One Mission

By: Chris Fussell, Charles Goodyear, General Stanley McChrystal - foreword

Narrated by: Chris Fussell, General Stanley McChrystal

Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the coauthor of New York Times best seller Team of Teams, a practical guide for leaders looking to make their organizations flatter and more interconnected.

When retired four-star general Stanley McChrystal and former Navy SEAL Chris Fussell cowrote Team of Teams, they drew on their experience transforming the US military's Special Forces into a flexible and nimble force that could defeat Al-Qaeda's decentralized network in Iraq. They proved that the agility, adaptability, and cohesion of small teams could be scaled up to large organizations while breaking down the silos that frequently cause problems.

Since Team of Teams became a best seller in 2015, business leaders have repeatedly asked Fussell the same questions: How can I transform my own organization into a team of teams? Is that kind of dramatic change even possible outside of the urgency of a combat zone? If so, what are the practical steps to get there?

One Mission answers those questions and many more. Drawing on his consulting work with the McChrystal Group, Fussell shows how civilian organizations have transformed their way of doing business - becoming flatter, quicker, and much more collaborative across departments and divisions. Along with sharing his own experiences from the battlefield, he explores examples from industry titans like Intuit and Under Armour, which have adopted a similar model in order to unite everyone around single compelling mission. The result is a "shared consciousness" that drives consistently better results with less friction and intergroup rivalry.

This book is for any leader who wishes he or she could get everyone to look beyond their narrow field of vision to understand - and contribute to - the organization's one true mission.

©2017 Chris Fussell, C. W. Goodyear; Foreword copyright 2017 by General Stanley McChrystal (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Just Can't Get Through This Book

What disappointed you about One Mission?

Listening to this book is like sitting through a calculus lecture. It seems to just be suspended above the drain but cannot be flushed. In the end, it offers no real practical advice in accomplishing it's stated goal of building a team of teams.

Has One Mission turned you off from other books in this genre?

No. I recognize this is just an author trying to capitalize on the success of other SEAL officers to make a buck

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Not much.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I guess it could have been longer so I guess a redeeming quality was that it wasn't.

6 of 7 people found this review helpful

Perfect companion to team of teams

Perfect companion to team of teams. Provides material to enact empower execution. Great leadership resource!

very dull and mostly obvious

unless you are at least a middle manager at a large Enterprise this book is somewhat pointless. Most of its points are more or less common sense and obvious, though I'm sure many people will find Value in at least parts of this book.

Outstanding book

This book is a revolution of organizational structure. It is a break from all the many books about leadership, and instead is a blueprint for adapting organizations to meet true outcomes, leadership on a larger scale. Read it!

Specific"How To" & "Why" of strategies and tactics

Relevant & engaging material and presentation; good enough to be finished in a few days. Noted specific areas to come back for notes, special attention & deeper thought.

A must read for Leadership

Tactical applications over a broad spectrum of industries to transform your organization to greater highs.

A Leaders Manual to Effective Communication

As a leader, this book was a great guide in helping me understand the importance open, honesr and effective communication across the organization. it also explains the importance of breaking down natural barriers in an organization to optimize maximum efficiency.

Excellent resource from Chris and team!

Culture is the key differentiator that sets organizations apart. Chris Fussell walks the reader through a comprehensive framework for building out a scalable team of teams model. Excellent read and provides multiple case studies along the way. Well done!

Awesome Follow Up!

The perfect companion to Team of Teams! Chris Russell's journey with General McChrystal is inspiring and eye-opening.

Some good ideas, struggled with narration

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I'm not sure I haven't been able to get through it all yet. I've listened to the first third or perhaps more and ran out of steam due to production quality.

How could the performance have been better?

Nothing against Chris Fussell's voice, but wow, the production quality was sub par. It's obviously spliced together with abrupt intonation changes. I think the audio book would be much better if either Chris had more practice at narrating, or the changed the narrator to be the same as Team of Teams (which had outstanding narration).

Any additional comments?

The production quality was too distracting to get through the book. I feel it was therefore a waste of money. I would have preferred to invest in the paper book, and probably would have gotten more value out of it.