Is It Really Easier To Be The Bad Guys - Woolley

Offense and Defense in Teams
Is it really easier to be the bad guys?

The effects of strategic orientation on team process in competitive environments
Anita Williams Woolley

Carnegie Mellon University
Tepper School of Business
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Tel. (412) 268-2287
Fax. (412) 268-7357
awoolley@cmu.edu
Author’s Note: I wish to extend sincere appreciation to J. Richard Hackman for his
support and advice during the course of this fieldwork. Many thanks to Beth Ahern, Margaret
MacDonald, Ellen Powers, Allison Ounanian, Brigitta Rubin, Kerry Buckley, Alissa Allen and
the MITRE Corporation for support and research assistance. Helpful comments on earlier
versions of this paper were supplied by Linda Argote, Rosalind Chow, Matt Cronin, Amy
Edmondson, Martine Haas, Don Moore, Michael Boyer O’Leary, and Laurie Weingart. Editorial
assistance was provided by Cathy Senderling. This investigation was also supported in part by
NSF Research Grant REC-0106070, CFDA No. 47.076. with support from Fred Ambrose and
the Intelligence Technology Innovation Center at the Central Intelligence Agency.
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Is it really easier to be the bad guys?
The effects of team strategic orientation on team process in competitive environments
Teams are frequently called upon to address critical situations in competitive
environments. However, current models of team process are insensitive to the effects of team
strategic orientation. This paper expands existing work on team process and strategic orientation
to introduce and explicate the constructs of offensive and defensive strategic orientations in
teams. The study takes advantage of a rare opportunity to observe eight counterterrorism teams
in the intelligence community that explicitly adopted an offensive or defensive strategic
orientation in evaluating current terrorist threats. The resulting inductive model suggests that the
strength of a team’s strategic orientation was enhanced or inhibited by its perception of
oppositional strength and the problem scope it assumed in confronting the adversary. This in turn
had effects on the work strategy the teams adopted, the extent to which they relied on internal
versus external knowledge, and the norms for effort that evolved within the teams. The resulting
conclusions and action plans of teams on offense communicated deeper analysis and more
confidence and creativity, while the products of teams on defense incorporated a broader range
of perspectives but fewer firm conclusions. The observations suggest broader theoretical
implications for research on teams, as the “offense” and “defense” strategic orientations
influence fundamental team processes related to effort, performance strategy and use of member
knowledge and skill.
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When organizations face critical situations, their responses are frequently formulated and
carried out by teams. Teams are commonly used for responding to medical and humanitarian
crises (Klein et al. 2006, Milliken et al., Xiao et al. 1996), conducting military operations (Salas
et al. 1995), crafting organizational strategy (Burgelman and Grove 2007, Cohen and Bailey
1997, Hambrick and Mason 1984, Lyles and Schwenk 1992, Nadkarni and Barr 2008), and
gathering competitive intelligence (Ganesh et al. 2003). Furthermore, team failure in such
situations can be disastrous, as the inability to size up an evolving situation in the environment
can lead to widespread financial loss, job loss, and even loss of life.
Competitive situations are similar to dynamic or high-velocity situations in that they are
constantly changing and fast-moving (Eisenhardt 1989b, Faraj and Xiao 2006, Klein et al. 2006),
but with an important addition – they also involve active adversaries (Porter 1991). The presence
of adversaries makes information about the plans and intentions of others, as well as how they
might counter one’s own activities, highly relevant. Information collection and sustained high
motivation are both critical to a team’s performance in these contexts. However, prior research
findings regarding the effects of competitive contexts on these processes are somewhat
conflicting. Theoretical and empirical work on threat rigidity suggests that threats in a
competitive environment constrain information processing (Dutton 1993, Griffin et al. 1995,
Staw et al. 1981), and in some circumstances teams can fail to gather enough external
information, thus basing decisions on less information than they should (Ancona and Caldwell
1992, Eisenhardt 1989b, Janis 1982, Tasa and Whyte 2005), to the detriment of their
performance. In contrast, other work suggests that competition and the stress it creates leads to
greater openness to external information (Driskell and Salas 1991, Menon and Pfeffer 2003).
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However, teams can risk gathering too much information from the environment (Haas 2006,
Haas and Hansen 2005, Wong 2004) while failing to make appropriate use of their own
members’ knowledge (Stasser et al. 1995), also to the detriment of performance. Determining the
conditions under which teams might tend to gather too much or too little external information in
competitive environments is critical to creating the conditions for effective performance.
