head in how to be a good and effective business as a leader. There are so many amazing communication tools but I am bombarded by messages as a consumer and a leader that often times I want to throw everything off my desk and start clean. Things simply don't work the way they used to, which is hard for me as my chief strength is context and am a lover of history books. I want to draw from the past to form the future but the future is so uncertain. I am in a different stage of career where I managed over a dozen people, separated in different groups, and some with differing objectives.
I have had to think differently.
I have had to utilize my strengths to serve better as a leader and to take the best of my incredibly talented team to empower them to win.
Team of Teams has been a book to make sense of it all in what my role as a leader and manager in today's complex environment. Team of Teams has helped make sense of the clutter and freed me up to simplify the way I communicate and lead my team. I am so thankful for the military and General Stanley McChrystal has been forced in Iraq and Afghanistan to adapt to a new style of leadership to tackle some incredibly difficult problems. Military books can often feel so distant from everyday civilian book but this one has helped draw the parallels better than any other I have read.
I highly encourage you to read this whether you are young leader, middle manager, or a CEO running a Fortune 500 Company.
For the past few years, I have been scratching my head in how to be a good and effective business as a leader. There are so many amazing communication tools but I am bombarded by messages as a consumer and a leader that often times I want to throw everything off my desk and start clean. Things simply don't work the way they used to, which is hard for me as my chief strength is context and am a lover of history books. I want to draw from the past to form the future but the future is so uncertain. I am in a different stage of career where I managed over a dozen people, separated in different groups, and some with differing objectives.
I have had to think differently.
I have had to utilize my strengths to serve better as a leader and to take the best of my incredibly talented team to empower them to win.
Team of Teams has been a book to make sense of it all in what my role as a leader and manager in today's complex environment. Team of Teams has helped make sense of the clutter and freed me up to simplify the way I communicate and lead my team. I am so thankful for the military and General Stanley McChrystal has been forced in Iraq and Afghanistan to adapt to a new style of leadership to tackle some incredibly difficult problems. Military books can often feel so distant from everyday civilian book but this one has helped draw the parallels better than any other I have read.
I highly encourage you to read this whether you are young leader, middle manager, or a CEO running a Fortune 500 Company.
November 27, 2019
Didn't quite know what to expect going into this, but had always felt McChrystal had a solid head on his shoulders.
This book was a nice mix of adapting protocol to meet circumstances in life, business, technology, and of course, all against the backdrop of war.
If you enjoy military history, don't expect *too* much here other than snippets that help elaborate his case for constant adaptation. The themes worked well together however, and were woven through complementarily.
Great book for business leaders and entrepreneurs.
This book was a nice mix of adapting protocol to meet circumstances in life, business, technology, and of course, all against the backdrop of war.
If you enjoy military history, don't expect *too* much here other than snippets that help elaborate his case for constant adaptation. The themes worked well together however, and were woven through complementarily.
Great book for business leaders and entrepreneurs.
April 22, 2018
Overall I liked what this book gave me in terms of how a flat organization can work while my own company transforms into something similar. However, I had to get all the way to the end and wade through a whole lot of wartime anecdotes for any payoff. If you skim this book you could miss some subtle details that really only come together at the end.
August 7, 2018
A really amazing book.
Clearly explains how many of our current organisational believes, management techniques and organisational structures are out-dated and tailored to the needs of the 19th and 20th century. It also shows a clear path into how to adapt these old structures to fit the current complex world and create an agile organisation that can quickly react to outside influences.
The book shows some great examples from other companies but the red line through the book is the organisational change that The Task Force went through in the early 2000s in its fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq. In my opinion, the book became more interesting due to this red line throughout the whole book.
Got some ideas from this book although I still need to work these out more.
Clearly explains how many of our current organisational believes, management techniques and organisational structures are out-dated and tailored to the needs of the 19th and 20th century. It also shows a clear path into how to adapt these old structures to fit the current complex world and create an agile organisation that can quickly react to outside influences.
The book shows some great examples from other companies but the red line through the book is the organisational change that The Task Force went through in the early 2000s in its fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq. In my opinion, the book became more interesting due to this red line throughout the whole book.
Got some ideas from this book although I still need to work these out more.
February 26, 2017
Unread this for book club at work and, while it's got some interesting bits, it's very repetitive and really doesn't contain anything new that other business and leadership books have not already covered, some since the 1990s. Maybe the military is very slow on the uptake though.
It's also worth noting that, despite their amazing restructure of their anti-terror task force it's 10 years since this book was written and the War on Terror shows no signs of being won. (Probably because the whole idea is stupid; you can't fight a war against a strategy).
Go back and reread The Cluetrain Manifesto instead of this, unless you are really into war talk.
It's also worth noting that, despite their amazing restructure of their anti-terror task force it's 10 years since this book was written and the War on Terror shows no signs of being won. (Probably because the whole idea is stupid; you can't fight a war against a strategy).
Go back and reread The Cluetrain Manifesto instead of this, unless you are really into war talk.
April 14, 2023
One of my key takeaways was near the end of the book.
- What makes America democracy work is decentralized empowerment of the people with informed judgements and a shared conscience. It really seems like so much of our problem as Americans is power with little knowledge of the holistic situation.
- What makes America democracy work is decentralized empowerment of the people with informed judgements and a shared conscience. It really seems like so much of our problem as Americans is power with little knowledge of the holistic situation.
January 18, 2021
"Teams are effective because they trust each other and they have a shared purpose. This is what we call shared consciousness."
"Team members tackling complex environments must all grasp the team’s situation and overarching purpose. Only if each of them understands the goal of a mission and the strategic context in which it fits, can the team members evaluate risks on the fly and know how to behave in relation to other teammates"
The concepts that General McChrystal describes with real-world application make this an outstanding book. The chapter near the end where he advocates for the development of "gardeners" and not "chess-masters" with respect to leadership resonates with me. Our complicated world is complex and requires adaptive solutions.
"Team members tackling complex environments must all grasp the team’s situation and overarching purpose. Only if each of them understands the goal of a mission and the strategic context in which it fits, can the team members evaluate risks on the fly and know how to behave in relation to other teammates"
The concepts that General McChrystal describes with real-world application make this an outstanding book. The chapter near the end where he advocates for the development of "gardeners" and not "chess-masters" with respect to leadership resonates with me. Our complicated world is complex and requires adaptive solutions.
August 27, 2017
I can't praise this book enough. If you're interested in leadership and resilient, agile organizations, you definitely should read this book.
