I recently spoke to Stanley McChrystal, who retired from the U.S. Army as a four-star general after more than thirty-four years of service. In the interview, he talked about the lessons he learned about leadership and managing teams, how an organization scale to meet new business management challenges, how to get team members on the same page, and more.
McChrystal’s last assignment was as the commander of all American and coalition forces in Afghanistan. His book, Team of Teams, is a New York Times bestseller and he is a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and the cofounder of McChrystal Group, a leadership consulting firm. A one-of-a-kind commander with a remarkable record of achievement, General Stan McChrystal is widely praised for creating a revolution in warfare that fused intelligence and operations. He is also known for developing and implementing the counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan and for creating a comprehensive counter-terrorism organization that revolutionized the way military agencies interact and operate.
Dan Schawbel: What lessons did you learn about leadership and managing teams from your time in the U.S. army?
Stanley McChrystal: I was fortunate to both be a member and leader of elite teams in the military. When I became commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, I was leading thousands of individuals, from Special Forces to the broader interagency effort. I quickly realized that while we had the most best and most effective operators and small teams in the world, we were unable to scale. Simply having great small teams did not add up to a successful organization – we were bureaucratic, slow moving, and hierarchical.
Through trial and error, I learned we needed to become a team of teams: scaling the agility of small teams to the organizational level and connecting normally siloed groups. This requires a lot of work on the part of the leader – you have to be the force that pumps information, drives communication, and maintains the culture across your teams.
Schawbel: How do organizations scale their management practices to meet the biggest challenges?
McChrystal: First you have to understand the biggest challenge. Many will be surprised to learn it isn’t strategic – all organizations are struggling from a lack of adaptability in a fast-changing environment.
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