The Story of Crossley and the Navy Seals

In the latest Dispatch from the Scenius, Gene Kim shares David Silverman’s 2020 presentation from DevOps Enterprise Summit London - Virtual. In a continuation of Episode 11, the Team of Teams coauthor and CEO of CrossLead talks about the key concepts from Team of Teams, and provides even more context for so many of the topics covered in last week’s episode. 

David talks about the genesis of the joint special operations command, which was created after the failure of the daring Iran hostage rescue in 1979, and how it found itself in 2003 in Afghanistan and Iraq, tactically winning but strategically losing, unable to find terrorist leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq. He describes the principles that they drew upon, which will be familiar to almost everyone in the DevOps community, the practices that it led to, the amazing outcomes that resulted, as well as the leadership skills needed in this new world. 

BIO:

David Silverman

Entrepreneur, bestselling author, and former Navy SEAL, David Silverman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CrossLead, Inc. Founded in 2016, CrossLead is a technology company whose leadership and management framework is used by leaders and companies around the globe.  

In 2015, David co-authored the New York Times bestselling leadership and management book Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World. As a thought leader on culture change, high-performing teams, and leadership, he is a frequent guest speaker for business leaders and conferences around the globe.

After his 13-year career as a Navy SEAL, David and a group of like-minded friends sought to reinvent the way the world does business in today’s dynamic environment. Based on their collective service in the world’s premier Special Operations Units, they devised a holistic leadership and management framework called CrossLead. Today, CrossLead is a leading framework for scaling agile practices across the enterprise. Implemented in some of the world’s most successful organizations, CrossLead drives faster time-to-market, dramatic increases in productivity, improvement in employee engagement, and more predictable business results. 

Prior to CrossLead, David co-founded the McChrystal Group where he served as CEO for five years. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, David served as a Navy SEAL from 1998-2011. He graduated Basic Underwater Demolition School (BUD/S) Class 221 in 1999 as the Honor Man. David deployed six times around the world, including combat deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Southeast Asia where he received three Bronze Stars and numerous other commendations. 

David serves on the advisory board of the Headstrong Project and is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization. David lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Hollis, and their two children. He maintains an active lifestyle as a waterman and runner.  

Twitter: @dksilverman

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-silverman-648035a/

Website: https://www.crosslead.com/

YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• Key concepts from the book, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World
• The genesis of the joint special operations command
• How the principles, practices, outcomes and leaderships relate to the DevOps community

RESOURCES

• Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman and Chris Fussell
• Cynefin framework

TIMESTAMPS

[00:08] Intro

[01:56] Meet David Silverman

[04:05] The inception of US special operations

[07:35] Best practices associated with management

[10:59] Cynefin framework

[11:53] Complexity environment

[14:32] How to senior business leadership can communicate effectively and persuasively

[15:59] Back to fundamentals

[19:55] DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas - Virtual

[21:33] Think as a living organism

[23:19] Model of radical transparency

[24:02] How to make it work inside your organizations

[31:24] How to define great leadership

[33:53] David’s request for examples

[34:22] Coming up in the next episode

[35:42] Outro