Furthermore, much of a team’s ability to engage in the labor-intensive task of information
gathering and analysis is driven by its overall level of motivation (De Dreu et al. 2008, De Dreu
2007). Here again, the results of existing research on how competition might affect team
motivation is also somewhat conflicting. Classic work on the effects of intergroup competition
suggests motivational benefits (e.g., Deutsch 1949, M. Sherif et al. 1961). However, work on
self-regulatory focus suggests that individuals trying to prevent negative events from occurring
can experience low motivation accompanied by negative affect (Crowe and Higgins 1997,
Forster et al. 2001). Given the importance of motivation and information processing to effective
team functioning in competitive environments, the circumstances under which each of these
effects are likely to occur is important to sort out.
One potentially important explanatory variable to consider in understanding the effects of
competition on group functioning is strategic orientation. I conceptualize the construct of team
strategic orientation as encompassing the strategic direction and perceptions a team develops
when operating vis-à-vis an opponent. Team strategic orientation can be characterized as
offensive, or focused on pursuing objectives whose attainment occurs at the expense of an
opponent, or defensive, and focused on preventing loss at the hands of an opponent. This
construct builds on existing work conducted at both the organizational and individual levels of
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analysis that suggests important consequences for team functioning. Research on strategic
orientation at the organizational level demonstrates that the strategic goals organizations adopt
vis-à-vis adversaries shape the manner in which they organize work and the emphasis they place
on innovation- vs. efficiency-oriented activities (R. E. Miles and Snow 1978, Rajagopalan and
Finkelstein 1992, Rajagopalan 1997). Research on related topics, such as self-regulatory focus at
the individual level, suggests that adopting promotion-focused goals (vs. prevention-focused
goals) can positively influence the level of effort and perseverance individuals exhibit in their
work, particularly in the face of negative performance feedback (Forster et al. 1998, Crowe and
Higgins 1997). While existing work related to regulatory focus and strategic orientation in teams
has focused on the emotional consequences of promotion and prevention goals (Faddegon,
Ellemers, & Scheepers, 2009; Faddegon, Scheepers, & Ellemers, 2007), as well as their
respective influence on levels of riskiness vs. conservatism in decision-making (Florack and
Hartmann 2007, Levine et al. 2000), prior research has not explored the implications of team
strategic orientation for how a team organizes its work, with associated consequences for internal
or external information use, performance strategy, and overall levels of motivation.
This study seeks to explore the question: How does team strategic orientation affect team
process in competitive environments? Given the theoretical and empirical limits of prior work, I
take an inductive, theory-building approach (Eisenhardt 1989a). This study capitalizes on a rare
opportunity to observe eight interagency counterterrorism teams in the intelligence community,
where I take advantage of a natural experiment to compare how teams confronted with the same
information about a threat evolve a different set of processes as a function of the strategic
orientation they adopt.
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Furthermore, my analysis reveals some new dimensions underlying a team’s strategic
orientation, which allow us to characterize its strength as well as its direction. A key insight is
that while a team’s strategic direction (i.e. offense vs. defense) sets a baseline of assumptions
teams adopt in facing the environment, the strength of team strategic orientation is reinforced by
teams’ assessments of (1) oppositional strength and (2) the scope of the problem they face.
Drawing on behavioral evidence, I find that these three elements of strategic orientation–problem
scope, oppositional strength, and strategic direction—respectively impact the strategy teams use
for their work, their emphasis on internal versus external knowledge in assessing their
environment, and the nature of the norms for effort that evolve (Hackman 2002). Team process,
in turn, reinforces team strategic orientation, and also has important implications for team
decision-making and performance (Eisenhardt 1989b, Peterson et al. 1998, Tasa and Whyte
2005) impacting the breadth of information, creativity, and confidence that is communicated in
team conclusions and action plans.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The goal of this work is to shed light on how playing offense or defense affects team
process in competitive environments. Existing work on team strategic orientation as well as team
process provides important foundations from which to begin and across which to bridge.
Strategic Orientation
Existing work on strategic orientation has evolved independently but somewhat in
parallel at the organizational and individual levels of analysis (and, in some cases, using slightly
different names and terminologies). Both lines of research supply useful points of departure for
our evolving understanding of strategic orientation in teams.
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Work at the organizational level characterizes firm strategic orientations as
“prospectors” or “defenders” (R. E. Miles and Snow 1978) where prospectors are more
offensive, pursuing opportunities in their environment, while defenders are more focused on
holding their ground. These organizational strategic orientations have been shown to have
consequences for the internal activities that firms prioritize. Prospectors emphasize innovation
activities, particularly innovations that will steal market share from competitors, while defenders
emphasize efficiency, or practices that will prevent the loss of profit despite pricing pressures
and other challenges posed by competition (Rajagopalan and Finkelstein 1992, Rajagopalan
1997, Venkatraman 1989).