The core of the book is about the task force (JSOF) tasked with defeating Al Quaida in Irak (AQI) and its transformation from a more traditional, hierarchical organization with centralized decision making into a resilient, distributed, fast deciding, networked organization of teams; hold together by trust, technology and information sharing.
Interwoven with this are many interesting anecdotes to strengthen the core arguments. These range from Nassim Thaleb (Black Swan, Antifragile), to Chesley Sullenberger, the battle of Trafalgar, Captain Phillips, Alan Mullaly and his Rescue of Ford (American Icon) and many more.
As a sum, a lot of it also connects well to Bungays (Art of Action) and David Rocks (Your brain at work, Quiet Leadership) works.
The core of the book is about the task force (JSOF) tasked with defeating Al Quaida in Irak (AQI) and its transformation from a more traditional, hierarchical organization with centralized decision making into a resilient, distributed, fast deciding, networked organization of teams; hold together by trust, technology and information sharing.
Interwoven with this are many interesting anecdotes to strengthen the core arguments. These range from Nassim Thaleb (Black Swan, Antifragile), to Chesley Sullenberger, the battle of Trafalgar, Captain Phillips, Alan Mullaly and his Rescue of Ford (American Icon) and many more.
As a sum, a lot of it also connects well to Bungays (Art of Action) and David Rocks (Your brain at work, Quiet Leadership) works.
January 23, 2020
Big fan of this book.
It’s about how to enable huge, complex teams to be adaptable at scale.
It deep dives into 2 main strategies:
1. Creating shared consciousnesses so that folks at the front lines have a very high level of information and context.
2. Delegating decision making so that senior leadership don’t bottleneck, increasing speed, adaptability, and empowerment.
Lots of fantastic, well placed anecdotes from: the fight in Iraq, US companies, NASA, historical books, and the author’s personal life.
It takes a bit to get going but warms up by chapter 6 on org structures, which is fantastic. Loved chapter 8 on the O&I meeting structure, and chapter 11 on a leader’s role on a team of teams.
It’s not immediately drag-and-drop applicable to software teams, but that’s also what’s so good about this book, as the tactics from a different context (the war against Al Qaeda) spur thought on what methods you could apply to software teams and how you might adapt them. The strategies are generalized enough to last for decades.
I would give 4.5 stars. Going to round up as this is just so well written, with such interesting, practical examples. The best book on empowerment at scale that I’ve read yet.
It’s about how to enable huge, complex teams to be adaptable at scale.
It deep dives into 2 main strategies:
1. Creating shared consciousnesses so that folks at the front lines have a very high level of information and context.
2. Delegating decision making so that senior leadership don’t bottleneck, increasing speed, adaptability, and empowerment.
Lots of fantastic, well placed anecdotes from: the fight in Iraq, US companies, NASA, historical books, and the author’s personal life.
It takes a bit to get going but warms up by chapter 6 on org structures, which is fantastic. Loved chapter 8 on the O&I meeting structure, and chapter 11 on a leader’s role on a team of teams.
It’s not immediately drag-and-drop applicable to software teams, but that’s also what’s so good about this book, as the tactics from a different context (the war against Al Qaeda) spur thought on what methods you could apply to software teams and how you might adapt them. The strategies are generalized enough to last for decades.
I would give 4.5 stars. Going to round up as this is just so well written, with such interesting, practical examples. The best book on empowerment at scale that I’ve read yet.
January 13, 2019
Assigned reading at work. At least it sounds interesting.
February 22, 2022
Invaluable insights on information-sharing model of managing organizations.
April 18, 2022
Brilliant! Well-written, intriguing showcase of wartime examples, historical insights, and contemporary leadership principles fit for purpose in a volatile world.
Insights:
1. Develop shared consciousness by sharing as much info as possible about different wings if an organisation and the context on the ground.
2. Purpose and trust reinforce each other so make them high priority.
3. Shared consciousness without empowerment and ability to make decisions on the ground is frustrating. So create parameters where people can make decisions in the moment because timing matters.
4. Forget the hero leader, be a gardener who tends the culture, asks thoughtful questions, reinforces good decisions made independently while considering context.
Recommended leadership read.
Insights:
1. Develop shared consciousness by sharing as much info as possible about different wings if an organisation and the context on the ground.
2. Purpose and trust reinforce each other so make them high priority.
3. Shared consciousness without empowerment and ability to make decisions on the ground is frustrating. So create parameters where people can make decisions in the moment because timing matters.
4. Forget the hero leader, be a gardener who tends the culture, asks thoughtful questions, reinforces good decisions made independently while considering context.
Recommended leadership read.
June 16, 2022
An impressive book that has taught me a lot about leadership and teams all the while offering an entertaining look into the operations of US forces in Iraq. It also explained many of the origins of the American way of doing things. From my perspective a must read for any one working as part of a team, especially if having dreams of being a leader.
October 16, 2018
Well-written, balanced, interesting. Although it reads like a thriller in parts, it's a management book that offers a credible and comprehensive treatment of why "what got us here won't get us there" in terms of management.
I learned a lot, and the references and stories are excellent. I was eager for even more details about what they did to create a team of teams, and would have valued that more than the lengthy the context and all of the reasons why they *had* to change. I also would value an analysis on why what they accomplished did not appear to be sustainable (as he acknowledges in the introduction). Both of those topics would make for an excellent follow-up book.
I learned a lot, and the references and stories are excellent. I was eager for even more details about what they did to create a team of teams, and would have valued that more than the lengthy the context and all of the reasons why they *had* to change. I also would value an analysis on why what they accomplished did not appear to be sustainable (as he acknowledges in the introduction). Both of those topics would make for an excellent follow-up book.
April 27, 2016
I respect General McChrystal and enjoyed "My Share of the Task", but "Team of Teams" was a disappointment. I was looking for new ways to lead small groups with a vision and learn best practices from different types of organizations, but this was a "glory days" account of the authors' time in the Task Force.
August 5, 2016
A really interesting look at organizational leadership strategy through the lens of what was learned in by joint special forces in the middle east. I heard about this on Tim Ferriss's podcast when he interviewed General McChrystal and was intrigued. The book did no disappoint.
November 6, 2018
I found this book far more interesting, and enjoyable, than I expected. Worth a read for those interested in organisational dynamics and leadership.
November 11, 2016
This is the story of how General Stanley McChrystal brought Wall Street trading floor working practices (which have existed for decades) to the battlefield in Iraq.
