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McChrystal Group

Red Teaming

Unleash Divergent Thinking, Adapt to Risk, Prepare for the Future
Group brainstorming session at a whiteboard
Coffee break discussion

Organizations are confronting disruptive shifts with increasing frequency: geopolitical instability, extreme natural disasters, supply-chain challenges, emerging technologies, workforce disruptions, and the prospect of an economic downturn. These trends offer considerable new opportunities for organizations that can quickly adapt to them–while harming those who remain complacent and fail to adjust. Navigating these volatile times requires leaders that are willing to practice divergent and critical thinking.​

Leverage red teaming to thrive in an era of disruption. 

About Red Teams

To Red Team is to implement a structured process that is semi-independent from an institution and is designed to better understand that institution’s interests, intentions, and capabilities—or those of competitors or clients. And from that analysis, we help you strengthen your plans and increase your odds of success.

McChrystal Group’s proprietary Red Team solutions equip organizations with the tactical, strategic, and environmental tools, methods, and transformations required to compete and flourish in today’s complex business world… and to give you tools your competitors are not using for their decisions.

Recent Red Team Engagements

We have partnered with organizations of all industries and sizes to implement our Red Team approach to an array of strategic choices. Whether it is a decision, product, plan, policy, or strategy, you can Red Team it.

  • Fortune 50 biopharma deciding how to market and price a new drug and assess probable response of second-mover competitors.
  • U.S.-based technology company deciding whether to proceed with the $950M acquisition of a competitor and its associated patents.
  • State government uncovering the logistical and political risks associated with messaging and rolling-out of COVID vaccines.
  • Global technology company trained to establish its own internal Red Team to pressure-test its products before launch.
  • Fast-growing venture capital firm making the cultural shift to a “scaling to agility” mindset to provide more immediate value for its portfolio companies.

Why Red Teams Are Imperative

of executive leadership teams spend less than one hour per month discussing their unit’s strategy, with 50% spending no time at all.

Nearly 60%

of projects failed to fully meet their objectives.
Source: IBM 2008 Study - Making Change Work

of a company’s employees are unaware of or do not understand its strategy.

feel no ownership in getting the goals completed.

Following the conclusion of a Red Team workshop, we synthesize outputs into an actionable report containing practical recommendations, tools, and tactics.

 

FREE RED TEAM TOOL

Try a McChrystal Group twist on a classic Red Team exercise—the Pre-Mortem Analysis exercise created by Gary Klein.

 

Red Team with Us.

McChrystal facilitates half-day to multi-day focused red team exercises for clients of all industries and sizes. These exercises can also fit within executive offsites, all hands, strategy tabletop exercises, simulations, team development events, and more.