Research related to strategic orientation and self-regulatory focus at the individual level
characterizes individual strategic direction as promotion or prevention, with associated effects
for motivation and self- regulation (Elliot 1999, Higgins 1997, Keltner et al. 2003). This work
has demonstrated that the behavioral inhibition system associated with prevention goals is
activated by punishment, threat, and uncertainty, and evokes more negative emotion and
heightened vigilance and inspection of punishment contingencies. By contrast, the behavioral
approach system associated with promotion goals regulates behavior related to sex, food, safety,
achievement, and aggression and evokes more positive emotion and cognitive assessments of
reward contingencies in the environment. Individuals working on promotion tasks exhibit higher
levels of motivation and perseverance than individuals working on prevention tasks, particularly
in the face of negative feedback (Kruglanski et al. 1993, Pierro et al. 2006, Spiegel et al. 2004).
Concepts related to self-regulatory focus and strategic orientation have been explored to a
limited degree at the team level. The effects of promotion vs. prevention strategic directions at
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the individual level have been shown to converge at the team level and influence preferences for
conservative vs. risky action in group decision-making (Levine et al. 2000, Paese et al. 1993,
Tindale et al. 1993) and to direct members’ attention to gain- or loss-relevant information
(Florack and Hartmann 2007) as well as create convergence in group emotion (Faddegon et al.
2007). However, these studies were not conducted in the context of intergroup competition, a
situation we know can enhance group motivation (M. Sherif et al. 1961, Simmel 1955, Stein
1976). In addition, existing work on self-regulatory focus does not fully explain why some teams
are more open to information from their environment while others rely more on information from
members within the team, nor how strategic direction influences the strategy a team adopts to
organize its collective diagnosis and action planning. Thus, examining the evolution of team
process in the context of team strategic orientation, as well as factors that make a team’s
orientation stronger or weaker, will provide some important insights on these issues.
Team Process
A well-rounded understanding of team process needs to consider use of member
knowledge and skill, team performance strategy, and management of member effort (Hackman
2002). While a lot of research has been conducted on each of these three components
independently, little has examined their co-evolution in team performance or their sensitivity to
competitive environmental dynamics. Below I briefly review what is known about each and
highlight existing gaps that the current study aims to address.
Member knowledge and skill
In order to operate effectively in a competitive environment, teams must make good use of
the knowledge and skills members hold (Eisenhardt 1989b, Faraj and Xiao 2006, Klein et al.
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2006) as well as effectively search the environment for information about their opponents’ plans
and intentions (Prescott and Smith 1987). Much of the existing work on collective information
processing in teams focuses almost exclusively on how members manage information internally,
where information “search” entails surfacing information from fellow members. In this regard, a
large and growing body of work examines the conditions surrounding internal team expertise
recognition and knowledge sharing. Team members can be prompted or motivated to volunteer
what they know through role assignments (Stasser et al. 1995, Wittenbaum et al. 1998), formal
coordination processes (Faraj and Sproull 2000), epistemic motivation (De Dreu et al. 2008) and
leader inquiry (Tschan et al. 2006), as well as cues from the environment that activate relevant
knowledge (Bonito 2007). Mechanisms that trigger the recognition of expertise by fellow group
members include the status cues of expert members (Bunderson 2003), familiarity of members
with each other (Lewis 2004), frequency of communication among members (Lewis 2004, Lewis
et al. 2007), coordination processes that designate members as knowledge holders (Faraj and
Sproull 2000, Faraj and Xiao 2006, Stewart and Stasser 1995), and other features of the
knowledge holders or task situation that allow members to observe evidence of what others know
in order to identify the most knowledgeable members in a given situation (Baumann and Bonner
2004, Henry 1995, Littlepage et al. 1997, Woolley et al. 2008).
In terms of using information from the environment, i.e., outside of the team itself, prior
research has shown that executives are more likely to scan the environment when strategic
uncertainty is high (Daft et al. 1988, R. C. May et al. 2000). Teams engage in several different
types of external information-gathering, some of which are aimed at communicating with and
coordinating with the environment, while others are focused on gathering information and
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guarding against information release (Ancona and Caldwell 1992). Information gathering from
the environment is not uniformly positive, however; teams that lack sufficient structural diversity
are unlikely to bring in information that is novel or unique enough to offset the costs of the time
spent gathering it (Cummings 2004, Reagans and McEvily 2003). Consequently, some studies
suggest a trade-off between the gathering of external information and the processing of what
team members already know (Haas 2006, Wong 2004). However, we do not yet understand
when and why a team will be more focused on internal vs. external information. Given the
critical nature of environmental information and internal knowledge and skills to team
performance in competitive environments, understanding underlying issues that drive this
internal vs. external trade-off can be critical to improving team performance.
