The notes from my November 2018 reading of Team Of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal
- pg 20 – Adaptability, not efficiency, needs to become our central competency. We’ll do that through shared consciousness and empowered execution. We need to think of how we breakdown hierarchies and decentralize decision making.
- pg 31 – We need a culture of people rewarded for critical thinking, not for simply following orders.
- pg 32 – What are your org’s LIMFAC? (limiting factors)
- pg 55 – Butterfly effect by Edward Lorenz. How do small, unassuming actions completely change a predicted outcome?
- pg 64 – Think about what tools from the Clockwork era we are still using that may be not be useful in the wayward swirl of today.
- pg 68 – Trying to control complex systems using mechanical means is futile, it can even be dangerous.
- pg 72 – Data can tell us what happened, and what might happen, but it can’t tell us what WILL happen.
- pg 76 – Success only comes from resiliency in a complex system.
- pg 78 – The Dutch learned that in a complex system like a river drainage, command and control does not work.
- pg 79 – Resilience is based in a humble willingness to “know that we don’t know” and to “expect the unexpected.”
- pg 80 – Resilience is linking elements that can reconfigure or adapt in response to change or damage. But resilience isn’t infallible, as seen by the destruction of a resilient organism like a coral reef
- pg 98 – As illustrated in the BUD/S training for Navy Seals, teams who know each other deeply perform better.
- pg 98 – Teamwork is a process of re-evaluation, negotiation, and adjustment.
- pg 105 – The key is not the number of elements, it’s the nature of their integration. The wiring of trust and purpose.
- pg 112 – Moving lead surgeon to the foot of the bed allowed for more simultaneous actions. (What actions would put our managers at the side of the bed, and would that allow more work to happen?)
- pg 153 – People only cooperate when they can see the interdependent reality of their environment. (Are there ways to better illustrate interdependencies in our teams?)
- pg 153 – Shared consciousness is generalized awareness with specialized expertise.
- pg 163 – Cultures are more resistant to change that brick and mortar.
- pg 164 – Share information until you’re afraid it’s illegal. Even calls in their bull pen were taken on speaker phone.
- pg 164 – Operations briefs were open to everyone. (Can we change the PLT so that anyone in Eng can join the call if they want?)
- pg 166 – Expediency demands a meritocracy. Good work rose in relevance & respect. (Can we make everyone’s work more transparent to other teams? Maybe an eng show & tell?)
- pg 176 – Temporary team assignments helped general awareness. (Could we put POs or engineers in an Implementation team or Tier 2 support team for a sprint?)
- pg 196 – Build collective intelligence. The best ideas come from continuous social experimentation.
- pg 197 – Extreme participatory transparency, like opening up meetings to all & cross-team trust built in role exchanges.
- pg 199 – Coordinated Operations – Decentralized Control
- pg 213 – We need to empower our teams to take action on their own.
- pg 214 – The decentralized to the point it was uncomfortable. (Especially for managers or those in authority.)
- pg 218 – Decisions should be made with “Eyes on and hands off.”
- pg 222 – Heroic leaders think they can understand & predict complex situations, but technology makes things they don’t know faster than it makes ways to know them.
- pg 222 – A senior leader should be “an empathetic crafter of culture.”
- pg 226 – Be a Gardener Leader. They communicate priorities and cultural expectations through their behavior, and through memos or other comms.
- pg 229 – Read this section for commentary on effective site visits.
- pg 231 – Soothing words that aren’t backed up by action encourage cynicism.