In 2004 in Iraq, the U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force was struggling to counter Al Qaeda, which was spreading sectarian discord and violence to undermine the shaky Iraqi government.
The U.S. task force—consisting of elite special forces teams, strategists, and analysts from every branch of the U.S. military—was charged with disrupting Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) by conducting raids, gathering intelligence, and killing or capturing terrorist leaders. However, despite its enormous resources and expertise, the task force soon found its conventional approach—based on a rigid command structure and lengthy centralized planning processes—failing for two reasons:
1) They faced a new type of enemy. The huge, slow-moving task force couldn’t keep up with AQI, which functioned as a decentralized network of agile teams that could strike quickly, reconfigure immediately, and integrate their actions globally.
2) They faced a new type of environment. Iraq was a complex environment far different from what the military organized and trained for—it was characterized by rapid, unpredictable events, rather than events that military organizers could foresee and plan for.
In addition, the technology of global connectedness allowed terrorists to operate in radically different ways. It meant AQI leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi could build an effective organization despite having few resources. Through bomb-making videos and online propaganda, AQI incited sectarian conflict in Iraq. Further, the ability to transmit information instantly and widely gave AQI enormous influence among disaffected people and enabled it to constantly expand.
When General Stanley McChrystal took command of the task force, he realized that to counter the chaos that AQI nurtured and thrived on, the task force needed a dynamic approach to fit the dynamic enemy and environment.
The first step was to overcome what the military refers to as its limfac, or its limiting factor—the biggest element hindering success. The task force’s limiting factor was its inflexible structure or organizational model. McChrystal set out to transform the task force into a “team of teams” that functioned on a huge scale with the agility and effectiveness demonstrated by its small, elite commando teams in individual missions.
McChrystal identified four qualities of special forces teams that he wanted to scale up to organization level:
Navy SEALs apply all of these four qualities to deliver extraordinary performance, adapting to handle unpredictable and complex challenges. The following is an example of how they apply the first two qualities—empowerment and shared consciousness.
In 2009, Somali pirates boarded a U.S. container ship off the coast of Somalia, seized the captain, Richard Phillips, and held him at gunpoint on a small lifeboat.
Two Navy ships arrived on scene with three Navy SEAL snipers who’d been air-dropped onto one of the ships. Through night-vision scopes, the SEALs watched the three pirates holding the captain hostage and waited for the right moment to strike. Suddenly, all three snipers fired simultaneously from 75 feet away, each striking a different pirate in the head without injuring Captain Phillips.
The SEAL team succeeded not only because of their skills, but also because they became essentially one mind, thinking as a unit. Sharing a collective team consciousness or mindset, they each came to the decision to fire at the same time. Additionally, although they were in constant contact with their commander, the snipers acted on their own in choosing the moment to strike.
The team’s structure (empowered members thinking as one) rather than having a centrally determined and controlled plan led to success in this operation.
Besides empowerment and shared consciousness, trust and purpose are critical to team functioning. Navy SEALs training is designed to build trust and purpose so SEALs can function effectively (as the snipers did) as a unit.
Prospective SEALs undergo a six-month, three-part program called Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training (BUD/S). While it involves physical conditioning, diving, and fighting on land, its major purpose is teambuilding. In contrast, command structures like the task force’s initial structure aren’t about teamwork, only following orders.
In SEAL training, trainees rarely do anything alone (not even walking to meals). At minimum, they complete tasks with a partner. They’re divided into crews of five to eight that work together for the six months. They develop trust and learn to function within a small group, communicating, negotiating, and taking cues from each other.
Teams whose members know and trust each other unequivocally are capable of extraordinary performance. Like the snipers who rescued the ship’s captain, these teams can organize a coordinated response on the fly in environments where the complexity exceeds a single leader’s or commander’s ability to predict an outcome or control and monitor the response.
In addition to building trust, SEAL training ensures that each team member is in sync with their unit’s function, the mission objectives, and their individual role. Part of building this commitment involves making the training so onerous that only the most committed believers complete it—this level of dedication is critical when teammates put their lives on the line for each other and the mission.
In order for team members to work toward the same goal, they first need an understanding of what the goal is. This contrasts with command structures, like factory assembly lines, where workers don’t need to know the company’s goals, only how to follow directions.
In addition to the overall goal, all members must understand the current playing field. In volatile situations, SEALs are taught to monitor the operation as a whole, much the way soccer players keep track of the whole field. Having a sense of the whole allows SEALs to assess risks and know what actions to take in relation to other team members. They are all responsible for the team’s success and act to ensure it.
Although the task force’s special forces teams were adaptable, its command-oriented overall structure (a “command of teams”) limited the adaptability of the organization as a whole. Teams functioned in their own spheres or silos, coordinating with their commands but not with other teams. This created disconnects that hindered the overall mission. To change this, McChrystal had to do two things:
To change the organizational culture of silos, the task force adopted a policy of “extreme transparency,” or wide information sharing that provided everyone with an unvarnished, real-time view of the organization.
McChrystal created an open-office environment at the task force headquarters. His staff cc’d a wide range of people on emails and took most calls on speaker phone to “normalize” the sharing of information.
Central to creating transparency was the daily Operations and Intelligence briefing, or O&I. Having a regular leadership meeting to update everyone on operations is standard military practice—however, the task force used technology to greatly expand participation well beyond the headquarters team in Iraq. Anyone who was invited, from embassies to FBI field offices to staff at Fort Bragg, could connect to the meeting via laptop from anywhere. Conducted by video conference six days a week at the same time each day, the meeting was an unfiltered discussion of the task force’s successes and failures.
At its headquarters, the task force provided extra seats for partner agencies it hoped would participate in O&I—it was important that the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other outside agencies who provided intelligence hear first hand what the task force needed based on what was happening in the field. However, at first, only the CIA participated, while other agencies were wary of the open-sharing environment.
But the task force leaders tried to lead by example, quickly sharing data as raids were completed. McChrystal believed that the value of information grew as it was shared and more people were able to make use of it. As the intelligence agencies got faster and more useful information from the task force, they stepped up their participation, further developing and using the information—for instance, in questioning detainees. Special forces operating in the field communicated with analysts about what they were finding during raids.
O&I attendance grew to 7,000 as the value of the information and interaction increased. Everyone could see problems being solved and conflicting information being reconciled. Many participants developed their own problem-solving skills as a result. Despite involving thousands of people for two hours daily, the O&I saved untold time by eliminating the need for people to get clarification. While there was a risk of information falling into the wrong hands, the task force never had any leaks, and sharing information saved lives.
To build trust and familiarity between teams accustomed to operating in silos, the task force established an embedding program, which assigned a team member to a different team for six months. The idea was to:
Special operations teams at first resisted the program—however, as a point of pride, each sent their best team member to represent them. The experience built understanding and trust as the embedded team members saw the other teams’ strengths and shared their new-found knowledge with their “home” team.
In a similar effort to build ties with the external agencies (the CIA, NSA, and so on), the task force greatly expanded an existing program of sending liaison officers to these partner agencies. As the special ops teams had sent their best operatives to be embeds, the task force chose only top quality candidates as liaisons.
In addition to building trust through the liaison program, the connections and knowledge sharing enabled the task force to develop a more well-rounded understanding of AQI from partner agencies—for instance, about how the terrorist group’s global finance system worked.
Also, partner agencies began sending people to the task force meetings—and all the extra seats eventually filled up. Agencies and teams found that the more they cooperated, the more they benefited.
The task force sent a Navy SEAL officer to a U.S. embassy in the Middle East to coordinate efforts against Al Qaeda—however, the embassy staff at first didn’t welcome him or share intelligence with him. Having little work to do, he volunteered to collect the trash from each office, and used the task to meet people and build relationships. For instance, from taking out the trash, he learned that one embassy employee liked a certain fast-food sandwich, so he requested the task force send these sandwiches with its next delivery.
The SEAL officer slowly won respect and eventually the ambassador approached him to request help with protecting the embassy and its forces against Al Qaeda, which was ramping up in that country. The officer provided expert advice and task force intelligence, as well as pulling in task force resources.