Team Strategy
Team strategy, a second major element of team process (Hackman 2002), has direct
implications for team information processing and performance. A team’s strategy defines its
priorities and shapes its action plans for coordinating activities toward a goal (Ericksen and Dyer
2004, Hackman 1987). While strategic orientation describes the team's general goals vis-à-vis
others in its environment, a team's strategy describes the means whereby the team organizes
activities and intentions internally. Although existing work demonstrates that the strategic
orientation an organization adopts in a competitive environment influences the priorities it sets
among its internal activities (Rajagopalan and Finkelstein 1992), we do not know how team
strategic orientation affects or is affected by team performance strategy. Furthermore, while
existing work on team process examines patterns of development over time (Ancona et al. 2001,
Gersick 1988,Marks et al. 2001), there is little that examines the interrelation of team
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performance strategy, use of knowledge and skill, and member effort as mutually reinforcing
facets of team process.
Team strategy has particularly important implications for information collection and use.
Work on outcome- and process-focused strategies in teams (Woolley 2009a) has differentiated
the two and demonstrated their implications for the amount of information a team attends to in its
environment and how it makes use of that information. Outcome-focused teams allow desired
outcomes and objectives to take precedence over the processes for conducting work, while
process-focused teams allow processes to take precedence over and determine work products.
Outcome-focused teams set goal priorities and attend more selectively to information that is
relevant to their selected goals; process-focused teams identify sub-tasks and action steps,
connecting steps to members and over time, generally allowing members to collect more
information (Woolley 2009a, b). Thus, a team’s strategy strongly influences how much
information it will collect, which has important implications for performance in competitive
environments where judicious collection and use of information are critical (Gilad 1991).
Team effort and motivation
Teams in any setting can struggle with managing the effort of members, as a long history of
work on social loafing and free-riding readily attests (Jones 1984, Latane et al. 1979, i.e., Karau
and Williams 1993). Work on the effects of competition in teams has generally demonstrated a
positive effect of intergroup competition on team levels of motivation and effort (Deutsch 1949,
Erev et al. 1993, Julian and Perry 1967, M. A. May and Doob 1937, M. Sherif et al. 1961, Stein
1976). However, as discussed above, work on strategic orientation and self-regulatory focus has
demonstrated that while the motivational benefits largely hold true for promotion-focused goals,
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prevention-focused defensive goals can result in reduced motivation and negative emotion in
groups (Faddegon et al. 2009, 2007, Florack and Hartmann 2007). Since these latter findings
have not been examined with respect to competitive situations, it may be the case that the
positive dynamics associated with intergroup competition (i.e. group cohesion, self-serving
biases) overcome the otherwise negative effects of prevention-focused defensive goals. Given
how demanding long-term competitive situations can be, a better understanding of the conditions
under which motivational decrements are likely to occur is critical.
Focus of Current Study
The purpose of this study is to develop a model of how team strategic orientation affects
team process. A rare opportunity was made available to examine the dynamics of strategic
orientation in a situation in which they exist naturally—the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC).
Intelligence analysts spend much of their careers predicting actions that other people or groups
may take and/or reasoning about the proper actions and responses of the U.S. government. Like
business organizations, the strategic analysis of teams in the IC occurs under tremendous time
pressure, sometimes with ambiguity about who exactly the competitor or opponent is, how much
to trust the information they have, and uncertainty about the full spectrum of results of their
actions. In addition to traditional analytic methods, the military and intelligence communities
have adopted an approach called “red teaming,” where teams intentionally adopt an offensive
posture in order to get a different perspective on a situation.
I had the opportunity to observe interagency crisis action teams as they were explicitly
asked to adopt an offensive or defensive strategic direction in examining a current, active
terrorist threat. Such an explicit adoption of strategic direction greatly enhances the ability to
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develop theory; in many business environments, the adoption of an offensive or defensive
perspective likely occurs much more implicitly and possibly with less consistency, making
analysis by an observer less tenable. In the current setting, despite membership drawn from the
same population of government and military personnel and providing the same background
information about a known threat, dramatically different processes evolved in teams playing
offense vs. defense. While these teams were not convened for the purpose of my research, the
structure of their approach provided the perfect data to examine the guiding research question:
How does strategic orientation shape team process?
I begin with observations of interagency crisis action teams explicitly asked to adopt an
offensive or defensive strategic direction, and then relate these observations to concepts from the
existing literature to build a process model describing the dynamics of strategic orientation in
teams. The resulting framework suggests a number of hypotheses for future research as well as
potential interventions that could help to offset the potential biases or difficulties inherent in each
strategic orientation.
METHOD
Research Site
Eight interagency crisis action teams, four “Red” (offensive) and four “Blue” (defensive, to
symbolize their government and law enforcement ties) operated for one week each to analyze
one of four current terrorist threats. The four threats are referred to as Maritime/Chemical,
Biological, IED, and Air/Sea, and each threat was worked on by one Red and one Blue team.
Each team involved five to eight experienced defense and intelligence analysts from a variety of
agencies, and each team could make use of a research support cell convened specifically to
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support the work of these teams. All teams were provided current information on the threat,
including extensive background information on the suspects involved.
