Zitat des Tages von Chris Fussell:
On any high-performing team I've been a part of, putting mission first, and team before self, was always key to collective success.
The Defense Department is prone to all of the 'traditional bureaucratic rules,' which is the same thing you'll find in most traditional government systems.
As I found while leading special operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, if the problem is interconnected, your organization must be, as well.
Bureaucratic advancement means fewer peers, more span of control, generally an increasing information-pump function, and increased distance from the actual implementation of whatever it is the organization does.
The 21st century is dominated by networks because the introduction of the information age, we can suddenly create, free flow these globally distributed, organic, shaped networks of individuals.
Before you can trust your team to make decisions better than you would have, you need to build their capability to connect the dots.
There's a difference between doing things right and doing the right thing.
If the most deeply interconnected individuals can exemplify the behaviors that your official top brass sets out, then the rest of the organization will follow suit.
As you move up a traditional, sort of bureaucratic structure, there's a certain point at which you realize, 'Well, I'm not really on the implementation or execution side - I'm not on the battlefield. I'm an operations person who's overseeing multiple units that are out on the ground doing the job.'
A dynamic team cannot rely solely on orders; they must be able to read each others' every move so they can act as parts of a coordinated whole.
How often are you really realigning yourselves on strategy? And does it need to be faster, based on how quickly your market actually changes? The answer is usually yes.
Most teams are naturally flat; they have fewer members than a large enterprise, which allows for intimacy and trust to form. This makes collaborative problem solving in individual teams more straightforward.
Special operations are small, highly specialized. They do amazing work when they're put into the fight, but it's a limited resource. And so if we become overly dependent on an organization that's designed for a very specific mission and expect them to solve all problems around the world, you're naturally going to overextend it.
When we first met, I was probably six layers down in the military structure, but General McChrystal at that time was a soldier's leader, and he was part of the task force. So everyone developed close relationships.
There is clearly risk associated with empowering your team to make more and faster decisions at a lowerlevel than was previously the norm. As you take your hands off the wheel, you need to be more vigilant and aware than ever about the decisions your team is making.
By providing clear objectives for your team, and setting guardrails for how they get there, you will set them on the path to success.