The general implemented the trading floor business model on the battlefield in Iraq because he had to. When you have to respond to a distributed network of terrorists (or are put in a "winner's curse" competition with other dealers to buy or sell a bond) you cannot plan your reaction. Either there’s somebody ready to be deployed in the field who can react in real time and feed back all intelligence in real time to other assets in the battlefield (marketplace) who will act upon it in real time, or you may as well give up. McChrystal woke up to the fact that he was facing complexity every bit as much as a trading floor does that’s pricing tens of deals for tens of types of customers at the same time and that the top-down structure was not fit for purpose in Iraq.
No matter how strong his navy SEALS or Army Special Forces were, “whatever efficiency is gained through silos is outweighed by the costs of interface failures.” (p. 151) In his words (p. 74), “unpredictability is fundamentally incompatible with reductionist managerial models based around planning and prediction.” To defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, the military would have to move from “doing things right” to “doing the right thing.” This was not going to be about refining a process down to the last detail, but about having the right people in the right place armed with the right information and letting them figure it out.
I’ve spent more than twenty years on trading floors, here’s how it all works:
Each desk is comprised of three to eight traders who know each other well, have worked together for years and trust each other blindly. Each trader specializes in a very narrow set of securities or derivatives he knows inside out and each can count on his buddies to cover for him out of his own book when the circumstances dictate he should.
There’s as many desks as there are products to trade. The desks acknowledge each other and work together seamlessly to do transactions that cut across more than one specialties.
Example: Suppose a new issue needs to be brought to market. The syndicate desk will act as the new bond’s midwife, guiding the issuer as to the best pricing and timing and carries the eventual risk of any unplaced bonds on its books. The syndicate desk can count 100% on multiple sales desks to place the new issue and it can count 100% on the swaps desk to take away all market-directional risk the client would otherwise bear. The swaps desk, in turn, can 100% count on immediate execution of bond and futures hedges from seamlessly (often electronically) connected bond and bond futures desks. Everybody sits in one room and within earshot of each other. Everybody is part of a small desk, but there are unofficial, unwritten and constantly revised protocols for how the desks will interact.
There is a morning meeting for the whole trading floor (with participation from Japan), delivered over the stentor and another global (that means London and New York) meeting at seven thirty New York time. The economist speaks and previews today’s data, all desk representatives speak in a formal order to discuss new supply (auctions or syndications), market trends, the biggest flows and where they reckon the market is going. This is called “market color.” The sales desks follow with the most important business from the day before and any important transactions that are coming up. Everybody knows what’s coming and how it fits together. Everybody can interrupt the meeting, more than a thousand people. The Monday morning meeting is typically done out of New York. Sometimes a high-up guy attends and addresses the troops, and this is done in an auditorium and is fed through to the stentor for those who are on their desks.
The heads of desk all meet regularly with one another and with the head of the entire trading floor, both formally and informally. There is tension between the sales desks and the trading desks, because the sales desks mainly get compensated for volume. No good way has been invented to measure the profitability of trades, but it’s plenty easy to see if the competition is doing the business and business does not much happen in the absence of profit.
Senior management merely choreographs these interactions. It fosters exchange of information, listens to the salesforce to find out what the customers are doing and to the best traders to find out how it all makes sense. Eyes on, but hands off.
All decisions are made in real time by the most junior person on the floor who is qualified to make them. Management’s role is to stop him out if he’s losing, give him more rope to hang himself if he’s winning and compensate him, promote him or fire him at yearend based on an assessment of his performance. Management manages people, not individual trading decisions. If a trade is big enough that management finds out about it, you really should consider passing on it and there had better be some awesome outside PR benefits to winning it.
The model is very much a “team of teams.”
So General McChrystal had the epiphany that his team would have to abandon the command-and-control structure and morph into a network. A network that would be just as networked as Al Qaeda’s, but, better. He visited Michael Bloomberg, a former Salomon Brothers trader, head of technology at Salomon and eventually founder of a trading systems empire and got the blueprint. He put together the whole thing, soup to nuts:
1, he recognized that every attack would be different
2. he anticipated that solutions would have to come out of a bottom-up result of interactions, much like Al Qaeda’s
3. he decided to emphasize connectivity and trust over reductionist precision
4. he recognized that there would be efficiency costs to this approach and was prepared to take the associated criticism
He did not start from scratch. He already had some amazing teams under his command. Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, intel analysts, all had solid, tightly knit, professional and highly trained teams going, but the task was to make them work together (though I don’t think the word “Marines” comes up once if you do a word search; we all have our prejudices).
Job #1 was to create a “shared consciousness” and he did it exactly how you’d do it on a trading floor, using communication protocols that were first established by NASA to launch the Apollo project. He got himself a massive space and turned it into what Stanley Kubrick would call a “war room.” He ran out of there daily one-hour long meetings that he chaired himself, inviting everybody to the table. Not only all three forces, but also the CIA, intelligence, airpower controllers, medical staff, everyone. He covered the walls with screens bringing back footage from ongoing raids, logs of captures, maps of recent gains and losses, casualties etc. and made the room the permanent office for himself and his top lieutenants, with people arranged to sit in a U around them. No cubicles, no special room for General McChrystal.
The point was that anyone in the room could have the latest information, pretty much at the same time as his or her commanding officers. Takeup was far from immediate. Lots of the seats were initially left empty. But over time, this became the place you had to be, because that became the best way to be current. Eventually everybody joined, including the Intelligence folks, as the process “developed its own gravitational pull” and “the information shared was so rich, so timely, and so pertinent to the fight, no one wanted to miss it.” (p. 168)
Job #2 was to build trust between the teams he commanded. “Each agency feared that sharing intelligence would work against its own interests. Competition between agencies made them reluctant to provide information; what if a partner agency did not reciprocate?” To get there, he instituted an embedding program, whereby he forced teams to send some of their best players to go work with other teams. “If you won’t miss him, don’t send him” was the rule. Often these people would be given menial tasks by their host teams, but because they had been carefully selected they invariably ended up having a lot to offer. And over time, not a long time, connections of trust between the teams were formed around the embedded emissaries. Everybody at every team could say with no exaggeration that he knew and trusted somebody in each of the other teams.
And that’s how the structure came about of a “team of teams” with “shared consciousness,” a shared purpose and widely shared information who could act as one.
Soon enough, the results started coming in. The number of raids the team could successfully execute leapt by an order of magnitude. And previously unheard of stuff like follow-on targets became a daily reality. But also treason, as megabytes and megabytes of information found its way onto Wikileaks. General McChrystal does not dwell too long on the Bradley Manning affair, but it has to be recognized as a downside of the approach he took. On the other hand, he did get Zarqawi and he makes the case very persuasively he never would have without applying his method.