Although the teams were not convened for the purposes of this research, the setting
provided a natural experiment, since each of the four threats was examined simultaneously by
both a team adopting an offensive perspective (i.e. “Red”) and a team adopting a defensive
perspective (i.e. “Blue”). This approach was used in order to help interested agencies by
providing two different perspectives on each situation. The objective of all teams was to provide
an estimate of the likely plans and intentions of the terrorist group being investigated. Red teams
were instructed to do so while adopting the perspective of the adversary and plotting against the
United States using the threat information provided, while Blue teams examined the same threat
information from the U.S. perspective to discern what the group under question might do and
what preventative measures should be taken. At the end of the week, teams provided briefings on
their estimates of the terrorist cells’ intentions to one another as well as to the sponsoring
intelligence agency representatives. Implicitly, teams competed not only against real-world
adversaries but also against each other, as Red teams tried to come up with an attack that Blue
teams would not anticipate, while Blue teams tried to anticipate Reds’ most likely courses of
action. In some cases, teams’ plans were predictive of real-world events, in that they
foreshadowed activities of terrorist groups that were observed or thwarted in the months that
followed their work.
While traditional game theoretic analyses of competitive situations suggest that players in
the defensive position have an inherently greater probability of failure than offensive players, the
use of information about the opponent and appropriate analytic techniques can alter those
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probabilities substantially (Armstrong 2002, 2001, Green 2002). In this situation, Blue (defense)
was given in-depth information on a relatively defined group of people to consider, while Red
was asked to plot something that would evade detection by all of the defensive assets of the
United States. Thus, the potential number of scenarios each side could consider was potentially
vast, but could also be circumscribed given the knowledge at hand. The degree to which the
model proposed here will generalize to situations in which greater or lesser asymmetries of risk
and reward exist is an important empirical question for future research.
Data Collection
All teams worked face-to-face in a secure facility. Due to the sensitivity of the
information involved, members were not permitted to remove any written materials nor discuss
the project outside of the facility. The facility was open and available to teams 9 hours per day,
and thus teams were limited in the extent to which they could conduct work requiring access to
sensitive materials. Each team was audio- and video-taped for the duration of their week-long
collaboration, yielding an average of 32 hours of video footage per team or 256 hours of video
total. 1 All teams were also observed by cleared social scientists on-site, who were there to
observe the teams for other purposes but whose notes and observations were available to me for
this analysis. This yielded 632 pages of observational notes. Six of these observers wrote a
summary report of their impressions and findings, which were also factored into my analysis of
team process. Teams’ final reports and video footage of their 10-minute presentation of their
conclusions were reviewed by two experienced government intelligence professionals, who
evaluated them for the level of depth and breadth of coverage.
1
Access to videotapes of team work in the intelligence community is extremely rare; we are indebted to
project managers at the MITRE Corporation for undertaking the lengthy bureaucratic process of obtaining approval
for recording the teams.
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Data analysis
I was present on-site during the work of four of the teams, making my own observations
that were discussed and triangulated with those of other on-site observers. The remaining four
teams were observed by other social scientists, who made detailed notes and created summary
reports of their observations. Initial observations (both my own and observers') of the first few
teams suggested fairly stark differences in the behavior of Red and Blue teams, prompting
further in-depth analysis. I elected to use a multiple case approach which would allow me to
identify constructs that distinguish both between and among offensive and defensive teams, and
test the relationships across different cases, yielding a more robust, generalizable, and testable
theory (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007).
Complete video recordings were available for all eight teams, and sanitized transcripts
were also available for four of those teams. I initially conducted exploratory analyses using
videos, transcripts, and observer notes for four teams (two Red, two Blue), two of which I
observed personally. I began formulating a tentative model through the method of grounded
theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967). As Miles and Huberman (1994) suggest, my notes and
interpretations were guided by my explicit prior assumptions, namely that there would be
distinctions in the processes adopted by offensive and defensive teams. After a period of open
review and note-taking, I re-reviewed the videos of these four teams and created written
summaries of each distinct work period (generally clustered as hours before and after lunch, or
between noteworthy breaks), conducting within-case analysis as recommended by Eisenhardt
(1989). I noted elements of team process that were salient or evidenced significant change or
transition in each period. These were shared with other observers of the teams to obtain
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verification of evolving impressions. 2 The summaries were then used to search for cross-case
patterns (Eisenhardt 1989a) and isolate a smaller number of major categories of similarities and
differences across teams, following the explanation-building logic described by Yin (1994).
These categories paralleled the conceptual categories of effort, performance strategy, and use of
knowledge and skill, three processes identified by prior studies to be critical elements of team
performance (see Hackman 2002). As the measures were developed and teams assessed on each,
they were triangulated among observer notes, video transcripts, my own observation, and
artifacts created by the team (documents, flip charts, member notes, etc.)
