The Role of Individual Mindset in Adaptive Teams

When you become part of an educational model built on entrepreneurship and teamwork, one of the first things you’re told is that you’ll be working in an environment where “there’s no hierarchy” or “everyone is equal.” While this sense of freedom sounds wonderful, it can easily give way to chaos and indecision when it comes to real projects and deadlines. While working on various projects at Arole Media and taking my own steps toward entrepreneurship, the question that always nagged at me was this: Without a traditional “boss” or a chain of command, how can a group of people move swiftly toward the same goal without falling apart? While searching for the answer to this question, the books Team of Teams by Stanley McChrystal and colleagues, and Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish, gave me a completely different perspective on team dynamics and my own decision-making processes.

Building a Collective Mindset

To understand why things don’t go as planned in the real world, we must first accept the nature of the environment we find ourselves in. McChrystal et al. (2015) emphasize that the traditional management approaches views the world as “complicated” (like a clockwork mechanism) whereas the modern world is a constantly changing, interconnected, and unpredictable “complex” ecosystem. In a clockwork mechanism, fixing a single gear solves the problem; however, in a complex environment, a flawless plan made in the morning can lose all its validity by the afternoon due to a single piece of feedback from a client or an unexpected crisis on the ground.

In my early days at Proakatemia, I believed that for a project to succeed, we had to define roles very clearly, with everyone focusing solely on their own area of expertise (for example, one person on storytelling, another on sales, or design). However, McChrystal et al. (2015) clearly demonstrate that these types of specialization bubbles (silos) cut off the flow of information and make teams less agile. The solution the authors propose is the concept of “Shared Consciousness.” In other words, everyone on the team needs to transparently understand not only their own tasks but also the big picture of the project, the client’s core concerns, and what their teammates are currently working on. When information isn’t monopolized by just a few people and everyone has a firm grasp of the context, a person working in the field can take the right initiative immediately when a problem arises. We won’t waste time by saying “Let’s have a meeting and make a decision.” McChrystal et al. (2015) call this “Empowered Execution.” I’ve experienced this firsthand in the production and marketing processes I’ve managed; whether shooting on location or designing a campaign, if the entire team has clearly internalized the project’s ultimate goal, we can resolve immediate crises on the spot without having to ask anyone for permission.

The Hidden Risk of Delegation and Clarity of Individual Thought

This raises a very critical dilemma: When we grant everyone on the team the authority to make decisions and exercise initiative on the spot, how can we be sure that those individuals will make the “right” decision under pressure? Shane Parrish’s book Clear Thinking fills this gap left by Team of Teams by drawing on individual psychology and the workings of the mind.

Parrish (2023) argues that when people are under stress, time pressure, or uncertainty, they stop thinking rationally and succumb to their biological instincts, their “default reactions.” In a flat organization or a student cooperative where everyone has a say, egos, emotional sensitivity, and concerns about social conformity inevitably come into play. For example, when your idea is criticized during a project meeting, the impulse that Parrish (2023) calls the “ego default” kicks in, and you find yourself trying to prove yourself right instead of refining your idea. Or you might exhibit a tendency (the “social default”) to remain silent about something that’s going wrong to avoid disrupting the team’s harmony.

When I placed these two books side by side, the most important point that became clear in my mind was precisely this: the transparent and self-governing agile team structure described by McChrystal et al. (2015) can only be made possible by individuals who are “clear-thinking”, those who can manage their egos and immediate impulses, as described by Parrish (2023). If team members panic in the face of uncertainty or take criticism personally, the autonomy you grant them will only lead to growing chaos rather than accelerating the team’s progress. True leadership lies in being able to create a conscious pause between an external trigger (a customer crisis or an internal team conflict) and our response to it (Parrish, 2023).

Implications for Team Practice

For the remainder of this term and throughout my future entrepreneurial journey, I do not want to leave these readings as mere theoretical concepts. The most fundamental habit I will carry into my own work practice is to move beyond being an “expert who hoards information or focuses solely on their own work” in the projects I’m involved in, and instead become a connector who makes communication completely transparent. I will make a point of providing my teammates context so they can take initiative in their own areas. On a personal level, when things get hectic or stress levels rise, I’m trying to make it a reflex to ask myself this question before switching to autopilot and reacting: “Am I speaking right now to solve the problem, or just to defend my own ego?” What drives a team forward is the trust that clear thinking people have in one another when they’re united around a shared vision.