The biggest epiphany he had though, was to do with his own role. Once the team of teams was up-and-running, he realised his authority to order raids was actually in everybody’s way.
Job #3 became to redefine his job. He had to let go. “The wait for my approval was not resulting in any better decisions, and our priority should be reaching the best possible decision that could be made in a time frame that allowed it to be relevant.” So he reluctantly devolved his powers to sanction raids to the lowest operative who could reasonably expected to make the decision. The thinking was that the extra speed would compensate for the possibly inferior decision making. He was in for a surprise. The empowered and informed leaders in the field actually obtained better, more precise results than they’d done before, when he’d been masterminding the attacks. He thought he’d give something up to gain something more important. He actually got both.
And thus he realised that he’d have to redefine his job. Yes, he’d have to keep his eyes on the ball. But he’d have to keep his hands off. From the heroic leader / chessmaster he had been trained to be and had dreamt of becoming one day, he had already morphed into a gardener, a man who keeps the correct environment going and merely tends to his garden while allowing nature to take its course.
Which neatly brings me back to the trading floor and the world of investment banking.
The head of the trading floor knows everything, but never has to give an order. He lets traders do their thing. His decisions revolve around personnel, the overall direction of the business, and the allocation of resources, most important of which is compensation.
Thing is, when something wrong happens it is nigh-on impossible to pin it on himl
And so it came to pass that the highest-ranking person who will go to jail for the LIBOR scandal will probably be a 34 year old Aspergers sufferer called Tom Hayes. Legend has it the man sleeps in a Spiderman duvet. Leaving to one side the question of whether he was doing anything wrong (my personal view is nothing in principle, but plenty in the detail) he's finding it very difficult to prove he was acting on the orders of his superiors. But of course the law knows how to follow the money and fully realises he was.
And what does the law do?
Ah, that's the fun bit. It's forcing trading floors across London, Tokyo and New York to abandon the "team of teams" structure they passed on to General McChrystal and is demanding that all banks provide full top-down organograms, of the kind that will allow orders to flow downward and blame upward. And it's forcing banks to hire thousands and thousands of lawyers to ensure they comply with the new structure.
Not only that. Additionally, the regulators are forcing trading operations to ban mobile communications, Twitter, social media etc. from trading floors, while teams of lawyers are trolling over all Bloomberg chats from the past ten years, making any and all communication dangerous, in case it's taken out of context. What's the result? When once traders, with their access to Reuters, Bloomberg, TV channels and multiple chats stood in the center of the information flow, they now find themselves the most isolated from the real world they've ever been. Instead of sitting in the middle of a communication hub, they need to wait till they've gone home to find out from their spouse what happened today in the world.
What will come of it? Very simple. First, those with alternatives will exit the business and focus on more profitable stuff, driving prices wider. That's only the beginning. Prices will have to widen even further, to accommodate the fact that the wrong business structure will result in a blunter, slower response to sharper, better-informed, customer enquiry. Finally, somebody will have to pay for the thousands and thousands of compliance officers, and that's the third powerful force that will drive margins wider.
Will be fun to watch!
The general implemented the trading floor business model on the battlefield in Iraq because he had to. When you have to respond to a distributed network of terrorists (or are put in a "winner's curse" competition with other dealers to buy or sell a bond) you cannot plan your reaction. Either there’s somebody ready to be deployed in the field who can react in real time and feed back all intelligence in real time to other assets in the battlefield (marketplace) who will act upon it in real time, or you may as well give up. McChrystal woke up to the fact that he was facing complexity every bit as much as a trading floor does that’s pricing tens of deals for tens of types of customers at the same time and that the top-down structure was not fit for purpose in Iraq.
No matter how strong his navy SEALS or Army Special Forces were, “whatever efficiency is gained through silos is outweighed by the costs of interface failures.” (p. 151) In his words (p. 74), “unpredictability is fundamentally incompatible with reductionist managerial models based around planning and prediction.” To defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, the military would have to move from “doing things right” to “doing the right thing.” This was not going to be about refining a process down to the last detail, but about having the right people in the right place armed with the right information and letting them figure it out.
I’ve spent more than twenty years on trading floors, here’s how it all works:
Each desk is comprised of three to eight traders who know each other well, have worked together for years and trust each other blindly. Each trader specializes in a very narrow set of securities or derivatives he knows inside out and each can count on his buddies to cover for him out of his own book when the circumstances dictate he should.
There’s as many desks as there are products to trade. The desks acknowledge each other and work together seamlessly to do transactions that cut across more than one specialties.
Example: Suppose a new issue needs to be brought to market. The syndicate desk will act as the new bond’s midwife, guiding the issuer as to the best pricing and timing and carries the eventual risk of any unplaced bonds on its books. The syndicate desk can count 100% on multiple sales desks to place the new issue and it can count 100% on the swaps desk to take away all market-directional risk the client would otherwise bear. The swaps desk, in turn, can 100% count on immediate execution of bond and futures hedges from seamlessly (often electronically) connected bond and bond futures desks. Everybody sits in one room and within earshot of each other. Everybody is part of a small desk, but there are unofficial, unwritten and constantly revised protocols for how the desks will interact.
There is a morning meeting for the whole trading floor (with participation from Japan), delivered over the stentor and another global (that means London and New York) meeting at seven thirty New York time. The economist speaks and previews today’s data, all desk representatives speak in a formal order to discuss new supply (auctions or syndications), market trends, the biggest flows and where they reckon the market is going. This is called “market color.” The sales desks follow with the most important business from the day before and any important transactions that are coming up. Everybody knows what’s coming and how it fits together. Everybody can interrupt the meeting, more than a thousand people. The Monday morning meeting is typically done out of New York. Sometimes a high-up guy attends and addresses the troops, and this is done in an auditorium and is fed through to the stentor for those who are on their desks.
The heads of desk all meet regularly with one another and with the head of the entire trading floor, both formally and informally. There is tension between the sales desks and the trading desks, because the sales desks mainly get compensated for volume. No good way has been invented to measure the profitability of trades, but it’s plenty easy to see if the competition is doing the business and business does not much happen in the absence of profit.
Senior management merely choreographs these interactions. It fosters exchange of information, listens to the salesforce to find out what the customers are doing and to the best traders to find out how it all makes sense. Eyes on, but hands off.