Even though the restructured task force in Iraq developed the shared consciousness and team connectivity to determine the right things to do to counter AQI, they often couldn’t act on their own or act quickly—decisions had to travel up and down a lengthy chain of command.
Paradoxically, the instant communication enabled by technology slowed decision-making, as more people had the ability to weigh in; senior leaders wanted to approve things that, in the past, they wouldn’t have been directly involved in due to lack of real-time communication. Approval processes for strikes on terrorist leaders extended to the Pentagon or even the White House. Yet delayed decisions could allow a target to escape or could mean life or death in the complex, ever-changing circumstances on the ground.
To speed up the reaction time, McChrystal began pushing decision-making authority down, in a policy of “empowered execution.” Often, he didn’t explicitly delegate—instead, he created a general rule: If it advances the task force effort, do it (assuming it’s moral and legal).
His more self-assured officers made decisions and reported them at the O&I briefing, where McChrystal’s public approval encouraged more people to act. The task force decentralized until it became uncomfortable, which McChrystal defined as the “sweet spot.” He knew that because sharing decision-making authority is uncomfortable for leaders, discomfort would be a sign they’d achieved their goal.
Naturally, there was a learning curve: Subordinate officers had to become comfortable with not only making decisions, but also pushing authority down further. Partner agencies were initially confused and wanted verification that subordinate officers were acting with McChrystal’s approval.
Soon though, empowered execution began paying off:
In addition to the policy of pushing authority down throughout the organization, McChrystal adopted an “eyes on, hands off” policy for himself, meaning that if subordinates fully informed him about what they were doing, he’d simply observe without getting involved. Conversely, if they didn’t provide sufficient “visibility” (part of shared consciousness), he would jump in aggressively.
McChrystal found he was more effective when he supervised processes to ensure the task force avoided silos and bureaucracy that would hinder agility. He used technological capabilities to do his job of coordination better, rather than to monitor and intervene in others’ jobs or operations. He likened this concept of leadership to “leading like a gardener,” that is, creating and cultivating an organizational ecosystem in which others could operate more effectively.
The Task Force’s team-of-teams organizational model, incorporating the transformational concepts of trust, purpose, shared consciousness, and empowered execution, finally brought down AQI leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
By the spring of 2006, the playing field had changed: In several years, the task force had 1) learned a great deal more about Zarqawi and his organization and 2) dramatically increased its effectiveness in gathering intelligence and disrupting the terrorist network.
A break came when task force units captured a dozen AQI fighters in a raid on a farmhouse—U.S. intelligence analysts soon identified several of them as not merely fighters but mid-level AQI operatives potentially connected to terrorist leadership. Interrogators homed in on one particular operative, Allawi (not his real name), and brought the vast, now-networked, task force resources to bear on determining what he knew. A hive mind consisting of teams across Iraq, intelligence agencies in the U.S. and United Kingdom, partners across the region, and more than 70 task force liaison officers coordinated questions to ask the detainee and offered insights on his answers.
Finally, Allawi revealed the name of Zarqawi’s spiritual adviser, Sheikh Abd al-Rahman, with whom the terrorist leader had regular in-person contact. The task force determined Rahman’s location and monitored it 24/7. Maintaining constant surveillance diverted resources from other task force operations, which in the past would have prompted competitiveness or distrust among units. However, thanks to shared consciousness, trust, and transparency, everyone understood and united around the common purpose of taking down Zarqawi.
The task force was able to track Rahman to a meeting with Zarqawi at a farmhouse outside Baghdad. When Rahman arrived there, a man dressed in black robes emerged to greet him, and the task force’s network of analysts quickly identified the man as Zarqawi. At the task force HQ, McChrystal’s Baghdad operations commander called for an air strike and dispatched a special operations team. Practicing empowered execution, McChrystal didn’t question or intervene in the orders. The strike blew up the house, and the commando team arriving a half-hour later found Iraqi medics outside with a still-alive Zarqawi on a stretcher. However, Zarqawi died a few minutes later.
Next, the task force drew on resources stretching to the FBI in Washington, to confirm Zarqawi’s fingerprints and thus, his identity. Finally, task force units across Iraq struck multiple targets, including 14 in Baghdad, in an effort to hit each one before word of Zarqawi’s death spread to AQI operatives and caused them to flee. These strikes yielded intelligence revealing further connections among the terrorists and leading to new raids.
By the time of the successful strike against Zarqawi, the task force had begun taking for granted the network of relationships, trust, and shared consciousness that enabled the huge success. These elements had become part of their everyday operations.
They were now winning the fight against AQI because they were learning and adapting more quickly than the enemy. They were striking unpredictably, day and night, more quickly than AQI could regroup—enabled by the networking and trust between analysts and field operators.
It was all the result of a management transformation. Now, instead of being a centralized efficiency-oriented organization, the task force was an interconnected network constantly learning and adapting.
However, the subsequent rise of ISIS in Iraq under a new terrorist leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, less than 10 years after McChrystal’s success in transforming the task force and capturing Zarqawi, underscored two truths about change:
When facing challenges, there’s a temptation in organizations to revert to the planning and efficiency-oriented processes they’re comfortable with and that have worked in the past. But results are what count—and getting results in a new environment requires transforming how organizations do things for the long term.
In 2004 in Iraq, the U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force was struggling to counter Al Qaeda, which was spreading sectarian discord and violence to undermine the shaky Iraqi government.
The U.S. task force—consisting of elite special forces units, strategists, and analysts from every branch of the U.S. military—was charged with conducting raids, gathering intelligence, and killing or capturing terrorist leaders. However, despite its enormous resources and expertise, the task force soon found its conventional approach—including a rigid command structure and lengthy planning processes—failing against an unconventional enemy. The task force couldn’t keep up with Al Qaeda, which functioned as a decentralized network of agile teams that could strike quickly, reconfigure immediately, and integrate their actions globally.
The task force also found itself in a complex environment different from what the military was organized and trained for, characterized by rapid, interconnected events, rather than predictable events that military organizers could plan for.
When General Stanley McChrystal took command of the task force, he realized he must transform it to operate in an entirely new way. Contrary to his West Point training as an engineer, McChrystal had to accept that he couldn’t defeat Al Qaeda with a centrally planned and controlled solution. Instead, the task force had to shift to adaptability.
Agility and adaptability are key features of small “mission-critical” teams such as commando units, but they’re not typically features of large organizations like the task force. However, McChrystal learned how to scale up small-team success to the organizational level by creating a “team of teams,” in which units collaborated the same way individual members do on small teams. It required replicating on a large scale the trust and purpose that bond teams, decentralizing decision-making, and creating a single “shared consciousness,” or common understanding and mindset across the organization.
Team of Teams is the story of how McChrystal transformed the task force in the middle of a war— a task he likened to a sports team switching from football to basketball in the middle of a game—requiring it to discard familiar equipment as well as every preconception about winning a war. Drawing on both military history and management theory, McChrystal suggests that the task force’s experiences in reinventing itself can apply to many organizations facing unconventional challenges.
This summary is divided into five parts that link the task force’s practical experience with management theory and the experiences of other large organizations:
Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was an entirely new kind of threat operating in a changed environment, and the war against them was unlike any 20th-century war. Terrorism, radicalism, and insurgency weren’t new, but in 2004, they were transformed by the technology of global connectedness, which allowed terrorists to operate in radically different ways.
The Joint Special Operations Task Force struggled to get a handle on an agile enemy constantly on the move with no fixed base of operations, no MO (standard method of operation), and no hierarchy or structure—only a loose network, shifting leaders, and skillful use of cyberspace.
On paper, the task force had a lopsided advantage over AQI:
Yet, AQI managed to prevail. An example of AQI’s effectiveness against the task force was its September 2004 bombing of a celebration to open Baghdad sewer plant. AQI terrorists drove cars loaded with explosives into the crowd, killing 35 children and wounding 10 Americans and 140 Iraqis. Within hours, AQI had posted a video of its success on the internet.
Despite being the “best of the best,” the task force’s elite special forces, strategists, and intelligence analysts hadn’t discovered the plans and prevented the bombing. Moreover, terrorist attacks like the sewer plant bombing kept increasing. In 2004, there had been more terrorist attacks in Iraq than in the entire world in 2003. They continued to escalate and by spring 2006, attacks were killing more than 1,000 Iraqis a month.
