Team of Teams Quotes

“The investigation after the Challenger disaster had especially harsh words for NASA’s organizational practices, but the subsequent, efficiency-focused program ushered in during the 1990s, called “Faster, Better, Cheaper” (FBC), took NASA further down the path of carelessness, reducing the “inefficient” ties that had defined the Apollo approach.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“NASA’s success illustrated a number of profound organizational insights. Most important, it showed that in a domain characterized by interdependence and unknowns, contextual understanding is key; whatever efficiency is gained through silos is outweighed by the costs of “interface failures.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“Their archrival, Atropia, is nowhere near as fit, fast, or disciplined, and every four years, when the teams meet in the qualifying rounds of the World Cup, Krasnovian hopes run high. Usually around minute five, however, something happens that diverges from any of Coach T’s 712 plans. The Krasnovians continue to execute their immaculate choreography, but they are kicking at the air and passing to nobody. The Atropians, without a plan but with awareness of the entire field, run circles around them. After each loss, Coach T goes back and devises another plan, and by the next match, he has a flawless solution to the expired Atropian plays.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“The problem is that the logic of “need to know” depends on the assumption that somebody—some manager or algorithm or bureaucracy—actually knows who does and does not need to know which material”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“British anthropologist Robin Dunbar theorized that the number of people an individual can actually trust usually falls between 100 and 230 (a more specific variant was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell as the “Rule of 150” in his book Outliers). This limitation leads to a kind of tribal competitiveness: victory as defined by the squad—the primary unit of allegiance—may not align with victory as defined by the Task Force.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“We didn’t need every member of the Task Force to know everyone else; we just needed everyone to know someone on every team, so that when they thought about, or had to work with, the unit that bunked next door or their intelligence counterparts in D.C., they envisioned a friendly face rather than a competitive rival.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“The issue is not that teams never work, but that team dynamics are powerful but delicate, and expansion is a surefire way to break them.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“In today’s world, creativity is a collaborative endeavor. Innovation is a team effort. This”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“Peter Drucker had a catchy statement: “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right thing.” If you have enough foresight to know with certainty what the “right thing” is in advance, then efficiency is an apt proxy for effectiveness”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“Room for the River accepts the reality that floods are inevitable, representing a shift in mentality from making the Netherlands floodproof to making it flood resilient.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“The first was that the constantly changing, entirely unforgiving environment in which we all now operate denies the satisfaction of any permanent fix. The second was that the organization we crafted, the processes we refined, and the relationships we forged and nurtured are no more enduring than the physical conditioning that kept our soldiers fit: an organization must be constantly led or, if necessary, pushed uphill toward what it must be. Stop pushing and it doesn’t continue, or even rest in place; it rolls backward.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“we were failing to create useful bonds between one team and the next.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“The habit of constraining information derives in part from modern security concerns, but also from the inured preference for clearly defined, mechanistic processes—whether factory floors or corporate org charts—in which people need to know only their own piece of the puzzle to do their job.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“THE “NEED TO KNOW” FALLACY”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“how organizations need to reinvent themselves. This involves breaking down silos, working across divisions, and mastering the flexible response that comes from true teamwork and collaboration.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“In today’s world, creativity is a collaborative endeavor. Innovation is a team effort.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“Over time we realized that we were not in search of the perfect solution—none existed.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“The role of the leader becomes creating the broader environment instead of command-and-control micromanaging.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“agility and adaptability are normally limited to small teams. They explored the traits that make small teams adaptable, such as trust, common purpose, shared awareness, and the empowerment of individual members to act.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“Efficiency is necessary but no longer sufficient to be a successful organization. It worked in the twentieth century, but it is now quickly overwhelmed by the speed and exaggerated impact of small players, such as terrorists, start-ups, and viral trends.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“The insights of resilience thinking are applicable to many domains in which people are searching for a way forward in the face of uncertainty. The key lies in shifting our focus from predicting to reconfiguring. By embracing humility—recognizing the inevitability of surprises and unknowns—and concentrating on systems that can survive and indeed benefit from such surprises, we can triumph over volatility. As Zolli puts it, “if we cannot control the volatile tides of change, we can learn to build better boats.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“later used a specific question when talking to junior officers and sergeants in small bases in Afghanistan: “If I told you that you weren’t going home until we win—what would you do differently?” At first they would chuckle, assuming I was joking, but soon realized I wasn’t. At that point most became very thoughtful”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“our limfac lay in the mundane art of management.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“Interconnectedness and the ability to transmit information instantly can endow small groups with unprecedented influence: the garage band, the dorm-room start-up, the viral blogger, and the terrorist cell.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“Though teams have proliferated across organizations from hospitals to airline crews, almost without exception this has happened within the confines of broader reductionist structures, and this has limited their adaptive potential.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“How do you train a leviathan to improvise?”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“There’s likely a place in paradise for people who tried hard, but what really matters is succeeding. If that requires you to change, that’s your mission. PART”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“not to dissuade, but to inspire”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“A robust protection against a known threat isn’t always sufficient”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

“because of the density of linkages, complex systems fluctuate extremely and exhibit unpredictability”
― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World