Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

In the U.S. government, almost no foreign policy effort can be fully executed within the jurisdiction or line authority you control. Your team alone is usually not enough to deliver the desired outcome. General Stanley McChrystal, who led the Joint Special Operations Task Force assigned responsibility for the Global War on Terror, recognized that he could not win that war without assembling a “team of teams” that cut across not only various combatant commands and analytical and operational elements in the Department of Defense but also across much of the rest of the U.S. government, including the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, Treasury Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and other entities. This book tells how he designed a system across these policy actors to create a common operating picture, to communicate the main lines of effort needed to win, to share information on successes and challenges, and to enable collaborative problem solving. What is most valuable to an aspiring strategist is that the principles he outlines apply to any situation—and there will be many—when you do not control all of the assets needed to deliver a successful outcome.