AQI’s foothold in Iraq dated back to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein. After Hussein’s fall, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who ran a jihadist organization and training camp in Afghanistan, moved into Iraq and joined with dispossessed Sunnis to resist the new Iraqi government.
Zarqawi’s goal was to trigger a sectarian civil war that would destroy Iraq, paving the way for an Islamic caliphate. By targeting Shia Iraqis with attacks, he started a bloodbath; each terrorist strike would set off a chain of reprisals, multiplying the death toll. In October 2004, he swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and took charge of AQI.
AQI seemed to change shape at will. They adjusted to any environment: They infiltrated rural communities by wearing traditional dress and fitting into religious organizations; they also blended into urban environments by wearing city clothes and driving nondescript vehicles so they could carry out suicide attacks unhindered. Equally nondescript monitors or supervisors followed the attackers to video the attacks and then slipped away unnoticed.
Despite having no standard method of operation or hierarchy, they maintained their purpose and strategy. No matter how many leaders the task force killed or captured, AQI continued to function.
A student of military history, McChrystal found that AQI’s successful adaptability had a parallel in historical warfare, specifically to an 1805 naval battle.
In the Battle of Trafalgar, British Admiral Horatio Nelson used adaptability to overcome the superior Franco-Spanish fleet and thus staved off a land invasion of Britain. Nelson’s battle plan foreshadowed AQI tactics: The British admiral created and capitalized on chaos to render his opponent’s superior firepower ineffective. This required empowering multiple teams to react and adapt to circumstances in the moment, as AQI teams did. Here’s how Nelson’s plan worked.
In Nelson’s era, opposing fleets typically lined up their ships parallel to each other, and fired volleys until one side surrendered. Instead, his fleet approached the enemy line perpendicularly in two columns, which split the line into three parts. This created chaos among the enemy ships because they couldn’t receive orders and communicate in the usual way with signal flags; the smoke, disruption, and insertion of Nelson’s ships in the enemy line blocked the enemy ships’ views of each other.
In contrast to commanding from the top, Nelson shared his overall strategy with his forces and empowered British captains to act on their own once the battle started. No one had to wait for orders to be signaled. Nelson won, not just because of a clever and unconventional plan, but also because he empowered his captains to adapt to changing circumstances.
Lacking an obvious chain of command and predictable methods, AQI should have dissolved into anarchy. But it didn’t, in part because, in addition to its loosely networked structure and adaptability, AQI benefited from the environment in which it operated in two ways:
Technology, which created an entirely different and constantly shifting landscape, was the bigger of the two factors. Global connectedness meant al Zarqawi could build an organization despite having few resources. Through bomb-making videos and online recruiting, he incited sectarian conflict in Iraq. The ability to transmit information instantly and widely gave small groups like his enormous influence among disaffected people and enabled AQI to constantly expand.
While the task force had the best equipment, training, and skill, it wasn’t suited to the environment because it couldn’t counter AQI’s instantaneous global reach, nor could its centrally planned and tightly controlled operations adapt to changing circumstances on the ground due to AQI’s constant movement.
To manage and counter the chaos that AQI nurtured and thrived on, the task force had to transform its huge organization to match both the adaptable enemy and the complex environment. This entailed restructuring based on trust, transparency and information sharing, and decentralized decision-making (empowered execution).
These ideas ran against the grain of military tradition, 20th-century concepts of efficiency, and general management practices. Yet the task force couldn’t effectively counter AQI without first overcoming what the military refers to as limfac, or its limiting factor—the element hindering success.
The task force’s limiting factor was its outdated structure or organizational model. The same is true for many other types of organizations also facing a complex environment. Rather than planning and optimizing for predictable outcomes, organizations must restructure themselves to respond to a constantly shifting environment.
The military refers to the biggest element hindering the success of a mission or operation as its limfac, or its limiting factor. For example, in Iraq, the joint operations task force’s limfac was its unwieldy structure, which rendered its response to AQI ineffective.
What is your organization’s mission? What is its limfac—the main factor standing in the way of the mission’s success?
How is this major limitation manifesting itself? Does it relate to people, processes, or structure?
What steps have been taken so far to address the limfac? Have they succeeded? If not, what should the next step be?
This chapter explores the development and impact of the efficiency mindset—or doctrine of scientific management, in which processes are standardized and optimized for predictable results—and its pitfalls in the 21st century. For the last 150 years, this doctrine has shaped organizations of all kinds, including, initially, the joint task force in Iraq.
The efficiency model took root in the early factories of the 19th century, when Frederick Winslow Taylor introduced “scientific management.” It has influenced how we do things ever since—from running businesses to designing our kitchens—as well as how we think about solving problems.
In early factories prior to Taylor’s management system, workers produced items the way artisans and craftsmen had done in the small shops that preceded factories—they employed their own methods and workflows and took breaks as they desired.
In contrast, Taylor was obsessed with finding the one best way to do everything. Even as a boy walking around town, he tried to determine the optimum stride length, the one that got him the farthest with the least expenditure of energy.
When he was hired as a young man to manage a factory floor at a steelworks, he brought the same mindset: There had to be one optimally efficient way of producing pieces of steel. To find the best way, he applied the concept of reductionism, or breaking processes down into sequences of steps. He broke down steel production into steps, timed every step, then optimized each step as well as the work area involved—for example, determining the optimum height of the work surface, the distance between tools and machines that allowed employees to work the fastest, and so on. He wrote step-by-step instructions for workers, including the time each step should take.
Taylor’s methods, while not popular with factory workers, resulted in enormous time and cost savings for factory owners (small savings at each step added up). Factories produced more faster with less waste and fewer people.
Taylor introduced his assembly-line metal production system at the 1900 Paris Exposition. His small line of a few lathes and workers could cut 50 feet of steel per minute compared to the normal nine feet. He had determined the optimal temperature for cutting steel, the best way for using water to cool the lathe, and the best speed for running the equipment. Taylor’s demonstration created quite a buzz, with one engineer even hailing it as a landmark in human history.
Taylor believed achieving optimum efficiency could be applied to anything—from cutting steel to cooking eggs for breakfast. It wasn’t long before this thinking affected nearly every corner of society, white-collar work included: There was a best way to sit at a desk, assemble papers, and put a sheet into a typewriter. Waste was decried and efficiency became the greatest good.
The new drive for efficiency had two profound effects on organizations:
Today, we still believe in finding and implementing the best way to do things:
Even before Taylor introduced scientific management, armies sought to create order, efficiency, and predictability by turning individuals into identical parts of a military machine through conformity, standardization, and discipline.
Soldiers have always followed defined processes (standard operating procedures or SOPs) for doing everything, down to the exact order for packing a backpack and attaching tools to the outside—each process proven to optimize efficiency and minimize errors. Such standardization attempts to impose predictability and order in a chaotic environment (war).
In the industrialization era, military planners found many ways to apply Taylor’s methods by:
In military operations, those tasked with following the orders of higher-ups got instruction cards like Taylor’s factory workers did. Taylor’s principles also played an important role in the world wars: U.S. factories were known for the efficient production of war materials. They turned out ships, warplanes, and tanks at amazing speeds.
In Iraq, the Joint Special Operations Task Force ran with assembly-line efficiency. For example, gear was organized in the order it was to be used; troops and equipment arrived and departed in a synchronized fashion.
Raids followed a prescribed process. The sequence was F3EA, which meant find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze:
Initially, AQI’s escalating attacks convinced task force leaders they needed to ratchet up their processes. So they searched for ways to conduct more operations faster, and they managed to build an impressively efficient counterterrorism machine. But AQI innovated with tactics like propane bombs, and it outflanked the task force with agility and the technology of global communication.
While the military doctrine of efficiency was effective at confronting past predictable threats, it proved too inflexible against 21st-century complexity and chaos.
Systems and the environments in which they operate can be either complicated or complex. This chapter looks at the differences between the two, and why complicated solutions don’t work for complex problems and environments.
