Fifteen years ago, when we founded McChrystal Group, we did not begin with a business plan or a theory. We began with scars.

The lessons we carried out of the crucible of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) were not academic constructs but instead the result of hard, painful trial and error. At JSOC, failure meant lives lost. That pressure forced us to reexamine everything we thought we knew about leadership and the way organizations function.

Now, nearly 20 years since those experiences, leaders face different battlefields in the form of disruption from generative artificial intelligence, geopolitical instability, economic volatility, and much more. But the pressure is just as real. A supply chain breakdown, a cybersecurity breach, or a failed organizational initiative can be just as existential for an enterprise as a failed operation was for JSOC. The environments are different, but the lessons we carry with us are eerily similar to those that leaders face today in their organizations.

When we turned those experiences at JSOC into Team of Teams ten years ago, we were not offering a framework. We were articulating principles—trust, common purpose, shared consciousness, empowered execution—that had emerged from experience. They were messy, hard-won insights forged in the chaos of war. And yet, they resonated. Executives, educators, healthcare leaders, and technologists saw in them a mirror of their own challenges. There’s a fine line between championing a philosophy and selling a product. At McChrystal Group, we’ve wrestled with that duality—are we advisors helping solve problems, or advocates for a new way of leading? The truth is, we are both.

That tension has kept us honest. When we lean too far toward advocacy, we risk sounding like zealots, insisting that every challenge has a Team of Teams answer. When we lean too far toward consulting, we risk diluting the principles into just another management fad. The real work has been finding balance: applying the philosophy with humility, tailoring it to each organization’s unique context, and resisting the urge to force-fit solutions.

What we’ve learned is that leaders don’t want dogma—they want clarity. They don’t want a prescription—they want a partner who helps them adapt principles to their own realities. That is where Team of Teams has been most powerful: not as a rigid playbook, but as a compass guiding leaders through complexity.

What do you do when you’re losing?
You change.