Today, I’m going to introduce you to a powerful workshop designed to help teams thrive in today’s fast-paced, complex world.
We’ll explore how to create adaptable, connected teams that can execute quickly and independently while staying aligned with larger organisational goals.
Whether you lead a small team or an entire organisation, these principles will transform your team's collaboration and performance.
In the face of constant change and increasing complexity, traditional team structures often fail.
Teams become siloed, slow to adapt, and struggle to share information effectively.
This results in missed opportunities, slow decision-making, and a lack of agility.
Learning how to build interconnected, flexible teams is not only a competitive advantage—it’s a necessity.
Most leaders default to command-and-control management, which works well in predictable environments but falls short in today’s complex world.
They rely on outdated approaches that don’t encourage flexibility or cross-team collaboration.
As a result, many teams fail to reach their full potential because they aren’t empowered or structured to respond quickly to challenges.
The future of teamwork isn’t about managing people—it's about creating systems where teams can self-manage, collaborate, and adapt. Leaders need to think like gardeners, nurturing environments where creativity, trust, and empowered execution flourish.
Key takeaways:
- Foster adaptability: Learn how to make your team more responsive to change and uncertainty.
- Create shared consciousness: Discover strategies to ensure everyone on the team has access to the same vital information.
- Empower decision-making: Understand how to decentralise control and trust your teams to execute effectively.
- Enhance collaboration: Break down silos and encourage cross-team communication and problem-solving.
- Build trust: Learn how to create a culture of trust where teams feel confident and supported in taking initiative.
This simple workshop is designed around the insights from the book Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell.
It draws from McChrystal’s experience leading the Joint Special Operations Task Force during the Iraq War.
This workshop is structured to be engaging, collaborative, and applicable to any team's real-world challenges.
Let’s get into it…
"Building a Team of Teams"
Duration: 3 hours
Participants: 4–24 people (split into sub-teams of 4-6 people)
Objectives
- Encourage adaptability and flexibility within teams.
- Foster shared consciousness and transparent communication.
- Build trust across teams.
- Empower teams to make independent decisions while maintaining alignment with organisational goals.
Agenda
1. Welcome and Introduction (15 minutes)
- Briefly introduce the concept of "Team of Teams" and the workshop objectives.
- Highlight the importance of adaptability, shared consciousness, and empowered execution in today's complex environment.
2. Icebreaker: Trust Bridge (30 minutes)
Objective: Build initial trust between participants and highlight the importance of working together across teams.****
Instructions:
- Split participants into sub-teams.
- Each team must construct a "bridge" using only office supplies (paper, tape, and string).
- The catch: they need to collaborate with another team to align their bridges, as both sections must connect.
- After 10 minutes, all teams come together to evaluate the success of their combined efforts.
Debrief: Discuss how communication and trust across teams influenced the outcome and introduce the idea of working together in a broader network.
3. Exercise: Shared Consciousness in Action (40 minutes)
Objective: Encourage open communication and shared understanding across the team.
Instructions:
- Present a hypothetical crisis (e.g., a new competitor enters the market, a sudden shift in customer needs).
- Each sub-team works on solving a part of the crisis using the limited information given.
- After 10 minutes, reveal the "twist": they must combine their findings with another team to complete the solution.
- Encourage teams to communicate openly, share insights, and integrate information.
Debrief: Reflect on the importance of transparency and sharing information across teams to form a cohesive, aligned response.
Break (10 minutes)
4. Exercise: Empowered Execution Simulation (45 minutes)
Objective: Demonstrate the value of decentralised decision-making and empowered execution.
Instructions:
- Provide each team with a unique challenge that requires rapid decision-making (e.g., deciding on a new product launch strategy).
- Teams have full autonomy to make decisions and execute but must remain aligned with a broader company objective (revealed at the start).
- Leaders rotate among teams to act as facilitators rather than decision-makers.
- Each team presents its solution after 20 minutes.
Debrief: Discuss how decentralisation worked, how it felt to have autonomy, and how teams stayed aligned with the organisational mission.
5. Discussion: Leader as Gardener (30 minutes)
Objective: Reflect on the role of leadership in creating an environment for teams to thrive.
Instructions:
- Have participants split into pairs and share how they see the role of leadership evolving based on today’s exercises.
- Discuss how leaders can “nurture” teams, remove obstacles, and empower rather than control.
- Each pair shares a takeaway from their discussion with the larger group.
Debrief: Summarise key insights on the role of leaders as facilitators and supporters, not just command-and-control figures.
6. Closing Reflection and Next Steps (20 minutes)
Objective: Reflect on the key lessons and decide how to apply these insights moving forward.
Instructions:
- Ask each participant to reflect on one action they will take in their daily work to foster adaptability, trust, and collaboration.
- Encourage participants to share these commitments with the group.
Materials Needed
- Paper, tape, string for icebreaker
- Flip charts or whiteboard
- Scenario handouts for exercises
Outcomes
By the end of this workshop, teams will:
- Better understand how to collaborate across teams.
- Make autonomous decisions while aligned with overall goals.
- Embrace a leadership culture that supports flexibility, trust, and adaptability.
Note: This workshop can be customised by using specific challenges the team faces. The more real you make the exercises, the better the learning experience.
Conclusion
By using this workshop, you’ll never have to micromanage or chase after team members for progress updates.
Instead, it becomes a simple shift from rigid oversight to empowering teams with the clarity and autonomy they need to make decisions and adapt quickly on their own.
Well, that’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed it.
See you next week.