How a team of teams can create the adaptability and culture to succeed in a VUCA environment

A coachee of mine recently recommended a book, Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal. The author describes various organisations' responses to succeeding in a VUCA environment. The solution was to create organisations that combined a web of responsive, interconnected teams that worked with extreme transparency and decentralised decision-making authority.

McChrystal's recommendations tie in with several of Lequin's experiences running change programmes, which are discussed below.

The problem

• The world is vastly less predictable than it was even 20 years ago.
• This unpredictability is fundamentally incompatible with reductionist managerial models based on planning and prediction.
• Prediction is not the only way to confront threats - developing resilience and learning to reconfigure (to confront the unknown) is a much more effective way to respond to a complex environment.
• Since the pursuit of efficiency can limit flexibility and resilience, organisations must shift the focus from highly efficient execution of known, repeatable processes at scale, to resilient, unending adaptability.

The solution: a 'team of teams'

• Command structures are rooted in reductionist prediction, and are very good at executing planned procedures efficiently.
• Teams are less efficient, but much more adaptable.
• The connectivity of trust and purpose imbues teams with an ability to solve problems.
• Their solutions often emerge as the bottom-up result of interactions, rather than from top-down orders.
• Many of the traits that make small teams effective (trust and purpose) also make it incredibly difficult to scale those qualities across a whole organisation.
• The solution is to think of a 'team of teams' - an organisation within which the relationships between constituent teams resemble those between individuals on a single team.
• By replacing traditional hierarchy with networks, this can organically reconfigure an organisation with agility and resilience.
• Focus should be less on tactics, skills and technology, and more on culture and how you work.

How to break silos and join teams up - introduce 'systems thinking'

• Teams that had traditionally resided in separate silos become fused to one another via trust and purpose.
• Complex problems need systems thinking to find solutions. Because of the interdependence of the operating environment, all parts need members to understand the entire, interconnected system, not just the individual boxes on the org chart.
• Harnessing the capability of the entire, geographically dispersed organisation means complete transparency of information sharing.
• Moving from a traditional organisation to a systems approach requires a culture change that does not come easily. It needs a disciplined effort to create shared consciousness.
• Creating transparency and information sharing requires not only a redesign of the physical activities, but also a rethinking of almost every procedure.
• Daily briefings lie at the core of transformation: pumping information out about the entire scope of operations to all team members, and giving everyone a chance to contribute.
• Use embedding and liaison programmes to create strong lateral ties between business units and partner organisations. Together, purpose and trust complete the establishment of shared consciousness - something vital to success in a complex world.

From command-and-control to letting go - from chess master to gardener

• Traditionally, organisations have implemented as much control over subordinates as technology physically allowed.
• New technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to gather information and direct operations, but because of the speed necessary to remain competitive, centralisation of power now comes at great cost.
• Effective adaptation to emerging threats and opportunities requires the disciplined practice of 'empowered execution'. Individuals and teams closest to the problem, armed with unprecedented levels of insight from across the network, offer the best ability to decide and act decisively.
• Although we know the world has changed, leaders and leadership development still reflect an outdated model - expecting unrealistic levels of knowledge and forcing leaders into ineffective attempts to micro-manage.
• Move from leading like a chess master, controlling each move of the organisation, to a gardener, enabling rather than directing.
• A gardening approach to leadership is anything but passive. The leader acts as an 'eyes-on, hands-off' enabler, who creates and maintains an ecosystem in which the organisation operates.

From hyper-efficiency to transparency and adaptability

• The end goal is a transparent, organic entity - as opposed to a hyper-efficient machine.
• Technology can be both a challenge and a tool for success. But it is culture change that makes the difference.
• Adaptability comes from a yin-yang symmetry of shared consciousness - achieved through strict, centralised forums for communication and extreme transparency - and empowered execution, which involves the decentralisation of managerial authority.

What key principles develop an adaptable, team-of-teams culture - and a successful change programme?

To build this adaptable team of teams, from Lequin's experience and from our research, you need to adhere to seven principles:

1. 1It's a change in behaviour that drives culture (not the other way round).
2. 2Behaviours sustain processes (not the other way round).
3. 3A small number of 'non-negotiable' behaviours must be identified - one of these is a 'systems thinking' mindset.
4. 4These non-negotiables must be role-modelled and demonstrated by change champions and highly influential employees (who often need to be identified) to create social tipping points - and they are best spread through informal networks.
5. 5Change often works best through networks, but it must be championed from the top.
6. 6The leader and management role is to support high influencers and change champions, taking an eyes-on, hands-off approach.
7. 7Story-telling is a great way to spread positive change ideas.

Lequin's change programmes

In the change programmes Lequin have run, we've worked with leaders and managers to identify the non-negotiable behaviours, the highly influential individuals and groups, and the stories that are to be told. We've then worked to train and coach leaders, managers, change champions and the highly influential to support the organisation to drive the change.

A key part of the programmes Lequin run is the use of systems coaching to get leaders, managers and teams thinking about the organisation as an organic system - and about the impact that often unseen, subconscious behaviours and processes send out as both negative and positive ripples throughout a business.

Written by

Peter Willis

Co-founder · Training Lead

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