Red Teaming: Transform Your Business by Thinking Like the Enemy

Description

In 2007, Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, declared: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share." The year after, the CEO of Blockbuster told press that "Neither RedBox nor Netflix are even on the radar screen in terms of competition". Well, hindsight is always 20/20. But what if there was a way to make foresight just as sharp? Arguably, neither of these companies would have been blindsided if they had had red teams. The ingenious and counterintuitive practice of red teaming has its origins in the military, and involves creating a group of devil's advocates to think like the enemy, challenge existing assumptions within an organisation and find holes in its strategy. It's a powerful cure for groupthink, tunnel vision and failures of imagination - ailments that have transformed many once-great corporations into the walking dead of the business world. RED TEAMING is the first major book to look at the business applications of red teams. It will provide readers with a guide to the core techniques of red teaming as well as its history and fascinating real-world examples. It will teach businesses how to challenge the conventions of their industry like an innovative disruptor would, and spot threats while there is still time to respond to them - creating a culture in which challenges are not only tolerated, but valued.

BRYCE G. HOFFMAN, author of the critically acclaimed and bestselling book American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company, is a consultant and speaker who helps companies around the world plan better and leaders around the world lead better by applying innovative systems from the business and the military industries. Formerly an award-winning financial journalist who spent twenty-two years covering the global automotive and high-tech and biotech industries for major newspapers in Michigan and California, he launched his international consulting practice in 2014. He writes a regular column on leadership and culture for Forbes.com and appears on television and radio shows in the Unites States and around the world. He and his wife live in Fenton, Michigan.

Red teaming is a vital way for leaders to get the honest answers and alternative perspectives they need to plan better and make their strategies succeed -- Marshall Goldsmith, bestselling author of Triggers, What Got You Here Won't Get You There