Performance strategy was described using the constructs of outcome and process focus
developed by Woolley (2009a). Early team conversations and interactions were evaluated for
how early objectives and priorities were discussed and decided upon (as indicators of outcome
focus) vs. discussion of analytic frameworks and processes for guiding the collection of
information and coordinating members’ efforts (as indicators of process focus), based on notes
from video tapes and observer notes. The timing of discussion about and degree of emphasis on
desired outcomes or work processes determined the level of outcome or process focus evident in
each team’s strategy, respectively. Use of knowledge and skill was captured through a
combination of observations of the extensiveness of members’ initial self-introductions to the
team and the amount of inquiry or deference among members regarding areas of expertise, plus
measurement of the team’s reliance on the support cell to provide external expertise (based on
records of the number of requests for information (RFI) the teams issued). Effort was captured by
observer notes regarding how quickly teams got to work each day, how many breaks they took,
2
These observers were cleared social scientists who were on-site for other purposes, but who were kind
enough to provide support for analysis for this research, as it was not possible to involve research collaborators who
did not have the required security clearances.
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and quotes from video recordings and transcripts suggesting that members were carrying on
work outside of stated work hours and/or providing evidence of members withdrawing and
allowing others to carry the load.
After completing the exploratory analyses on the initial four teams, I used the categories
and the associated behaviors to review and document the work of the remaining four teams based
on my own observations, videotapes of their interactions, and observer notes, during which no
additional categories of discrimination between offensive and defensive teams were evident.
Summaries of the observations of these teams were then shared with other team observers for
corroboration.
While initially the main focus was on identifying factors differentiating Red and Blue
teams, a third review of the data for all eight teams revealed variance among teams playing the
same role (e.g. offense or defense), adding further dimensionality to the notion of team strategic
orientation. These differences related to perceptions teams had about the strength of their
opponent, as well as how comprehensive they felt they needed to be in assessing the situation
(i.e., "problem scope"). These perceptions surfaced relatively early in the work of the teams,
though some work sessions were punctuated by debate regarding one or both of these issues.
Notes, transcripts, and video recordings were reviewed for a third time for all teams to capture
evidence of their perceptions of oppositional strength and problem scope, largely revealed
through team member comments. Teams were characterized with respect to their standing on
these issues, and the overall strength of their offensive or defensive strategic orientation was
examined in relation to the other aspects of group process to identify any overall patterns.
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Finally, as a secondary analysis, teams’ final products (which included a brief report and
presentation), plus their spontaneous verbal reports about their work, were considered in drawing
conclusions about the effects of offensive and defensive strategic orientation on teams’ work
products and experiences. Given the impossibility of nailing down analytic team performance
definitively—indeed, a frequent quip of career analysts is that “when we do our job well, nothing
happens”— assessments of work products by veteran analysts, as described above, provide some
clues to the potential strengths and weaknesses of offensive and defensive strategic orientation.
A PROCESS MODEL OF STRATEGIC ORIENTATION

The process model of strategic orientation developed here focuses on how the elements
of strategic orientation affect the subsequent dynamics that evolve within the team. These
processes, in turn, have implications for the products of team work. What became clear in
examining the teams was that, in addition to the strategic direction of their assigned position (i.e.
offense vs. defense), differences in their perceptions regarding problem scope and oppositional
strength affected the overall strength of their strategic orientation, including their level of
outcome vs. process focus and their reliance on internal vs. external information as well as the
norms for effort that were evident in their work.
In short, the stronger the team’s offensive strategic orientation, the easier it seems to be
on offense (i.e. the “bad guy”), as the mutually reinforcing perceptions of a narrower problem
scope and lesser oppositional strength led teams to adopt a selective, outcome focus and make
use of the readily accessible internal knowledge of fellow team members, reinforcing cycles of
positive affect and high effort. By contrast, the stronger the team’s defensive strategic
orientation, the harder it seems to be on defense, as perceptions of a broader problem scope and
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greater oppositional strength led teams to adopt a broader, process focus, emphasize the use of a
large volume of knowledge collected from the environment, and enhanced cycles of
hopelessness and reduced effort.
---insert Figure 1 here ----
Figure 1 portrays the relationship among the elements of strategic orientation and team
process, and the resulting characteristics of team work products. Below, I walk through each
element of the model and discuss the evidence associated with each. 3
Strength of Strategic Orientation: Oppositional Strength and Problem Scope
While teams’ strategic direction was established by the perspective they were assigned to
assume in working on the problem (i.e. offense vs. defense), comparisons among the group of
offensive and defensive teams suggested that the strength of their orientation was reinforced by
two additional aspects of the competitive environment they were working within: their
perceptions of oppositional strength and the problem scope they assumed. Enhanced perceptions
of oppositional strength and broader problem scope strengthened defensive strategic orientation,
while reduced perceptions of oppositional strength and narrower problem scope strengthened
offensive strategic orientation.