Complicated systems and problems are those that require effort to sort out, but that ultimately are understandable and predictable. For example, engines are complicated, with many parts, but with study, you can see how the parts connect and behave, and you can predict what will happen if you change a part. Similarly, in complicated factory or military operations of the past, you could understand connections and predict the results of specific actions.
In contrast, complex systems are nonlinear with infinite components and interactions that are enabled and speeded up by global technology. A key feature of these systems is that small events can have ripple effects that build to an outcome no one could have imagined. An example is the Tunisian fruit vendor’s act of self-immolation in 2010 that launched a wave of anti-government protests that became the Arab Spring.
Global connectedness generated these far-reaching effects because the man’s cousin videoed his act and posted it on YouTube. Other protests erupted and videos of those events were posted. Soon Arabs everywhere took to the streets and within three months, the Arab Spring had undermined the governments of Egypt, Libya, and Syria. No government responded effectively to the chain reaction because they couldn’t predict and plan for it.
Similarly, in Iraq, the task force found that:
Scientists have been studying complexity for years. In 1961, Edward Lorenz of MIT had a key insight into complexity that became known as the butterfly effect. While manipulating weather data with numerous variables, he realized that a tiny change he made in rounding the data the second time through had a huge cumulative effect on the results. This led him to two theories about interconnectedness:
1) Complex systems have countless parts that interact in countless ways. Therefore, a small event could trigger a chain of interactions that has a cumulative impact over time. Illustrating this, Lorenz theorized that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil could start a chain of billions of interactions in air currents and weather systems leading to a tornado in Texas.
2) Predicting the future in a complex system is nearly impossible because any number of interlinked factors could come into play and affect the outcome. A small action could have no effect or a colossal one—but it’s impossible to foresee which outcome it will be.
Examples of complex systems with interconnected parts making prediction impossible include:
Because the interactions are impossible to predict, outcomes are uncertain as well.
You can’t force complex systems to behave like complicated systems that can be sorted out by focusing on one or two variables. An example of trying to do this is introducing predators to eliminate a pest without taking complexity into consideration—predators interact with numerous species, not just the pest, and often attack and wipe out the “wrong” species.
Similarly, you can’t control economic systems affected by complex human factors. Economist Friedrich Hayek argued against state-run economic planning due to complexity (you can’t accurately predict the result of your actions). This complexity has only grown with globalization.
Yet many organizations still cling to the belief that any problem can be broken down and addressed with a process for a predictable result. While our environment is now complex, we’ve responded by designing ever more complicated solutions entailing hierarchies, rules, and processes. The defense department’s continuously growing collection of rules, codes, and procedures is an example of this.
In Iraq, the task force tried to attack complex problems with complicated solutions. But the battleground had changed by the time the most efficiently developed plan was ready to implement. The task force couldn’t predict where AQI would strike or react quickly to its attacks. Anyone could become a suicide bomber overnight.
Like the task force, many businesses facing challenges keep trying to predict and plan better because that’s considered good management. But in a constantly changing global economy, good management can’t predict demand, prices, interest and exchange rates, and so on, let alone the impact of political movements, unrest, wars, or natural disasters. This leaves companies with little control over their own destinies. Unpredictable volatility is one reason companies have shorter lifespans today—50 years ago, a Fortune 500 company had a lifespan of 75 years versus less than 15 years today.
Planning based on the assumption that the future will be similar to the present—that is, following a preset course in an uncertain environment—is a recipe for failure.
Many organizations are used to operating in a complicated environment, in which they can foresee and adjust for change. But their responses, such as planning efforts, may no longer work because the environments in which many organizations operate today are actually complex (changing quickly in infinite, unpredictable ways).
Describe the environment your business or organization operates in. Is it complicated or complex? Why do you think so?
The first key element of complexity is interdependence. How do key aspects of your organization’s environment interact (when one thing changes, it affects something else)?
The second key element of complexity is speed of change. What is changing the most quickly in your organization’s working environment and how?
How does your organization handle the speed at which things change and their interactions—with greater planning or with adaptability? How effective is this approach?
Since AQI couldn’t match U.S. capabilities (strength and efficiency), they studied task force tactics and adapted—they were agile and resilient and could thus thrive in the complex environment where the task force struggled for the upper hand.
For example, AQI adjusted constantly to U.S. tactics rather than depending on a single best process. After learning that U.S. commandos used night-vision equipment to implement nighttime raids, AQI operatives began leaving their safe houses at dusk and sleeping in the surrounding fields to avoid being caught in an attack. To defeat the enemy in this complex environment, U.S. forces needed to develop resilience and adaptability.
In the book Resilience Thinking, authors Brian Walker and David Salt define resilience as a system’s ability to withstand disruption or shock while remaining intact and continuing to perform.
Another way to describe resilient systems is antifragile—they not only withstand shocks but also may benefit from them, like immune systems that can grow stronger with exposure to infectious agents. In contrast, fragile systems are damaged or destroyed by shocks.
In an increasingly complex and challenging world, being able to withstand shock is so important that it’s drawn the interest of researchers and planners in a variety of disciplines from psychology to engineering. Resilience thinking has also become a trend in management theory and practice as organizations confront complex challenges. Resilient managers accept the inevitability of unpredictable threats. Rather than developing complicated plans to counter specific threats, they work to design systems that can take a hit and adapt.
For example, in recent years, Dutch engineers have made resilience instead of flood-proofing their objective in handling water.
When it comes to environmental issues like flood control, resilience thinking is actually a reversion to the past when humans coexisted with nature more than they tried to control it. Since we instead became optimizers and created specialized systems to increase efficiency for the greatest return, we’ve undermined adaptability and thus resilience.
The ideal system for functioning in a complex environment where there are many types of unforeseen disruptions is one that’s both resilient and robust—that is, one that’s both adaptable and strong.
For example, a coral reef is resilient but not robust. If a reef is large enough, it can survive being partially destroyed by a hurricane by regrowing (resilience). But a reef isn’t robust or strong enough to regrow if it suffers too much damage too fast. In contrast, the Egyptian pyramids are robust, but not resilient. For thousands of years, they’ve withstood the weather, retaining their basic form. However, the pyramids couldn’t remain standing if struck by a bomb.
Making a system robust (like the pyramids) involves strengthening its parts, while making it resilient (like a coral reef) comes from linking the parts so they can reconfigure and adapt. Though you can’t control the behavior of storms at sea, you can build a boat that’s robust, and train a resilient crew to adapt to the conditions.
The U.S. task force in Iraq was strong (robust) and efficient, but not resilient, because it wasn’t adaptable or effective.
Management guru Peter Drucker differentiated between efficiency and effectiveness. He defined efficiency as doing things right and effectiveness as doing the right things. (Shortform note: Read our summary of Drucker’s The Effective Executive.)
The task force was efficient at what it did, but not effective because it wasn’t adapting to do the right things. Instead of strengthening its processes or deploying more resources, the U.S. needed a structure that could reconfigure to respond quickly to unpredictable situations. To put it another way, instead of a factory-like system of known inputs producing predictable outputs, the task force needed a system that could convert unpredictable inputs into unknown but ultimately desirable outputs.
Part 2 examines the strengths of adaptable teams and the challenges of scaling them up in a large organization. This chapter looks at examples of teamwork in life-and-death situations that demonstrate the following qualities of effective, adaptable teams:
For teams to respond effectively in a crisis, members need to be empowered to act quickly on their own based on their training, rather than waiting for instructions from authorities who aren’t present or who can’t formulate a response to every aspect of a complex situation. They also need to act with a shared consciousness or team mindset.
Two examples of critical airline incidents illustrate the importance of empowerment. The key difference between the two incidents was that in the first, crew members felt empowered to act immediately (adapt), while the second crew followed a command-and-control structure in which they waited for the captain’s orders (they failed to adapt).
The story of US Airways Flight 1549 is well-known. It was the plane that Captain Chesley Sullenberger landed safely on New York’s Hudson River in 2009 after hitting a flock of geese, which disabled the engines.
The crew had only moments to respond to the crisis, which occurred at only 2,000 feet (emergency training addresses engine failure at 20,000 feet but not below that). Every member of the crew sprang into action without being told what to do. In less than four minutes, they turned the plane around, prepared for a crash landing, and splashed down on the Hudson. Everyone on board survived as a result of the empowered teamwork—Sullenberger wouldn’t have had time to assign and supervise all the crew members and still land the plane safely.