All decisions are made in real time by the most junior person on the floor who is qualified to make them. Management’s role is to stop him out if he’s losing, give him more rope to hang himself if he’s winning and compensate him, promote him or fire him at yearend based on an assessment of his performance. Management manages people, not individual trading decisions. If a trade is big enough that management finds out about it, you really should consider passing on it and there had better be some awesome outside PR benefits to winning it.
The model is very much a “team of teams.”
So General McChrystal had the epiphany that his team would have to abandon the command-and-control structure and morph into a network. A network that would be just as networked as Al Qaeda’s, but, better. He visited Michael Bloomberg, a former Salomon Brothers trader, head of technology at Salomon and eventually founder of a trading systems empire and got the blueprint. He put together the whole thing, soup to nuts:
1, he recognized that every attack would be different
2. he anticipated that solutions would have to come out of a bottom-up result of interactions, much like Al Qaeda’s
3. he decided to emphasize connectivity and trust over reductionist precision
4. he recognized that there would be efficiency costs to this approach and was prepared to take the associated criticism
He did not start from scratch. He already had some amazing teams under his command. Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, intel analysts, all had solid, tightly knit, professional and highly trained teams going, but the task was to make them work together (though I don’t think the word “Marines” comes up once if you do a word search; we all have our prejudices).
Job #1 was to create a “shared consciousness” and he did it exactly how you’d do it on a trading floor, using communication protocols that were first established by NASA to launch the Apollo project. He got himself a massive space and turned it into what Stanley Kubrick would call a “war room.” He ran out of there daily one-hour long meetings that he chaired himself, inviting everybody to the table. Not only all three forces, but also the CIA, intelligence, airpower controllers, medical staff, everyone. He covered the walls with screens bringing back footage from ongoing raids, logs of captures, maps of recent gains and losses, casualties etc. and made the room the permanent office for himself and his top lieutenants, with people arranged to sit in a U around them. No cubicles, no special room for General McChrystal.
The point was that anyone in the room could have the latest information, pretty much at the same time as his or her commanding officers. Takeup was far from immediate. Lots of the seats were initially left empty. But over time, this became the place you had to be, because that became the best way to be current. Eventually everybody joined, including the Intelligence folks, as the process “developed its own gravitational pull” and “the information shared was so rich, so timely, and so pertinent to the fight, no one wanted to miss it.” (p. 168)
Job #2 was to build trust between the teams he commanded. “Each agency feared that sharing intelligence would work against its own interests. Competition between agencies made them reluctant to provide information; what if a partner agency did not reciprocate?” To get there, he instituted an embedding program, whereby he forced teams to send some of their best players to go work with other teams. “If you won’t miss him, don’t send him” was the rule. Often these people would be given menial tasks by their host teams, but because they had been carefully selected they invariably ended up having a lot to offer. And over time, not a long time, connections of trust between the teams were formed around the embedded emissaries. Everybody at every team could say with no exaggeration that he knew and trusted somebody in each of the other teams.
And that’s how the structure came about of a “team of teams” with “shared consciousness,” a shared purpose and widely shared information who could act as one.
Soon enough, the results started coming in. The number of raids the team could successfully execute leapt by an order of magnitude. And previously unheard of stuff like follow-on targets became a daily reality. But also treason, as megabytes and megabytes of information found its way onto Wikileaks. General McChrystal does not dwell too long on the Bradley Manning affair, but it has to be recognized as a downside of the approach he took. On the other hand, he did get Zarqawi and he makes the case very persuasively he never would have without applying his method.
The biggest epiphany he had though, was to do with his own role. Once the team of teams was up-and-running, he realised his authority to order raids was actually in everybody’s way.
Job #3 became to redefine his job. He had to let go. “The wait for my approval was not resulting in any better decisions, and our priority should be reaching the best possible decision that could be made in a time frame that allowed it to be relevant.” So he reluctantly devolved his powers to sanction raids to the lowest operative who could reasonably expected to make the decision. The thinking was that the extra speed would compensate for the possibly inferior decision making. He was in for a surprise. The empowered and informed leaders in the field actually obtained better, more precise results than they’d done before, when he’d been masterminding the attacks. He thought he’d give something up to gain something more important. He actually got both.
And thus he realised that he’d have to redefine his job. Yes, he’d have to keep his eyes on the ball. But he’d have to keep his hands off. From the heroic leader / chessmaster he had been trained to be and had dreamt of becoming one day, he had already morphed into a gardener, a man who keeps the correct environment going and merely tends to his garden while allowing nature to take its course.
Which neatly brings me back to the trading floor and the world of investment banking.
The head of the trading floor knows everything, but never has to give an order. He lets traders do their thing. His decisions revolve around personnel, the overall direction of the business, and the allocation of resources, most important of which is compensation.
Thing is, when something wrong happens it is nigh-on impossible to pin it on himl
And so it came to pass that the highest-ranking person who will go to jail for the LIBOR scandal will probably be a 34 year old Aspergers sufferer called Tom Hayes. Legend has it the man sleeps in a Spiderman duvet. Leaving to one side the question of whether he was doing anything wrong (my personal view is nothing in principle, but plenty in the detail) he's finding it very difficult to prove he was acting on the orders of his superiors. But of course the law knows how to follow the money and fully realises he was.
And what does the law do?
Ah, that's the fun bit. It's forcing trading floors across London, Tokyo and New York to abandon the "team of teams" structure they passed on to General McChrystal and is demanding that all banks provide full top-down organograms, of the kind that will allow orders to flow downward and blame upward. And it's forcing banks to hire thousands and thousands of lawyers to ensure they comply with the new structure.
Not only that. Additionally, the regulators are forcing trading operations to ban mobile communications, Twitter, social media etc. from trading floors, while teams of lawyers are trolling over all Bloomberg chats from the past ten years, making any and all communication dangerous, in case it's taken out of context. What's the result? When once traders, with their access to Reuters, Bloomberg, TV channels and multiple chats stood in the center of the information flow, they now find themselves the most isolated from the real world they've ever been. Instead of sitting in the middle of a communication hub, they need to wait till they've gone home to find out from their spouse what happened today in the world.
What will come of it? Very simple. First, those with alternatives will exit the business and focus on more profitable stuff, driving prices wider. That's only the beginning. Prices will have to widen even further, to accommodate the fact that the wrong business structure will result in a blunter, slower response to sharper, better-informed, customer enquiry. Finally, somebody will have to pay for the thousands and thousands of compliance officers, and that's the third powerful force that will drive margins wider.
