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General Stanley McChrystal et al.’s (2015) best-selling book Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World may seem like an unlikely book for review in The Learning Organization journal. The manuscript does not contain detailed theoretical references or complex conceptual designs common to prior book reviews articulately published in the journal. Nor does the author introduce the learning organization by name within the text. However, the real-life combat and business examples spawning the single conceptual model within General McChrystal’s book provide an exceptional practitioner illustration of learning dynamics. Also, when viewing the book through the lens of learning organization practices set forth by others in the field of organizational learning, linkages with The Learning Organization journal become evident.
General McChrystal’s description of how his leadership team restructured the Task Force from ground up based upon the principles of “shared consciousness” (extremely transparency of information sharing) and “empowered execution” (decentralizing decision-making authority) links with notions important to building a learning organization. Throughout the book, General McChrystal eloquently described how his team evaluated the behaviors of their smallest units, where success was evident, and extended those behaviors rooted in trust and joint purpose to a geographically dispersed organization of thousands. I contend that many of the examples within General McChrystal’s book link directly with practices critically important to any organization trying to become a learning organization and compete in an inconstant world.
Although there were many learning organization definitions and descriptions, for the purpose of this book review I used Marsick et al.’s (2000) description of learning organization practices because these five elements are clear, concise and have foundations in culture, which was prevalent in McChrystal’s book. Marsick offered the following:
continuous learning at the system level;
knowledge generation and sharing;
systematic thinking capacity;
greater participation; and
culture and structure of rapid communication and learning as her description of a learning organization.
Each of these five practices appeared throughout General McChrystal’s description of actions taken in redesigning the Task Force, and next, I will describe each of the five with a brief linkage to General McChrystal’s text.
Marsick described continuous learning at the system level as the need for people to learn and keep up with ever-changing environment at a holistic...