Stanley McChrystal Knihy

As commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), General Stanley McChrystal discarded a century of management wisdom and pivoted from a pursuit of mechanical efficiency to organic adaptability. In this book, he shows how any organization can make the same transition to act like a team of teams - where small groups combine the freedom to experiment with a relentless drive to share their experience. Drawing on a wealth of evidence from his military career and sources as diverse as hospital emergency rooms and NASA's space program, McChrystal frames the existential challenge facing today's organizations, and presents a compelling, effective solution.

As commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), General Stanley McChrystal faced a dire situation in the War on Terror in 2004, with Al Qaeda outmaneuvering America's elite forces despite their superior resources. He recognized that the conventional military hierarchy was ill-suited for a rapidly changing world. Al Qaeda's decentralized network allowed it to strike swiftly and effectively, necessitating a radical shift in JSOC's approach. Under McChrystal's leadership, JSOC transformed itself into a new model that integrated centralized communication with decentralized authority, enabling them to counter Al Qaeda effectively. This book illustrates how the military's transition can serve as a blueprint for other organizations, from corporations to nonprofits to government entities. In an unpredictable environment, the most successful organizations operate like a "team of teams," fostering small groups that encourage experimentation while maintaining a commitment to sharing insights. Drawing on extensive experiences from his military career and diverse fields like healthcare and space exploration, McChrystal outlines the critical challenges facing contemporary organizations and offers a compelling solution for navigating complexity and fostering adaptability.

Leaders rexamines old notions of leadership - especially the outdated view that history is shaped by great men going it alone. General McChrystal shows us that leadership can take many forms, leaders often have different strengths, and great leaders can come from anywhere SHERYL SANDBERG COO of Facebook and founder of LeanIn.Org

"Retired four-star general Stan McChrystal has lived a life associated with the deadly risks of combat. From his first day at West Point, to his years in Afghanistan, to his efforts helping business leaders navigate a global pandemic, McChrystal has seen how individuals and organizations fail to mitigate risk. Why? Because they focus on the probability of something happening instead of the interface by which it can be managed. In this new book, General McChrystal offers a battle-tested system for detecting and responding to risk. Instead of defining risk as a force to predict, McChrystal and coauthor Anna Butrico show that there are in fact ten dimensions of control we can adjust at any given time. By closely monitoring these controls, we can maintain a healthy Risk Immune System that allows us to effectively anticipate, identify, analyze, and act upon the ever-present possibility that things will not go as planned. Drawing on examples ranging from military history to the business world, and offering practical exercises to improve preparedness, McChrystal illustrates how these ten factors are always in effect, and how by considering them, individuals and organizations can exert mastery over every conceivable sort of risk that they might face. We may not be able to see the future, but with McChrystal's hard-won guidance, we can improve our resistance and build a strong defense against what we know-and what we don't"--Publisher's description

Explores the major episodes and controversies of author's career. In this book, the author paints a vivid portrait of how the military establishment turned itself, in one generation, into the adaptive, resilient force that would soon be tested in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the wider War on Terror.