Will be fun to watch!
July 10, 2022
Increasingly, I think most problems are organisational problems. Humans are innovative, intelligent, generally good-willed and hard working. But how do we organise those capacities to achieve what we need to?
For much of the 20th century, organisation meant top-down control. Whether Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management or Karl Marx's Scientific Marxism, the organisational model reflected the technology and times: Power and information flow up from discrete silos and decisions flow down. This model achieved remarkable things compared to earlier eras of humanity. More people, doing more, far more efficiently than was possible in the past. But there are fundamental limits to it. Anytime it's applied to problems that can not be broken down into constituent parts, for which a structured process can not solve the problem each and every time, and in the face of genuine complexity, this model will break.
This was the challenge facing McChrystal and the Special Operations Task Force in Iraq in 2004. They were being thoroughly out-fought by Al Qaeda. It wasn't a question of resources, they had far more than their adversary. It wasn't a question of hard work or efficiency, small gains could only achieve small steps. Instead, the challenge was organisational. They realised they needed a network to defeat a network. They needed the purpose and trust that defined a small team but expand across a vast organisation, spanning multiple agencies and multiple continents. And so, like a pilot rebuilding the plane in mid-air, they set about changing their organisational structure.
Team of Teams is a thoroughly enjoyable intellectual investigation: How do you re-imagine the structure of organisations in a way that would make them resilient, fast and cooperative? The answer McChrystal and his co-authors (Collins, Silverman & Fussell) came to was a 'team of teams' approach, embodying insights from complexity science and a range of bottom-up models of organisation. Power was radically devolved. McChrystal took himself out of the process for ordering operations, speeding up the time taken, and giving extra power and responsibility to those below. Information was radically shared, helping each and every member to have a holistic view of the entire organisation. Rather than being 'need to know' where information might fall into the cracks inbetween groups, everything was shared as much as possible. The culture of the organisation, of shared purpose and trust became essential to their work, enabling the sharing and voluntary relinquishment of key resources (such as overhead drones) to enable clear priorities and rapid action.
Along with a well told tale of the organisational change in Iraq, Team of Teams is an engaging review of the broader literature and ways of thinking about this change. Taylor's Scientific Management is explored in depth as a baseline for how organisations such as the Military have historically approached problems. Then a wide number of good books and stories are drawn on to illustrate the way they learned, developed and eventually implemented a radically new system. Useful metaphors are offered: McChrystal likens the shift in his leadership approach as one from a Chess 'Grand Master' to 'Gardener'. His job was no longer to move the pieces, but to tend to the eco-system allowing all of the plants to thrive. As such, you'll walk away with a long to-read list from their research and explanations.
This book is a good example of complexity science applied to organisational problems. It explains how those changes can be actually implemented, and what the culture, norms and processes. Of course, it also implicitly shows the limits of it as well. Such a vast effort enabled the Task Force to be far more effective at dealing with Al Qaeda tactically, but in a point the book almost never mentions, the challenge was just as much one of strategy. That is, why Al Qaeda was able to have such influence and appeal among the population. I say almost never, as buried in a footnote 8 pages from the end of the book is an admission of this very limitation. Still, that isn't to take away from their achievement. You can't win strategically if you're always losing thoroughly tactically.
This is an inspiring book, because it shows new ways of thinking and working are possible, even under what seem the most extreme and challenging of organisational situations: a literal war zone, and within an organisation famous for its centuries of martial tradition and hierarchy. It takes many ideas that are out there already, and reformulates them in compelling ways and then, perhaps most importantly, follows them to their conclusion. Instead of just taking the comfortable half-steps of talking about networks, adaptability and speed, it walks the walk of what this means for acting and the often radical and initially uncomfortable changes in mindset and process this requires.
For much of the 20th century, organisation meant top-down control. Whether Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management or Karl Marx's Scientific Marxism, the organisational model reflected the technology and times: Power and information flow up from discrete silos and decisions flow down. This model achieved remarkable things compared to earlier eras of humanity. More people, doing more, far more efficiently than was possible in the past. But there are fundamental limits to it. Anytime it's applied to problems that can not be broken down into constituent parts, for which a structured process can not solve the problem each and every time, and in the face of genuine complexity, this model will break.
This was the challenge facing McChrystal and the Special Operations Task Force in Iraq in 2004. They were being thoroughly out-fought by Al Qaeda. It wasn't a question of resources, they had far more than their adversary. It wasn't a question of hard work or efficiency, small gains could only achieve small steps. Instead, the challenge was organisational. They realised they needed a network to defeat a network. They needed the purpose and trust that defined a small team but expand across a vast organisation, spanning multiple agencies and multiple continents. And so, like a pilot rebuilding the plane in mid-air, they set about changing their organisational structure.
Team of Teams is a thoroughly enjoyable intellectual investigation: How do you re-imagine the structure of organisations in a way that would make them resilient, fast and cooperative? The answer McChrystal and his co-authors (Collins, Silverman & Fussell) came to was a 'team of teams' approach, embodying insights from complexity science and a range of bottom-up models of organisation. Power was radically devolved. McChrystal took himself out of the process for ordering operations, speeding up the time taken, and giving extra power and responsibility to those below. Information was radically shared, helping each and every member to have a holistic view of the entire organisation. Rather than being 'need to know' where information might fall into the cracks inbetween groups, everything was shared as much as possible. The culture of the organisation, of shared purpose and trust became essential to their work, enabling the sharing and voluntary relinquishment of key resources (such as overhead drones) to enable clear priorities and rapid action.
Along with a well told tale of the organisational change in Iraq, Team of Teams is an engaging review of the broader literature and ways of thinking about this change. Taylor's Scientific Management is explored in depth as a baseline for how organisations such as the Military have historically approached problems. Then a wide number of good books and stories are drawn on to illustrate the way they learned, developed and eventually implemented a radically new system. Useful metaphors are offered: McChrystal likens the shift in his leadership approach as one from a Chess 'Grand Master' to 'Gardener'. His job was no longer to move the pieces, but to tend to the eco-system allowing all of the plants to thrive. As such, you'll walk away with a long to-read list from their research and explanations.
This book is a good example of complexity science applied to organisational problems. It explains how those changes can be actually implemented, and what the culture, norms and processes. Of course, it also implicitly shows the limits of it as well. Such a vast effort enabled the Task Force to be far more effective at dealing with Al Qaeda tactically, but in a point the book almost never mentions, the challenge was just as much one of strategy. That is, why Al Qaeda was able to have such influence and appeal among the population. I say almost never, as buried in a footnote 8 pages from the end of the book is an admission of this very limitation. Still, that isn't to take away from their achievement. You can't win strategically if you're always losing thoroughly tactically.
