Team of Teams

02Efficiency isn't enough anymore, you need to be quick to adapt

In "Team of Teams," the authors make a strong case for adaptability in today's world. They argue that being efficient isn't enough anymore. They use the experiences of a military group, the Task Force, to illustrate this point. Even though the Task Force was highly skilled and experienced, they had a tough time fighting the terrorist group Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The Task Force was a powerhouse. They had over forty years of experience and were made up of the best military and special operations units. But their traditional ways of doing things didn't work against AQI. Even though AQI had fewer resources and less preparation, they were still a formidable opponent. On paper, it looked like the Task Force would easily beat AQI. But in reality, it was a lot more complicated. This led General McChrystal to rethink their strategy. The Task Force learned from their time in Iraq and made some important changes. They moved from a strict top-down structure to a more flexible side-by-side one. This encouraged better teamwork and communication. They also started sharing information more openly, so everyone knew what was going on. Plus, they let individual units make important decisions based on their specific situations. The Task Force's difficulties in Iraq were mostly because warfare has changed. In the past, war was about physically taking over territory. But in Iraq, the Task Force was dealing with a new kind of enemy. AQI wasn't just in one place. They were spread out and constantly moving. This meant the Task Force had to change their strategy. They started using whiteboards to track AQI's movements and focused more on the connections between things, not just the things themselves. The authors compare the Task Force's experiences to old-school warfare principles. These principles focused on precision, mastering predictable situations, and concentrating power and resources where they were most needed. They mention Frederick Winslow Taylor, a 19th-century guy who was all about "scientific management." Taylor's idea was to make everything as precise and predictable as possible to save money and increase productivity. But this approach treated workers like parts of a machine, not unique individuals. Taylor's focus on optimization has had a big impact on how we think about efficiency today. It's seen in the military's usual way of doing things: "find-fix-finish-exploit-analyze." But this method has its limits. It doesn't take into account that targets can change. The Task Force's experiences in Iraq in 2004 showed that a new approach was needed, one that values adaptability over efficiency.

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