Shared Consciousness
Pump systemic understanding throughout the organization so everyone sees the whole board, not just their own square
Shared consciousness is the deliberate creation of a comprehensive, organization-wide understanding of the operating environment that mirrors the intuitive awareness found within small teams. It goes beyond mere information sharing to achieve systemic understanding where every member comprehends not just their own role but how their actions affect and are affected by everything else. This requires radical transparency, redesigned physical spaces, and cultural norms that treat information hoarding as organizational malpractice. The standing guidance becomes: share information until you are afraid it is illegal.
- Share information until you are afraid it is illegal
- The value of information increases the more widely it is shared, not the more tightly it is held
- Systemic understanding requires seeing the whole system, not just your part of it
- Physical spaces and processes either hinder or help information sharing; redesign both
- The risk of over-sharing is almost always less than the cost of under-sharing
- Shared consciousness is non-MECE and at low levels inefficient, but vastly more effective than siloed alternatives
- Brains in a footlocker benefit no one
- Information sharing alone is insufficient; members must also understand how the pieces connect
- Redesign Physical Spaces for TransparencyTear down the walls between functions and create shared workspaces where operators, analysts, and partner agencies sit side by side. Physical proximity forces interaction and enables the ambient awareness that underpins shared consciousness. The Task Force built a Situational Awareness Room (SAR) where all functions worked in one open space rather than in separate offices.Pro tipPutting people in the same room is not enough. Design the space so that work is visible to others. Screens should face outward, conversations should be audible, and seating should intermix functions.
- Establish an Information Pumping MechanismCreate a regular, high-fidelity forum that pumps information about the full scope of operations to all members of the organization. This is the heartbeat of shared consciousness. For the Task Force, this was the daily O&I video teleconference that grew to include seven thousand participants across seventy-plus locations worldwide.Pro tipThe forum must never be canceled and attendance must be mandatory for senior leaders. The moment it becomes optional, its perceived importance collapses and participation withers.WarningThis will initially seem wildly inefficient. Seven thousand people in a two-hour daily meeting sounds insane by conventional standards, but the systemic understanding it creates eliminates far more wasted time than it consumes.
- Default to Openness in All CommunicationsAdd people to the cc line of emails whenever even second- or third-order consequences might affect them. Take phone calls on speakerphone. Broadcast unfiltered accounts of successes and failures. The discomfort of over-sharing is a feature, not a bug; it forces the organization to confront reality rather than manage perceptions.WarningThere are real risks. Opening classified briefings to wide audiences creates leak potential. But the benefits of shared understanding almost always vastly outweigh the costs of potential leaks.
- Make the Information Loop Real-Time and BidirectionalInformation must flow not just from the top down but from the edges inward and across silos. When operators complete a raid, evidence should be immediately photographed and distributed to analysts worldwide. When analysts spot a pattern, operators should hear about it the same day. The cycle of action, intelligence, and adaptation must compress from weeks to hours.Pro tipInvest heavily in communications infrastructure. Satellite bandwidth and secure video teleconference capability were more important to the Task Force's transformation than any weapons system.
- Build Interactive Dialogue, Not One-Way BriefingsTransform information forums from rehearsed presentations into interactive discussions. If an analyst has a four-minute slot, the update should take sixty seconds, with the remaining time devoted to open-ended conversation. This generates insights, deepens understanding, and gives all participants the confidence and context to solve their own similar problems without seeking permission.Pro tipAsk 'why' questions rather than 'how many' questions. Open-ended dialogue creates more insight than data requests.
McChrystal's O&I grew from a small video call between a few bases to a daily two-hour forum connecting seven thousand people across seventy locations. An imagery analyst could report on activity at a location at 5 PM, Rangers could raid that house within hours, and the next day another analyst would discuss the chemical composition of explosives found there. The cycle of intelligence and action compressed from weeks to hours.
Before 9/11, the CIA knew about hijacker al-Mihdhar's terrorist connections but a CIA analyst was 'not authorized to answer FBI questions regarding CIA information.' The FBI's Phoenix memo about terrorists in flight schools was not read by the relevant unit until after the attacks. All the puzzle pieces existed but were trapped in separate silos.
The 9/11 Commission Report revealed that the U.S. intelligence community had all the pieces of the puzzle to prevent the attacks but failed to connect them. The CIA knew about one hijacker's terrorist connections but could not share with the FBI. The FBI's own internal divisions prevented agents from pursuing leads across bureaucratic boundaries. McChrystal saw the same pattern in Iraq: brilliant analysts and operators working in silos, each solving their piece of the puzzle in isolation while the enemy operated as an integrated network. The Task Force's transformation began with the radical decision to share nearly everything with nearly everyone.