In contrast, United Flight 173, en route from New York to Portland in 1978, crashed, killing two crew members and seriously injuring 24 people.
The tragedy began when the aircraft developed a minor problem with landing gear while nearing Portland—the gear was down but the crew didn’t know it due to an indicator light not working. When they finally determined the gear was down, they weren’t sure the wheel suspension was working, in which case the wheels could collapse upon landing.
Rather than functioning as an adaptive team, the crew waited to act until they received instructions from the captain, who alone decided what steps to take. The crew then spent 70 minutes following instructions to prepare for an emergency landing—which was five minutes beyond the plane’s fuel capacity. The captain was so focused ensuring that everyone followed their protocols for a rough landing that he didn’t check the fuel gauge. The plane lost its engines before reaching the runway, and it crashed into two empty houses and many trees.
Along with empowerment, shared consciousness, or a team mindset, is another quality that enables teams to perform effectively. A Navy SEAL team’s response to a 2009 incident in which Somali pirates boarded a U.S. container ship off Somalia and seized the captain illustrates how shared consciousness works.
Three pirates held the captain, Richard Phillips, at gunpoint on a small lifeboat. Two Navy ships arrived on scene with three Navy SEAL snipers who’d been air-dropped onto one of the ships. Through night-vision scopes, the SEALs watched and waited for the right moment to shoot. Suddenly, all three fired simultaneously from 75 feet away, each striking one of the three pirates in the head without injuring Captain Phillips.
The SEAL team succeeded because of their skills but also because they became essentially one mind, thinking as a unit. Sharing a collective team consciousness, they each came to the decision to fire at the same time. Additionally, although they were in constant contact with their commander, the snipers acted on their own (they were empowered) in choosing the moment to strike.
For the SEAL snipers and for the US Airways Flight 1546 crew that landed on the Hudson, the team’s structure (empowered members acting in concert) rather than a preordained plan was the successful strategy.
Besides empowerment and shared consciousness, trust and purpose are critical to team functioning. Navy SEAL training is designed to build trust and purpose so SEALs can function effectively (as the snipers did) as a unit.
Prospective SEALs undergo a six-month, three-part program called Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training (BUD/S). While it involves physical conditioning, diving, and fighting on land, its major purpose is teambuilding. In contrast, command structures aren’t about teamwork, only following orders.
In SEAL training, trainees rarely do anything alone (not even walking to meals). At minimum, they complete tasks with a partner. They’re divided into crews of five to eight that work together for the six months. They develop trust and learn to function within a small group, communicating, negotiating, and taking cues from each other.
Teams whose members know and trust each other unequivocally perform better. Like the snipers who rescued the ship’s captain, these teams are capable of organizing a coordinated response on the fly in environments where the complexity exceeds a single leader’s or commander’s ability to predict an outcome or control and monitor the response.
In addition to building trust, SEAL training ensures that each team member is in sync with their unit’s function, the mission objectives, and their individual role. Part of building this commitment involves making the training so onerous that only the most committed believers in the unit’s purpose stick it out—this level of dedication is critical when teammates put their lives on the line for each other and the mission.
In order for team members to work toward the same goal, they first need an understanding of what the goal is. This contrasts with command structures, like Taylor’s factory assembly lines, where workers didn’t need to know the company’s goals, only how to follow directions.
In addition to the overall goal, all members must understand the current playing field. In volatile situations, SEALs are taught to monitor the operation as a whole, much the way soccer players keep track of the whole field. Having a sense of the whole allows SEALs to assess risks and know what actions to take in relation to other team members. They are all responsible for the team’s success and act to ensure it.
Another feature of effective teamwork is “emergent intelligence.” Emergence refers to the way something comes together as a result of many low-level actions without a coordinating force. Order emerges from the bottom up as opposed to being directed top down.
An example of emergence is Adam Smith’s concept of the “invisible hand,” where free markets are shaped by the individual actions of many buyers and sellers rather than a centralized design. Similarly, an ant colony’s structure is the result of the instinctive behavior of millions of individual ants doing various things such as digging and foraging. The colony comes together although no individual ant has the brainpower to organize it. (It’s a myth that the queen manages an ant colony—her sole purpose is to reproduce.)
In teamwork, innovative solutions can emerge through the interactivity of the members without direction from an authority. Whether you have multiple computers (networking) or multiple people acting as a unit (referred to as group cognition), you can solve bigger, more complex problems with emergent intelligence.
Building a team requires both the visible hand of authority integrating the members and the invisible hand of emergence creating organic solutions. SEAL training is designed to foster emergent intelligence to solve problems that can’t be predicted or planned for.
In the wake of the Flight 173 crash in Portland, United Airlines implemented a teamwork program called Crew Resource Management (CRM), which involved training crews to be assertive, training captains to be less authoritarian, and building teams with trust and purpose to prepare crews to act effectively in a crisis.
While some pilots were initially dismissive of the program, it paid off in 1989, when United Flight 232 blew an engine, and debris damaged the movement of wing flaps. There was no protocol for handling the problem because the chance of it happening was considered to be extremely remote. Lacking any steering capability, the crew, which had CRM training, improvised a solution involving manipulating the thrust of the two remaining engines. The plane crash-landed but 185 of 296 on board survived. Subsequently, the FAA mandated CRM training for all airlines.
CRM-type empowerment programs have been developed in other settings—for example, operating rooms, oil rigs, and nuclear power plants—for handling complex challenges.
Effective teams share several qualities: a bottom-up empowerment structure, a shared consciousness or team mindset, a sense of the big picture, and bonds of trust and purpose.
Think of an effective team you’ve participated in or one you’ve observed in your organization. What were its functions, aims, and results?
Which of the qualities outlined above made the team effective and why?
Now think of an ineffective team—what were its functions, aims, and results?
Why do you think this team failed? What essential qualities were missing?
While the task force in Iraq brought together elite forces and strategists from all branches of the military, they operated as separate teams under a joint command, or a “command of teams.” It was less rigid than a total command structure, but had serious weaknesses endemic to many large organizations that similarly try to incorporate teams without changing the overall organizational structure to coordinate and scale up teams’ capabilities.
While incorporating teams, the task force and many organizations operate within a framework that management consultants refer to as MECE, which stands for Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive. This structure divides an organization into functions or units that don’t overlap but collectively cover everything. The idea is that a leader assigns tasks and if each unit or department does its job well without worrying about any other unit or about understanding the whole (that is, stays in its box), the organization will function effectively.
The task force’s teams and departments initially functioned this way in Iraq, but the result was often ineffectiveness. For example:
The task force had regular training exercises bringing together SEALs, Army Rangers, and Army Special Forces in joint operations—for example, they practiced a terrorist scenario that simulated the capture and rescue of a group of American diplomats at an airport in East Asia. SEALs and Rangers attacked assigned targets and killed “terrorists,” and special forces rescued the “hostages.” Overall, the exercise worked flawlessly, but each team operated vertically, staying in its silo and connecting with its own command, but not connecting with other teams. Each was concerned only with its specific objective.
While this type of carefully planned, intricate operation worked for addressing a focused and predictably unfolding crisis, the situation in Iraq was different. Teams in Iraq needed to be able to communicate and work together in fluid, unpredictable operations against AQI.
The MECE structure also impeded operations at the headquarters level. On an inspection tour of the task force intelligence facility at the Baghdad airport, McChrystal found bags of unopened intelligence material (documents, computers, and cell phones) seized during commando raids, which had never been analyzed. By the time the backlog of intelligence was likely to be analyzed, it would be useless.
Because the teams collecting the material had no contact with the people analyzing it, the analysts didn’t know how to prioritize or organize it. While the teams could each come up with better individual procedures for handling the intelligence material, what they really needed was to communicate with each other so that the most important information could be quickly examined.
McChrystal found such chokepoints or disconnects between all teams. Instead of living and functioning parallel to each other, the teams needed horizontal connections rather than more top-down planning before the task force could function effectively as a whole. Chokepoints also existed among the task force and the large organizations it needed to work with, including the CIA, FBI, and NSA.