This is an inspiring book, because it shows new ways of thinking and working are possible, even under what seem the most extreme and challenging of organisational situations: a literal war zone, and within an organisation famous for its centuries of martial tradition and hierarchy. It takes many ideas that are out there already, and reformulates them in compelling ways and then, perhaps most importantly, follows them to their conclusion. Instead of just taking the comfortable half-steps of talking about networks, adaptability and speed, it walks the walk of what this means for acting and the often radical and initially uncomfortable changes in mindset and process this requires.
September 18, 2017
Team of Team is one of those odd hybrid books, applying lessons from the military to business and vice versa, structured around General McChrystal's personal memoir of transforming Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) into the globe-spanning terrorist-hunting "sword and shield" that it is today, structured around the elimination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, commander of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
McChrystal and his co-authors (Yale grad Tantum Collins appears to have done a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of research and actual word-smithing) lay out a fairly simply story. Modern corporations are structured around efficiency, whether through explicitly Taylorist management practices where every motion is clocked and redesigned for speed, or implicitly through bureaucratic silos. Efficient organizations are great, until they interact with complex and chaotic systems, at which point efficiency becomes less important than adaptability. There are plenty of the usual examples from aviation and natural disasters, to make the case that efficiency and resilience are different goals, and that while machines should be efficient, the parts with humans in them need to be resilience.
The JSOC that McChrystal took over was an organization finely tuned to fight the last war, complicated operations along the lines of the Tehran Hostage Rescue debacle in 1980. In Iraq in 2003, they were stepping up operations and raids from 10 a night to 18 a night, but failing to stop the underground growth of Al Qaeda in Iraq. McChrystal realized that his problems were organizational above all else: Vital intelligence went stale as overworked analysts tried to get a handle on a growing backlog of interrogations, documents, and surveillance video. Each individual unit in JSOC was world-class, but the organization was riddle with rivalries and barriers to trust and communication between operations (SEALs, Delta Force, Rangers, etc), analysts, and partner agencies in the intelligence community (CIA, NSA, NRO), not to mention the regular military, the rest of the government, and foreign partners. And above all, no one had a coherent strategic picture.
To fight a netwar, JSOC had to rewire itself. McChrystal institued an open bullpen organization layout at his headquarters in a fortified hanger at Baghdad International Airport. He instituted mandatory daily video conference calls for Operations and Intelligence, at 9 AM EST and 4 PM local time, as Washington was starting its day and operators were moving out for a night of raids. These calls involved thousands of participants, and allowed/required McChrystal to model the deeply inquisitive form of command he saw as necessary to win. JSOC became more flexible and fluid, an organization that made raids based on 'audible' calls and the immediate exploitation of intelligence. Actions went from an average of ~19 a night to over 300. In 2006, they got their man, tracking the elusive Zarqawi through personal networks and killing him with an airstrike.
Some of the stuff in here should be business conventional wisdom: Adaptability is key; architecture is destiny; missions-driven organizations that empower their employees succeed. McChrystal has some very good advice on the importance of asking the right questions, leadership being mostly about setting culture, and that while organizations should be as transparent as possible, leaders MUST MUST MUST resist the urge to micromanage. Delegate, cultivate, and focus on priorities and people rather than processes.
I have a few minor caveats. There's a bit of unwarranted techno-analogizing between computer networks and organization networks. Some of the hard questions about creating a "team of team" are left a little opaque, with that you should check out McChrystal's consulting firm, although the references are discrete and reasonable. Finally, McChrystal elides entirely the major strategic questions surrounding his tenure at JSOC and later in Afghanistan. At best, he achieved medium-level successes that have been submerged in larger strategic reversals. And his habit of 'thinking out loud' in front of a Rolling Stone reporter cost him his command. Anything he could say about the War would be outdated, but if you're looking for that perspective, try another book.
McChrystal and his co-authors (Yale grad Tantum Collins appears to have done a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of research and actual word-smithing) lay out a fairly simply story. Modern corporations are structured around efficiency, whether through explicitly Taylorist management practices where every motion is clocked and redesigned for speed, or implicitly through bureaucratic silos. Efficient organizations are great, until they interact with complex and chaotic systems, at which point efficiency becomes less important than adaptability. There are plenty of the usual examples from aviation and natural disasters, to make the case that efficiency and resilience are different goals, and that while machines should be efficient, the parts with humans in them need to be resilience.
The JSOC that McChrystal took over was an organization finely tuned to fight the last war, complicated operations along the lines of the Tehran Hostage Rescue debacle in 1980. In Iraq in 2003, they were stepping up operations and raids from 10 a night to 18 a night, but failing to stop the underground growth of Al Qaeda in Iraq. McChrystal realized that his problems were organizational above all else: Vital intelligence went stale as overworked analysts tried to get a handle on a growing backlog of interrogations, documents, and surveillance video. Each individual unit in JSOC was world-class, but the organization was riddle with rivalries and barriers to trust and communication between operations (SEALs, Delta Force, Rangers, etc), analysts, and partner agencies in the intelligence community (CIA, NSA, NRO), not to mention the regular military, the rest of the government, and foreign partners. And above all, no one had a coherent strategic picture.
To fight a netwar, JSOC had to rewire itself. McChrystal institued an open bullpen organization layout at his headquarters in a fortified hanger at Baghdad International Airport. He instituted mandatory daily video conference calls for Operations and Intelligence, at 9 AM EST and 4 PM local time, as Washington was starting its day and operators were moving out for a night of raids. These calls involved thousands of participants, and allowed/required McChrystal to model the deeply inquisitive form of command he saw as necessary to win. JSOC became more flexible and fluid, an organization that made raids based on 'audible' calls and the immediate exploitation of intelligence. Actions went from an average of ~19 a night to over 300. In 2006, they got their man, tracking the elusive Zarqawi through personal networks and killing him with an airstrike.
Some of the stuff in here should be business conventional wisdom: Adaptability is key; architecture is destiny; missions-driven organizations that empower their employees succeed. McChrystal has some very good advice on the importance of asking the right questions, leadership being mostly about setting culture, and that while organizations should be as transparent as possible, leaders MUST MUST MUST resist the urge to micromanage. Delegate, cultivate, and focus on priorities and people rather than processes.
