Review: Team of Teams: The Power of Small Groups in a Fragmented World by Stanley McChrystal

Title: Team of Teams: The Power of Small Groups in a Fragmented World 
Author: Stanley McChrystal
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
Publish Date: May 12, 2015
Source: Library

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "As commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), General Stanley McChrystal played a crucial role in the War on Terror. But when he took the helm in 2004, America was losing that war badly: despite vastly inferior resources and technology, Al Qaeda was outmaneuvering America’s most elite warriors.

McChrystal came to realize that today’s faster, more interdependent world had overwhelmed the conventional, top-down hierarchy of the US military. Al Qaeda had seen the future: a decentralized network that could move quickly and strike ruthlessly. To defeat such an enemy, JSOC would have to discard a century of management wisdom, and pivot from a pursuit of mechanical efficiency to organic adaptability. Under McChrystal’s leadership, JSOC remade itself, in the midst of a grueling war, into something entirely new: a network that combined robust centralized communication with decentralized managerial authority. As a result, they beat back Al Qaeda.

In this book, McChrystal shows not only how the military made that transition, but also how similar shifts are possible in all organizations, from large companies to startups to charities to governments. In a turbulent world, the best organizations think and act like a team of teams, embracing small groups that combine the freedom to experiment with a relentless drive to share what they’ve learned."

My Two Cents:

"Team of Teams" ranks as the book that I most recommended in 2015. And in 2016, I am still constantly recommending it. Weaving together his experience in the military with some of the business relations research that is currently being done, McChrystal gave me so much to think about in this book. How do we work together? More importantly, how do we work together effectively? McChrystal ruminates on these subjects and more in this book.

This book really got me excited! There are so many things that can easily be implemented in so many different offices, even by those who are not in management. I know that there are already a few things that I have been able to implement that have changed the way that I work and function within groups at work.

If you work with a group of any sort, this book should be on your bookshelf. I originally got this book from the library but I loved it so much and know that I will want to reference/ read it again in the future that I had to get my own copy!