Imagine playing a sport like soccer within an MECE structure, where players ignored each other and the ball, while watching and waiting for orders from the coach. The coach couldn’t communicate plans to all the players as the game continually changed; the players needed to be able to work together and improvise.
While a MECE structure limits teams’ and the overall organization’s ability to be fully adaptive and effective, the solution isn’t simple: Scaling up the strengths of teams, done in the wrong way, could lead to chaos.
As noted in Chapter 5 on Navy SEAL teamwork, small teams’ effectiveness stems from their size—they’re small enough that members know and trust each other from working hundreds of hours side by side in challenging situations.
When you enlarge teams, you run into the economic principle of diminishing marginal returns, which states that with goods and services, each unit you add brings less value than the previous one. For example, if you start eating a succession of sandwiches when you’re hungry, you’ll greatly enjoy your first sandwich, but each one you eat after that will bring less satisfaction than the one before.
In terms of manpower, the phenomenon of diminishing returns is sometimes described as having too many cooks in the kitchen. Beyond a certain number, teams lose their essential cohesiveness. The threshold number of additional members adding value before setting off diminishing returns varies. For an intimate conversation it would be a small number of people, while for producing something on a manufacturing assembly line it could be large. In many sports, teams have 15 or fewer players playing at a time. In the military, SEAL teams have 16-20 and Army Ranger platoons have 42.
Further, teams with strong internal bonds tend to compete with other teams in a unit or even beyond it (for example, with other branches of the service). The view is that everyone outside the team “sucks,” as a SEAL described it. With the task force, a team’s goal of performing its mission better than another team might not align with the task force’s definition of victory (winning the war). So managing teams gets more complex as teams and organizations grow.
To transition from being a MECE-structured “command of teams,” the task force needed to create communication and trusting, team-like bonds between teams—that is, to create a “team of teams.”
The opposite of a structure based on MECE or silos is one based on systems thinking. Introduced at NASA in the 1960s, systems thinking enabled a disjointed organization to work together to create completely new technology to send a man to the moon.
Systems thinking argues that to understand one of a system’s parts, you need to have at least a basic understanding of the system as a whole and how the parts interrelate—in other words, a sense of the big picture. For example, doctors need a systems understanding of the body—they can’t treat one body part without an understanding of how it interacts with or is affected by the whole body. A systems engineering or systems management approach applies this thinking to running organizations.
In the early 1960s, NASA lagged the Soviet Union in the space race—the Soviets produced the first earth orbiter, launched the first animal into space, conducted the first lunar flyby, and were gearing up to send the first human into space. Meanwhile, NASA’s first unmanned test flight failed. President John F. Kennedy changed the trajectory of NASA in 1962 by pledging that the U.S. would be the first to create rockets capable of sending humans to the moon within 10 years.
Like the Iraq task force in 2004, NASA confronted a complex, unknown environment (space and the moon’s surface) and needed to scale up the abilities of its effective small research teams to the level of a huge organization encompassing 300,000 people, 20,000 contractors, and 200 universities.
A new associate administrator, George Mueller, realized that NASA’S silo-based structure wouldn’t get the job done. Lack of communication between independently functioning teams was partly to blame for past rocket failures. Meeting the extremely ambitious goal of a moon launch would require radical transparency and information sharing.
Mueller envisioned NASA as a single, unified mind working with shared information. He insisted that managers and engineers work together and communicate daily. Data was displayed in a central control room linked to field centers. He ordered the creation of a “teleservices network” that connected project control rooms to enable data sharing and teleconferences (this was pre-internet). He brought contractors in-house and shared information with them.
In two years, Mueller’s application of systems thinking, or connecting the parts to the whole through communication and shared information, transformed NASA from a collection of independent research teams to an effective development organization. Within six years, NASA put men on the moon.
In contrast, NASA’s European counterpart ELDO (European Launcher Development Organization) suffered numerous rocket failures, as research teams in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany didn’t communicate and the components they made didn’t work properly together. ELDO disbanded after three years.
The interconnected network at NASA used information sharing to create a sense of “shared consciousness” among the different teams. It transformed a once rigid “MECE” organizational structure into a “non-MECE” structure where teams overlapped and communicated.
For example, when the designers met to discuss an engine problem, other teams could listen in on their meeting and offer advice from a different perspective. This communication allowed a multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving.
In contrast to NASA’s information sharing, MECE-structured organizations like the military have traditionally shared information only on a “need to know” basis. The idea of limiting people’s information grew from Taylor’s factory assembly lines, which were designed around the belief that workers needed to know only their own step in the production process to do their jobs.
This has the effect of keeping people confined to their silos and focused on how they define winning regardless of the organization’s overall interests—like a ballplayer bragging about his batting average while his team loses.
More recently, controlling information has become the default stance in much of the military, partly due to the flood of information and its sensitivity. Systems, security levels, and protocols focus on keeping people from receiving information that managers have determined they don’t need to know.
However, as technology and processes have become more complicated and environments more complex, no commander or manager can know exactly what information will be relevant to people responding on the ground in ever-changing circumstances. To function effectively in this environment, teams must share an understanding of the whole and how the parts of the system work together.
Part 3 describes how the task force transformed itself into an interconnected network of adaptable teams.
(Shortform note: For more on complicated versus complex systems and systems thinking, read our summary of Thinking in Systems.)
For organizations to function effectively as a network of teams, members need a common knowledge of what’s going on. Yet a majority of organizations share only the information they think people need to know to do their specific jobs.
Describe your organization’s policy or practice for handling information.
Do you feel you know what’s going in the organization as a whole? Why or why not?
How has the handling of information affected your ability to do your job well and advance the organization’s overall goals? (For instance, has it helped or hindered you? How?)
If you’re a manager, how could increasing your transparency improve your team’s and your organization’s effectiveness? (If you’re an employee, how would increased transparency from your manager help you or your team?)
The first step was redesigning the physical space in which the task force worked. When the task force moved its headquarters from the Baghdad Airport to Balad Airbase, a former Iraqi base 64 miles to the north, McCrystal had an opportunity to create a new physical space conducive to the shared consciousness he wanted to create.
The typical layout of military facilities and offices of many organizations reflects hierarchy and specialization or silos. For example, the Army’s installation at Fort Bragg, the task force’s U.S. headquarters, was originally built in the 1980s as a collection of windowless buildings divided into offices. These offices were further subdivided into cubicles separating commanders from lower-ranking officers and limiting communication between people handling different tasks.
Similarly, corporate high rises are divided into offices stacked vertically to reflect the hierarchy of the companies. Executives have top-floor office suites and managers often get “corner” offices separating them from workers. There are few common areas for interaction.
However, tech companies in Silicon Valley have adopted campus settings and open office designs in an effort to promote interaction, creativity, and innovation. When Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York City in 2002, he converted one of the largest rooms in City Hall to an open office or “bullpen” to get people working together and sharing ideas. He also shunned the mayoral suite and worked in the bullpen himself.
Similarly, to facilitate information sharing at its new location, the task force in Iraq created a central open space referred to as the JOC or Joint Operations Center. A wall of screens displayed live video updates of ongoing operations. Key leaders worked at a U-shaped table, with other tables extending outward for different functions: air and artillery support, intelligence, medical evacuation, and so on. Off to one side was a Situational Awareness Room (SAR) where McChrystal and senior staff tracked global terrorism while the JOC focused on Iraq.
Along with facilitating a shared consciousness through transparency and information sharing, the open layout aimed to encourage emergent intelligence, in which ideas and solutions would bubble up organically. The task force further facilitated this by designating the entire facility as a “top secret” security space, so anyone could discuss anything openly.
The new headquarters environment by itself wasn’t enough to change how the task force functioned. To change organizational culture, the task force adopted “extreme transparency,” or wide information sharing that provided every team with an unvarnished, real-time view of the organization.
While staff members used to functioning in silos initially found information sharing uncomfortable, it was essential to succeeding as a team of teams. Rather than trying to predict who would need information, McChrystal and his staff cc’d a wide range of people on emails and took most calls on speaker phone to “normalize” the sharing of information.