I have a few minor caveats. There's a bit of unwarranted techno-analogizing between computer networks and organization networks. Some of the hard questions about creating a "team of team" are left a little opaque, with that you should check out McChrystal's consulting firm, although the references are discrete and reasonable. Finally, McChrystal elides entirely the major strategic questions surrounding his tenure at JSOC and later in Afghanistan. At best, he achieved medium-level successes that have been submerged in larger strategic reversals. And his habit of 'thinking out loud' in front of a Rolling Stone reporter cost him his command. Anything he could say about the War would be outdated, but if you're looking for that perspective, try another book.
January 15, 2018
This book can be "listened to" as an audiobook. It has lots of thrilling stories about history, US Army and Iraq. These stories keep you engaged. We like stories, right?!
But the main focus of the book is not on war stories. It's on the organizational transformation from top-down management style to a net of self-managing teams. It's the change from "machine-like" structures to "organism-like" ones. It's the trick of using highly-skilled "liaison" people — your own promoters inside friendly organizations, who boost information sharing.
Lots of big tech companies that I spoke with use similar approach:
- Uber has "Experience" teams: Payments, Ride, Driver, etc. They are full-stack product teams: designers, engineers, analysts working on a specific user-experience.
- Spotify has "Tribes and Guilds". Full-stack SCRUM teams which build end-to-end user experiences.
They try to operate as a team of teams.
Bottomline: 4 for the idea + 1 for the engaging stories = 5.
P.S. One of the phrases I liked a lot and advocate for quite often is "We had decentralized in the belief that the 70 percent solution today would be better than the 90 % solution tomorrow. But we found our estimates were backward – we were getting the 90 percent solution today instead of the 70% solution tomorrow." The cost of postponing the decision may often be quite high.
But the main focus of the book is not on war stories. It's on the organizational transformation from top-down management style to a net of self-managing teams. It's the change from "machine-like" structures to "organism-like" ones. It's the trick of using highly-skilled "liaison" people — your own promoters inside friendly organizations, who boost information sharing.
Lots of big tech companies that I spoke with use similar approach:
- Uber has "Experience" teams: Payments, Ride, Driver, etc. They are full-stack product teams: designers, engineers, analysts working on a specific user-experience.
- Spotify has "Tribes and Guilds". Full-stack SCRUM teams which build end-to-end user experiences.
They try to operate as a team of teams.
Bottomline: 4 for the idea + 1 for the engaging stories = 5.
P.S. One of the phrases I liked a lot and advocate for quite often is "We had decentralized in the belief that the 70 percent solution today would be better than the 90 % solution tomorrow. But we found our estimates were backward – we were getting the 90 percent solution today instead of the 70% solution tomorrow." The cost of postponing the decision may often be quite high.
October 23, 2023
For what this book is, it’s definitely a strong 4. Of all the ‘management’/leadership books I’ve read, this is definitely in my top 2 and they should start giving this book out to leaders in place of some of the other ones you see on people’s office shelves.
McCrystal’s self awareness is what makes his book stand out from others. Although a colorfully decorated man, he humbles himself and recognizes much of the ego petting that happens in work places causing delays in decision making just so leaders can feel ‘important’ where they actually provide little to no value.
It was interesting to hear how AQI’s network of leaders actually paved the way for the US’s own successes. The overall writing of the book was well done starting from the foundations of how Taylor built efficiencies into the work place to make everyday workers almost drone like to minimize complications and overthinking and essentially narrowing our ability to be agile.
This book will be one of the exceptions to my standard rating criteria. At the time of reading, it’s more of a 3 for me but I’m giving it a 4 because it’s great for its genre and I’d much rather have this book on my shelf than many of the other leadership books I’ve read in the past.
Also a small grievance I have with this book is how the footnotes from some pages trail onto the next page’s footnote area. Yes it’s petty but seems like a relatively simple thing to fix during printing
McCrystal’s self awareness is what makes his book stand out from others. Although a colorfully decorated man, he humbles himself and recognizes much of the ego petting that happens in work places causing delays in decision making just so leaders can feel ‘important’ where they actually provide little to no value.
It was interesting to hear how AQI’s network of leaders actually paved the way for the US’s own successes. The overall writing of the book was well done starting from the foundations of how Taylor built efficiencies into the work place to make everyday workers almost drone like to minimize complications and overthinking and essentially narrowing our ability to be agile.
This book will be one of the exceptions to my standard rating criteria. At the time of reading, it’s more of a 3 for me but I’m giving it a 4 because it’s great for its genre and I’d much rather have this book on my shelf than many of the other leadership books I’ve read in the past.
Also a small grievance I have with this book is how the footnotes from some pages trail onto the next page’s footnote area. Yes it’s petty but seems like a relatively simple thing to fix during printing
June 13, 2019
O autor traz uma perspectiva provocadora, própria para o momento em que vivemos. A velocidade das informações no mundo de hoje requerem atitudes inovadoras para lidar com situações que não têm solução por meios usuais. Certas organizações têm repetido fórmulas que não desafiam o status quo dominante. O livro é rico em exemplos e lições a partir do cruzamento de experiências em diversos campos. É uma obra que comumente aparece nas listas de leitura de vários comandantes de exércitos, ou equivalentes. Ela faz jus a isso e é essencial para ajudar a impulsionar o estamento militar para novos patamares.
September 28, 2020
Il libro racconta dell'esperienza delle unità speciali dell'esercito americano nella lotta ad Al Qaida in Iraq. La struttura gerarchica funzionale dell'esercito americano non era adatta a fronteggiare un nemico che si era strutturato come una rete, ed era flessibile e sfuggente. Una seria trasformazione fu necessaria, con la creazione di una struttura di "team di Teams". Il libro ricostruisce l'esperienza e la suggerisce come possibilità anche per le tante organizzazioni che fronteggiano un ecosistema imprevedibile. Molti gli spunti interessanti in un testo per certi versi rivoluzionario.
February 25, 2023
The new bible for cross-functional teams, art of trust and delegation, adapting to environment and leading through culture change at scale.
General McChristal of course brings the best anecdotes from his war on terror anecdotes, but the book is way broader than that. And if someone can deliberately break the centuries of rigid, "reductionist" (my new word from this book) culture of the hierarchical and super efficient army -- your startup is a piece of cake.
General McChristal of course brings the best anecdotes from his war on terror anecdotes, but the book is way broader than that. And if someone can deliberately break the centuries of rigid, "reductionist" (my new word from this book) culture of the hierarchical and super efficient army -- your startup is a piece of cake.
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