Oppositional strength refers to both the degree and the range of activity that the opponent
is judged to be capable of initiating or mustering in response to an attack. While work on group
potency has demonstrated its importance to group performance (e.g., Lester et al. 2002), here the
focus is on perceived oppositional strength, as this determines the extent to which information
needs to be collected about the adversary, regardless of the skills and expertise of team members.
3
Given the security implications associated with the topics of the teams’ work, use of quotes and examples
is limited and portrayals of conversations sometimes include summaries of comments and placeholders for redacted
material instead of verbatim transcriptions.
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Perceptions of oppositional strength were measured using quotes from transcripts and observer
notes portraying assumptions that teams made about the adversaries they faced. Oppositional
strength is of relevance to teams in both offensive and defensive positions, as the nature of the
moves being planned would logically differ as a function of the opponent’s capabilities relative
to one’s own (McRaven 1996, Porter 1991). While oppositional strength is somewhat related to
work on perceived threat (Carr 1974, Foa and Kozak 1986), the latter focuses on the degree and
probability of loss associated with potential events initiated by others, but not possibility of gain.
A second aspect of strategic orientation that had an impact on team process is the
problem scope teams assumed, that is, the extent to which team members believed they needed
to be comprehensive vs. narrow in their approaches to information collection and action planning
in the situations they were analyzing. A comprehensive offense entails assaulting the opponent
on multiple fronts, while a comprehensive defense entails being ready to counter an attack on
multiple fronts. Teams’ beliefs about problem scope were captured in the data from transcripts
and observer notes of relevant statements made by team members about their assumptions, as
well as observations of the number of potential courses of action teams considered in their work
(as evidenced in their working notes and final report documents).
The perception of oppositional strength and problem scope had direct implications for
team process, differentiating both between and among offensive and defensive teams. The
problem scope teams assumed influenced the extent to which their performance strategy was
more outcome- vs. process-focused. A narrower scope led to a more opportunistic search for
possibilities and an outcome focus; once a team found a solution that met its narrowly defined
objectives, it could then use that to guide the remaining planning activities. In contrast, a
21
comprehensive scope demanded a team strategy that would guide an exhaustive and systematic
search of available information; generally, these teams gravitated toward established or
improvised analytic frameworks to guide this search, leading to a process focus.
In parallel, perceptions of oppositional strength influenced the kinds of information
teams searched for, where an opponent perceived as weaker allowed teams to rely more on the
knowledge and skills of members of their own team, while a stronger opponent demanded
collection of more external information. Both problem scope and oppositional strength together
exacerbated the effects of strategic direction (i.e., offense vs. defense), which activates the
approach vs. inhibition tendencies predicted by existing literature (Elliot 1999, Elliot and
Harackiewicz 1996, Keltner et al. 2003).
It became evident over the observation period that whether a team was assigned an
offensive or defensive strategic direction resulted in a different baseline for the team’s
perceptions, which was enhanced to a greater or lesser degree in the course of the team’s work.
Highly defensive teams perceived greater oppositional strength and became more frustrated and
withdrawn as they collected more and more information from their environment in their attempts
to be comprehensive. In contrast, highly offensive teams became more energized and confident
against an opponent they perceived as weaker, as their more selective approach allowed them to
focus in on a limited set of objectives drawn from their personal bases of expertise. Evidence
associated with both strength of strategic orientation and associated team processes is
summarized in Tables 1 and 2. These cycles differentiating offense from defense are illustrated
below, and then in the next section we explore a bit further the variance among offensive and
defensive processes evident in the teams.
22
Defensive Team Process: “Looking everywhere and looking nowhere.”
The Blue Maritime/Chemical Threat team provided one of the more extreme examples of
defensive team strategic orientation. Transcripts documenting team members’ comments in their
first hours of work conveyed the sense that they felt they were facing a strong opponent: “These
people have a completely different mindset . . . they know stuff we don’t know and we can’t
even relate to what they are thinking.” These impressions were triangulated by observer notes,
including the comment, "The team is intimidated and doesn’t know where to begin."
Subsequently, the team set to work with the implicit assumption that they needed to identify all
possibilities and nail down the finite details of what the terrorists might be planning so that they
could apprehend them and thwart their plans – a comprehensive problem scope: “We need to get
our arms around this thing if we have a prayer of getting these guys.” In the first morning of their
work together, the team developed a guiding set of categories of information they wanted to
collect and from that point forward became highly process-focused. They divided the categories
up among members and used the framework as their touchstone through the rest of the week,
beginning sessions by checking off parts of the framework that seemed complete. Filling in the
framework meant collecting an enormous amount of information, generally from outside of the
team. Records of the support cell indicated that the team issued 166 RFIs during their work
together. This approach quickly grew tiresome; by the end of the second day, the observer notes,
“The team seems a bit burnt out.” On Day 3, some members began to add more and more
categories of information for the team to collect, to the frustration of others.