Central to creating transparency was the daily Operations and Intelligence briefing, or O&I. Having a regular leadership meeting to update everyone on operations is standard military practice—however, the task force used technology to greatly expand participation. Anyone who was invited, from embassies to FBI field offices to staff at Fort Bragg, could connect to the meeting via laptop from anywhere. Conducted by video conference six days a week at the same time each day, the meeting was an unfiltered discussion of the task force’s successes and failures.
Extra seats had been provided in the Situational Awareness Room (SAR) for partner agencies that the task force hoped would participate in O&I—they needed the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other outside agencies who provided intelligence to hear first hand what the task force needed based on recent events. At first, only the CIA participated.
But the task force leaders tried to lead by example, quickly sharing data as raids were completed. McChrystal believed that the value of information grew as it was shared and more people could make use of it, especially in contrast to leaving it sitting in unopened bags. As the intelligence agencies got faster and more useful information from the task force, they stepped up their participation, further developing and using the information—for instance, in questioning detainees. Special forces operating in the field communicated with analysts.
O&I attendance grew to 7,000 as the value of the information and interaction increased.
Everyone could see problems being solved and conflicting information being reconciled. Many people developed their own problem-solving skills as a result. Despite involving thousands of people for two hours daily, the O&I saved untold time by eliminating the need for people to get clarification or permission to act. While there was a risk of information falling into the wrong hands, the task force never had any leaks, and sharing information saved lives.
Despite expanded information sharing, individual agencies and close-knit teams within the task force weren’t naturally inclined to cooperate with each other—they thought in terms of competition instead (as noted in Chapter 7). They needed to understand how cooperation rather than competition served both their interests and those of the task force as a whole.
A scenario of game theory called the Prisoner’s Dilemma illustrates how you can serve yourself in the process of acting in the group’s interest:
The exercise shows that individuals can benefit more from cooperation than competition. If task force agencies cooperated with each other, they and especially the task force as a whole would both benefit. Further, in a complex environment, collaboration was essential for survival.
However, individual agencies or teams were often too suspicious of other agencies’ motives to cooperate. An agency might fear that if it shared intelligence with another agency, that agency might not reciprocate, thereby giving the other agency a competitive advantage.
The task force’s transparency policy, especially as practiced in the O&I, created an awareness of the need for and value of cooperating. But being the first to share or cooperate with another team was still a leap of faith. The key to encouraging cooperation was to build strong teamlike trust between teams so they started thinking of themselves as part of a network.
To scale up trust between teams accustomed to operating in silos, the task force established an embedding program, which assigned a team member to a different team for six months. The idea was to:
Special operations teams at first resisted the program—however, as a point of pride, each sent their best team member to represent them. The experience built understanding and trust as the embedded team members saw the other teams’ strengths and shared their new-found knowledge with their “home” team.
In a similar program to build ties with the external agencies (the CIA, NSA, and so on), the task force greatly expanded an existing program of sending liaison officers to these partner agencies. As the special ops teams had sent their best operatives to be embeds, the task force chose only top quality leaders as liaisons.
In addition to building trust through the liaison program, the connections and knowledge sharing enabled the task force to develop a more well-rounded understanding of AQI from partner agencies—for instance, about how the terrorist group’s global finance system worked.
Also, partner agencies began sending more people to the task force meetings—and the seats at the Situational Awareness Room table filled up. Agencies and teams found that the more they cooperated, the more they benefited.
The task force sent a Navy SEAL officer to a U.S. embassy in the Middle East to coordinate efforts against Al Qaeda—however, the embassy staff at first didn’t welcome him or share intelligence with him. Having little work to do, he volunteered to collect the trash from each office—and used the job to meet people and build relationships. For instance, from taking out the trash, he learned that one embassy employee liked a certain fast-food sandwich, so he requested the task force send these sandwiches with its next delivery.
The SEAL officer slowly won respect and eventually the ambassador approached him to request help with protecting the embassy and its forces against Al Qaeda, which was ramping up in that country. The officer provided expert advice and task force intelligence, as well as pulling in task force resources.
McChrystal knew that the task force was overcoming the Prisoner’s Dilemma when special operations teams began competing less for limited ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets such as drones or aircraft for their missions. Since these resources were scarce, some missions had to be postponed when air support was diverted elsewhere.
Through information sharing, especially in the O&I, team members could see the overall operation beyond their team missions and support the use of resources where the fighting was most intense and air support was most needed. Further, because of the relationships built between teams, they trusted the decisions being made and also trusted that when they had a priority mission, it would get air support.
Researchers studying cooperation and the Prisoner’s Dilemma have identified two ways of making a decision to cooperate:
In the task force, decisions to cooperate were reflective at first, but after positive experiences with the benefits of cooperation, decisions became automatic—cooperation became the norm. However, another feature of the command structure—the leadership—was getting in the way of team cooperation. Part 4 examines how the role of leaders must change in an adaptable organization.
While the restructured task force in Iraq had the shared consciousness and team connectivity to determine the right thing to do, they often couldn’t act on their own—decisions had to travel up and down a lengthy chain of command, which took time and delayed action. This chapter looks at how the task force improved its response time by pushing decision-making authority down.
Paradoxically, the instant communication enabled by technology slowed decision-making, as more people had the ability to weigh in; senior leaders wanted to approve things that, in the past, they wouldn’t have been directly involved in due to lack of real-time communication. Approval processes for strikes on terrorist leaders extended to the Pentagon or even the White House.
Yet delayed decisions could allow a target to escape or could mean life or death in the complex, ever-changing circumstances on the ground. The situation was akin to a soccer player having to get the coach’s permission to pass the ball.
An upward communication flow has long been traditional in organizations including the military. Information typically flows from the field up the chain of command, where decisions are made and orders are sent back down.
Human nature also plays a role in reinforcing the command-and-control model in the minds of leaders: When leaders can see or monitor what’s going on, they want to control it. Today’s technology allows closer, more constant monitoring than ever. But the concentration of power and control at the top goes back to the mid-1800s, when a Taylor contemporary, Henri Fayol, developed a theory of business administration. He argued that the job of workers was to provide information to superiors, then await orders from them.
The military operated the same way, on land at least. During the Civil War in 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant controlled where Major Gen. George Meade moved troops by communicating detailed instructions via letters and postal service.
However, naval operations were another matter—leaders lacked visibility and a communication line to naval commanders. So, a few years earlier, in 1852, President Millard Fillmore empowered Commodore Matthew Perry to do whatever was necessary to “open” feudal Japan as a trade gateway to Asia (foreigners couldn’t enter the country and the Japanese couldn’t leave).
Perry landed, then threatened Japanese officials with attack. He gave them a white flag with the explanation that if they fought, they’d lose, so they might as well keep the surrender option handy. They gave in and, after having threatened war, Perry took it upon himself to negotiate a trade agreement. However, since Perry’s time, communications advances have reduced the authority and autonomy of Navy commanders.
In 2004 Iraq, McChrystal set out to reverse the command-and-control model in military operations. He realized that running decisions up and down the chain of command took too much time and created too much risk. Enemy operatives were empowered to make decisions and act quickly, while task force staff had to follow protocols. So McChrystal began pushing decision-making authority down, in a policy of empowered execution. Often, he didn’t explicitly delegate—instead, he created a general rule: If it advances the task force effort, do it (assuming it’s moral and legal).
His more self-assured officers made decisions and reported them at the O&I briefing, where McChrystal’s public approval encouraged more people to act. The task force decentralized until it became uncomfortable, which McChrystal defined as the “sweet spot.”
Of course, there was a learning curve: Subordinate officers had to become comfortable with not only making decisions, but also pushing authority down further. Partner agencies were initially confused and wanted verification that subordinate officers were acting with McChrystal’s approval.
Soon though, empowered execution began paying off:
The key was preparation: Empowerment wouldn’t have worked without first creating shared consciousness. This provided context for making decisions: In a reverse of the traditional model, leaders provided information so that subordinates with a systems understanding could make decisions.
In addition to the policy of pushing authority down throughout the organization, McChrystal adopted an “eyes on, hands off” policy for himself, meaning that if subordinates fully informed him about what they were doing, he’d simply observe without getting involved. Conversely, if they didn’t provide sufficient “visibility” (part of shared consciousness), he would jump in aggressively.
