The Principles and Practices Behind Team of Teams (Part 1) with David Silverman & Jessica Reif

In this episode of The Idealcast, Gene Kim sits down with Team of Team’s coauthor and CEO of Crosslead, David Silverman, and Director of Research and Development at CrossLead, Jessica Reif, for a two-part interview. 

In Team of Teams, David and his coauthors explained how the Joint Special Forces Task Force in Iraq was struggling to achieve its mission, and how they turned it into a success. Their experience led to a deep and critical rethinking of almost everything in US military services and in the commercial industry. Now at CrossLead, David works with Jessica Reif to continue researching and codifying these practices into their management framework.

In Part 1 of the interview, Gene and his guests discuss the structure and dynamics of the transformation described in Team of Teams and how these leadership characteristics are needed today in the new ways of working. This leadership framework reinforces the concepts of common purpose, shared consciousness, empowerment, and trust within organizations to help teams work together more effectively in complex environments, particularly when they have to continuously adapt to change. Stay tuned for Part 2.

 

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/

Jess Reif                                                                                       

Jessica Reif is the Director of Research & development for CrossLead Inc, where she leverages the latest management research to develop new approaches to increasing business agility for CrossLead’s clients. She leads CrossLead’s education efforts and has developed training programs that have been delivered to over 20,000 leaders. Previously, Jessica served as a Product Delivery Manager for applied machine learning and engineering teams at Oracle Data Cloud, where her role was to facilitate agile development among a team-of-teams. Jessica holds a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. In her free time, she enjoys golfing, baking, and hiking. 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jess_Reif

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-reif/

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

 

YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• The philosophy and thinking behind the book, Team of Teams
• The organization and management required to support the large group of personnel involved in the mission described in the book
• The dramatic changes in the transformations mentioned in the book and how and why it worked
• The structure and dynamics before and after the transformation
• What leadership characteristics are needed in this new way of working
• Ops Intelligence Update Call
• What was required to increase the temp of operations

 

RESOURCES

• What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team by Charles Duhigg
• Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend
• Wharton’s Carton: CEOs Have Real Vision Problems by Howard R. Gold
• Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman and Chris Fussell
• DevOps culture: Westrum organizational culture
• Psychological safety
• Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz
• How Can Leaders Overcome the Blurry Vision Bias? Identifying an Antidote to the Paradox of Vision Communication by Andrew M. Carton and Brian J. Lucas
• Sooner Safer Happier by Jonathan Smart
• The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations by Gene Kim, Patrick Debois and John Willis

 

TIMESTAMPS

 

[00:08] Intro

[03:26] Meet David Silverman

[05:50] Meet Jessica Rief

[06:59] Writing down his experiences to teach

[12:58] Who are David’s students and what he was teaching

[14:05] Applying these techniques to COVID-19

[17:54] Comparing David’s experience to General Stanley McChrystal’s experience

[23:30] Remembering Defense Information Systems Agency CTO Dawn Meyerriecks’ org chart

[25:30] Getting out of own way

[28:31] Top differences in what David was trying to achieve

[33:46] Compare and contrast the leadership characteristics

[37:24] Jess reflecting on changes required at various levels of leaderships

[39:58] A look at structural changes or lack thereof

[47:50] The chessmaster vs the gardner

[49:18] Changing the middle management

[56:28] DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas - Virtual

[58:04] The frozen middle

[1:00:06] Advice to define the work

[1:06:10] Ops Intelligence Update Call

[1:15:29] Create concrete manifestation of the vision

[1:23:30] The dynamics of having the Ops Intelligence Update Call

[1:26:03] The need for middle management to augment the process

[1:30:55] Gene’s favorite part of Team of Teams

[1:34:43] Creating these relationships in a large scale

[1:39:55] Successful execution drives strategy

[1:41:51] How to reach David and Jessica

[1:43:06] Outro