Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

by Stanley McChrystal

loyal to a centrally designed process. Taylor told workers, “I have you for your strength and mechanical ability. We have other men paid for thinking.” In the book that became the bible of his movement, The Principles of Scientific Management, he portrayed laborers as idiots, mocking their syntax and describing them as “mentally sluggish.” In one passage he wrote, [A laborer] shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up the ox than any other type . . . the workman who is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real science of doing this class of work. He is so stupid that the word “percentage” has no meaning to him, and he must consequently be trained by a man more intelligent than himself into the habit of working in accordance with the laws of this science before he can be successful. Taylor’s statement is offensive and inaccurate, but he was right in pointing out that many people do things in inefficient ways, and that small inefficiencies multiplied at industrial scale reduce productivity. The world had become vastly more complicated since the time of apprenticeships and small, family-run enterprises. The level of complication had passed a threshold whereby localized improvisation and intuition could not support the magnitude of industrial endeavors. The scope and intricacy of production processes had expanded to the point that they required planners and coordinators to ensure that all the pieces came tog...