This was the reverse of the command-and-control model where leaders sought to control what they could see. In contrast, McChrystal found he was more effective when he supervised processes to ensure the task force avoided silos and bureaucracy that would hinder agility. He used technological capabilities to do his job of coordination better, rather than intervening in others’ jobs or in raids.
By 2006, the task force had transformed the way it operated. Under the empowered execution model, they were doing 300 raids a month and hitting more of their targets, compared to 18 raids a month under the previous command structure. Further, they were keeping pace with AQI because they were making faster, better quality decisions.
When he took command of the task force, McChrystal had a traditional military leader’s mindset, in which he expected to know all the answers and, like a chess master, make all the right moves with his units against Al Qaeda. The task force’s extraordinary technological capability, which gave it eyes everywhere, encouraged this view of being in control of the “game.” However, AQI played a different game, moving multiple “pieces” at speeds the task force initially couldn’t match.
As he realized the way to defeat AQI was to create an agile, adaptable organization, McChrystal changed his idea of leadership from chess master to gardener. He came to view his role as creating an ecosystem—a framework, processes, and culture in which the task force could flourish.
He sought to make fewer decisions and instead focus on creating the conditions for teamwork on an organizational scale: shared consciousness, trust, cooperation, and empowerment. Further, he nurtured this ecosystem by ensuring that silos and competition didn’t hinder its functioning and that transparency gave it oxygen.
Besides creating the right environment, leading as a gardener also required communicating priorities and new cultural expectations, as well as leading by example. McChrystal’s steps and actions included:
The ongoing watering, raking, and fertilizing aspects of gardening are comparable to a commander’s visits (called battlefield circulation) to units. While typical visits are intimidating to the host unit, McChrystal tried to use them instead to nurture rather than control.
He viewed the visits as an opportunity to:
As the world becomes increasingly complex, the only way for organizations to function successfully will be as networks of teams nurtured by gardener-leaders, like the joint operations task force in Iraq. Part 5 shows how this kind of team-of-teams operating structure came together enabling the task force to strike successfully against terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
By the spring of 2006, the playing field had changed: In several years, the task force had 1) learned a great deal more about Zarqawi and his organization, and 2) dramatically increased its effectiveness in gathering intelligence and disrupting the terrorist network.
McChrystal was increasingly confident the task force would soon capture or kill Zarqawi. A sign of the task force’s growing efficacy was its capture and use of some raw video of Zarqawi, which AQI had intended to turn into propaganda. The video showed the terrorist leader shooting weapons and looking tough. But before AQI could edit and post it, the task force posted humiliating outtakes showing Zarqawi handling his weapon amateurishly while another fighter inadvertently grabbed a searing hot gun barrel. In addition, thanks to the task force’s new ability to network its expertise, U.S. analysts in Washington, D.C. were able to determine where the scenes were shot, bringing the task force closer to its target.
Another break came when task force units captured a dozen AQI fighters in a raid on a farmhouse—U.S. intelligence analysts soon identified several of them as not merely fighters but mid-level AQI operatives potentially connected to terrorist leadership.
Interrogators homed in on one particular operative, Allawi (not his real name), and brought the vast, now-networked task force resources to bear on determining what he knew. A hive mind consisting of teams across Iraq, intelligence agencies in the U.S. and United Kingdom, partners across the region, and more than 70 task force liaison officers coordinated questions to ask the detainee and offered insights on his answers.
Finally, in mid-May, Allawi revealed the name of Zarqawi’s spiritual adviser, Sheikh Abd al-Rahman, with whom the terrorist leader had regular in-person contact. While this information was a critical breakthrough, finding Rahman wasn’t easy. He lived in chaotic Baghdad, where AQI-driven violence made surveillance difficult. Further, “black swans” (unexpected events) could arise at any time and derail task force monitoring.
When they located and identified Rahman, the task force faced another challenge that, in the past, would have hindered its efforts: Maintaining constant surveillance diverted resources from other task force operations, which could have prompted “tribal” competitiveness among units also operating against AQI targets. However, thanks to shared consciousness, trust, and transparency, everyone understood and united around the common purpose of taking down Zarqawi.
After 17 days of 24/7 surveillance, the task force observed Rahman relocating his family to another residence, which (Allawi had told them) meant he was planning to leave the city to meet with Zarqawi.
With air surveillance, task force members in eight time zones watched Rahman leave Baghdad; they saw him being dropped off outside Baghdad and picked up by a blue truck. Arriving in the nearby province capital, he entered a small restaurant through one door and left through another door to get into a white pickup. The task force monitored both vehicles to ensure one wasn’t a decoy, and they also continued to watch the restaurant.
They could watch multiple locations, thanks to the task force teams’ willingness to share resources. Meanwhile, the task force plotted strikes on these and other locations, after hopefully picking up Zarqawi, before other terrorists could flee.
The white pickup with Rahman inside drove to a small house and entered a driveway connected to the main road. A grove of palm trees behind the house presented a possible escape route for the terrorists.
A man in black robes came out and escorted Rahman inside. The man then came back outside and walked to the end of the driveway, where he checked for traffic on the road, then returned into the house. Analysts observing the scene confirmed the man was Zarqawi.
At the task force headquarters at the former Baghdad airport, McChrystal spoke with his commander of Baghdad operations, who was monitoring events with him. The commander (not named in the book) dispatched a commando force to the house from Baghdad. As a backup plan, he also ordered F-16s to prepare to bomb the location.
He didn’t ask McChrystal for permission and McChrystal didn’t intervene because he trusted and had empowered the commander to act, under the task force’s new method of operating.
As is typical, there were a few glitches. The commando force was delayed by helicopter maintenance issues. Time was of the essence—the task force needed to move before darkness descended, potentially allowing Zarqawi to escape into the trees where it would take hundreds of troops to find him.
The commander quickly switched to Plan B—the F-16s—but one was offline for refueling. Finally, a second F-16 reached the house and blew it up. When the commando force arrived a half-hour later, they found medical personnel with a still-alive Zarqawi on a stretcher. An American medic, understanding Zarqawi’s value to interrogators, tried to save his life, but the terrorist leader soon died on the scene.
Task force operators brought his body back to the Baghdad headquarters, photographed it, and took fingerprints, which were sent to the FBI in the U.S. to confirm Zarqawi’s identity. Meanwhile, the task force continued to collect intelligence on the follow-up targets identified during the chase. They also had a global farewell party for then-Rear-Admiral Bill McRaven at Ft. Bragg, who was leaving his role with the task force. During the video-conferenced party, a staff officer walked in and whispered to McChrystal that the body had been confirmed as Zarqawi.
Task force units across Iraq immediately struck multiple targets including 14 in Baghdad, in an effort to hit each one before word of Zarqawi’s death spread to AQI operatives and caused them to flee. These strikes yielded intelligence revealing further connections among terrorist groups and leading to new raids.
By the time of the successful strike against Zarqawi, the task force had begun taking for granted the network of relationships, trust, and shared consciousness that enabled the huge success. These elements had become part of their everyday operations.
It had taken time, but by 2007, the task force was winning the fight against AQI because they were learning and adapting more quickly than the enemy. They were striking unpredictably, day and night, more quickly than AQI could regroup—enabled by the networking and trust between analysts and field operators. They continued to disrupt the terrorist network by decimating its middle ranks so that it couldn’t easily replace eliminated leaders. Detainees who had been smug and cocky with U.S. interrogators a few years earlier were now awed by U.S. intelligence, asking interrogators, “How did you know that?”
It was all the result of a management transformation. Now, instead of being an industrial-era well-oiled machine, the task force was an interconnected network constantly learning and adapting to defeat the enemy.
Less than 10 years after McChrystal’s success in transforming the Joint Special Operations Task Force and killing Zarqawi, a new terrorist organization, ISIS, and a new terrorist leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, arose.
This development underscored two key truths about change:
When facing challenges, there’s a temptation in organizations to revert to the planning and efficiency-oriented processes they’re comfortable with and that have worked in the past. But results are what count—and getting results in a new environment requires transforming how organizations do things for the long term.