David Silverman Team Of Teams

In Team of Teams General McChrystal and his coauthors show how the challenges he and his colleagues faced in Iraq, Afghanistan, and over a decade of special operations missions around the globe can be relevant to countless businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations here at home. When General McChrystal took command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force (overseeing the most elite counter terrorism forces including Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, and classified units) in 2003, he quickly realized that conventional tactics were failing. Al Qaeda in Iraq was a decentralized network that could move quickly, strike ruthlessly, then seemingly vanish into the local population. The Allied forces had a huge advantage in numbers, equipment, and training—but none of that seemed to matter. Small teams have many advantages—they can respond quickly, communicate freely, and make decisions without layers of bureaucracy. But organizations taking on really big challenges can’t fit in a garage. They need management practices that can scale to thousands of people. To defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, General McChrystal’s Task Force had to acquire the enemy’s speed and flexibility. Was there a way to combine the power of the world’s mightiest military with the agility of the world’s most fearsome terrorist network? If so, could the same principles apply in civilian organizations? General McChrystal and his colleagues discarded a century of conventional wisdom and remade the task force, in the midst of a grueling war, into something new: a network that combined extremely transparent communication with decentralized decision-making authority. The walls between silos were torn down. Leaders looked at the best practices of the smallest units and found ways to extend them to thousands of people on three continents, using technology to establish a oneness that would have been impossible even a decade earlier. The task force became a “team of teams”—faster, flatter, more flexible—and beat back Al Qaeda. In this powerful book, General McChrystal and his colleagues show how the challenges they faced in Iraq can be relevant to countless businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations. The world is changing faster than ever, and the smartest response for those in charge is to give small groups the freedom to experiment, while driving everyone to share what they learn across the entire organization. As the authors argue through compelling examples, the team of teams’ strategy has worked everywhere from hospital emergency rooms to NASA to General Motors to commercial airlines. General McChrystal and his colleagues have founded a consulting firm called CrossLead, which helps corporate leaders navigate these challenges. CrossLead is a holistic leadership and management system which empowers organizations to continuously adapt and win in complex environments. The CrossLead team works with Fortune 500 companies and other organization seeking to manage change and complexity. David Silverman David Silverman is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of CrossLead. Through founding CrossLead with General McChrystal in January 2011, David and a group of like-minded friends sought to reinvent the way the world does business in today’s fast-paced environment. Upon leaving the military, David was motivated to share the lessons learned from confronting a cutting-edge 21st century networked organization—Al Qaeda—with a 20th century hierarchy. After witnessing the US Special Operations community’s successful transformation into an agile network first-hand, David realized their experiences were not isolated to the military, but rather universal to organizations everywhere, from businesses to non-profits to governments. He set out to change the way organizations operate in the 21st century, disrupting the traditional business model and enabling them to adapt and win in a constantly shifting environment. Based on their collective service in the United States Armed Forces, David and his colleagues developed CrossLead, a holistic leadership and management system designed to enable sustained organizational adaptability. CrossLead empowers organizations to continuously adapt and win in complex environments. David’s vision has been responsible for CrossLead’s transformation, starting from the company’s founding in General McChrystal’s living room and growing to its present state as a leading management and leadership consulting firm with over 80 employees. Through his leadership and vision, CrossLead is being implemented successfully inside Fortune 500 companies across sectors. David is the principal architect of CrossLead doctrine, products, and services. He plays an important role in determining CrossLead methodology and strategy for specific client engagements, working with client CEOs to shape and drive the implementation of CrossLead. He is also a frequent guest speaker to business leaders and conferences throughout the country on CrossLead. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, David served in the US Navy as a SEAL Officer for 12 years. He is an experienced and combat-decorated veteran with six operational deployments worldwide, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Southeast Asia.