The Principles and Practices Behind Team of Teams (Part 2) with David Silverman & Jessica Reif

This episode of The Idealcast features the second part of Gene Kim’s interview with Team of Teams coauthor and CrossLead CEO David Silverman and CrossLead Head of R&D Jessica Reif. 

In this episode, they take up the topic of how internal marketplaces are structures that can connect mid-level leaders to each other, helping allocate scarce resources to where they're needed most, which enables the further unlocking of capacities.

They discuss challenges around the cost of change and the new skills that mid-level leaders need in order to survive and thrive in an era where being functionally excellent in one’s own silo is not enough.

They further talk about the similarities between special operations and agile, especially comparing and contrasting terms that further concretize concepts the agile and DevOps community have held for years but struggled to name. And finally, they discuss where we go from here.

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

• How internal marketplaces are structures that can connect mid-level leaders to each other and allocate scarce resources to where they are needed most
• Concept and terms found within the agile and special operations communities
• What happens when the cost of change is intolerably high
• New skills that midlevel need to survive and thrive to help organizations win

 

RESOURCES

• Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman and Chris Fussell
• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• Beyond the Goal: Eliyahu Goldratt Speaks on the Theory of Constraints (Your Coach In A Box) by Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• Beyond The Phoenix Project: The Origins and Evolution Of DevOps by Gene Kim and John Willis
• Peter Skillman’s Ted Talk: Marshmallow Design Challenge
• Tom Wujec’s Ted Talk: Build a Tower, Build a Team
• The (Delicate) Art of Bureaucracy by Mark Schwartz
• Sooner Safer Happier by Jonathan Smart
• IT Revolution’s virtual library
• The Great Man Theory
• Transformational Leadership and DevOps - Dr. Steve Mayner
• Learning to be a Transformational Leader - Dr. Steve Mayner
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
• Paradigm shift
• Isaac Newton by James Gleick

 

TIMESTAMPS

 

[00:08] Intro

[01:55] What parallels Jessica Rief sees in the technology domain

[08:56] What Steve Spear’s story means to David Silverman

[14:47] Empowerment is not inherently a good thing

[20:35] The Core, Chronic Conflict and the Marshmallow Challenge

[28:28] Leaders, get comfortable with the unknown and trust somebody

[37:39] Micromanagement in the technology space

[41:11] IT Revolution’s new books and virtual library

[42:39] Advice to micromanagers

[46:34] Auditing your time appropriate to your level of leadership

[48:28] Solving problems closer to the edge

[53:20] The role of mid-level management

[58:47] What skillsets are important to winning

[1:07:22] Leadership theories

[1:08:47] How Team of Teams has affected daily work

[1:18:32] How to contact Jessica and David

[1:19:40] Thomas Kuhn’s Paradigm shift

[1:23:22] Newton’s three laws of motions

[1:25:35] Outro