Videotapes of the team's work space revealed flip charts taped to the wall all over the room
with lists and matrices to keep track of their analyses. The number of flip charts increased
23
steadily over the course of the week, as categories were added, but the team did not rule anything
out as time went on. It appeared that in the course of collecting this external information, team
members overlooked some key internal resources and expertise. In particular, in the final hours
of their work as they finished up their briefing materials observers noted that the team learned
that one of its members had a graduate degree in physics, an area that was fairly central to the
threat they were examining. On the first morning of their first day together, this member had
been set to work mining a database of information on communication patterns and had remained
focused on that aspect of their work throughout the week. However, prior to this discovery,
another member lamented the lack of technical skill on the team: “We do not have enough
expertise on our team. In the end, they are going to tell us we got it all wrong.”
The Blue Biological Threat team also exhibited a moderate to high level of defensive
strategic orientation, with similar patterns in team process. Comments made by members early in
their work revealed perceptions of a comprehensive problem scope: “We need to solve this thing
and roll these guys up.” Their strategy from the first hours of their work was characterized by a
high level of process focus, in that they identified all of the categories of information they would
need to collect to identify all possibilities and attempt to “solve” the plot. The first two hours of
their work together was spent outlining the framework that would guide their data collection. As
their work ensued, the team remained highly process-focused, working systematically through
each of the categories: “Ok, we’ve exhausted our leads relating to [redacted], now we should
really focus on [redacted.]”
Members also made comments throughout their work indicating that they perceived that
they were working against a very strong opponent: “These guys could do this stuff anywhere,
24
any time . . . and if they did, it would be chaos.” The team collected an enormous amount of
information from outside of the team about what it was the adversary might know or be doing.
Team records include an extensive spreadsheet maintained by one member who attempted to
track all of the information the team sought, which was more than 20 pages long. The team
issued 151 RFIs in the span of three days, asking some questions that were likely already known
by members of the team given their functional backgrounds and their experience with this type
of threat, yet transcripts and observer notes indicate that little discussion of these issues occurred.
Observer notes further commented on the team’s focus on collecting external information
and their apparent lack of interest in discussion and integration: “The team seems focused on
trying to find a golden nugget from someplace else. [A] member who has extensive knowledge
of [redacted] seems withdrawn. Nobody is asking for his input.” Over the course of the week the
team got increasingly tired and frustrated, directing a lot of its frustration at what it perceived as
a lack of good information coming to it in response to their RFIs. There were long periods of
silence during work periods as members waited for more information to come from the outside,
rather than discussing what was already known. Observers noted that three team members
became increasingly withdrawn over the course of the team’s work, a fact corroborated by the
lack of any commentary by these members evident in the videotape of the team. In the end, the
team tried to cover its lack of insight by writing its report using sufficiently broad language that
could be spun in multiple ways by those who received it. One member commented during their
final work session: “It feels like we have been looking everywhere and looking nowhere.”
Offensive Team Process: “Keep it simple”
25
In stark contrast to most of the Blue teams, the Red Biological Threat team was near the
opposite end of the spectrum in almost every sense. Within the first hour, transcripts of the team
conversation suggest a focus on the main objective of generating hysteria, accomplished with an
attack that might be minimal in actual physical damage but very successful in creating panic.
One of the team members declared, “It would be shockingly easy to overwhelm the [redacted]
system.” Statements like these were interpreted as evidence of low perceived oppositional
strength; members explicitly noted many opportunities to exploit the adversary’s own defenses to
work against them and to generate panic. Member comments also conveyed a perception of a
narrow problem scope, with one member commenting: “There is a lot of low-hanging fruit here;
we just need to set off one or two of these triggers and we are off to the races.” This suggested
that taking out any of this low-hanging fruit would yield some success, and the more they could
identify, the bigger their impact – evidencing a narrow problem scope.
Within the first 45 minutes of its work, members of the Red Biological team began to
brainstorm ideas for a possible attack, and observers noted that team members had established
their overarching objectives by lunchtime on the first day. The team was highly outcome-focused
in their work, exploring different potential operational plans and rejecting those that didn’t easily
accomplish their objectives. On the second day, one member began to leave the room to gather
more detailed information about a particular mode of transportation, and another member asked
“Do you think you really need to do that? It’s not that central to what we are trying to do.” The
first member concurred and they decided to fill in the details with their own knowledge and
assumptions. Later that day, a third member reiterated the belief that “devising a plan built on
what we know is the way to go, since there are a large number of ways we can accomplish these
26
objectives.” The team was highly energetic in its work, and at the beginning of each work
session members commented on work they been carrying out work independently between work
sessions, after the facility closed at night and during breaks.
The Red IED threat team exhibited many of the same qualities as Red Biological.
Members frequently repeated the mantra “keep it simple,” reiterating the belief that there were a
large number of ways in which they could meet their desired objectives and any one of them
would work, conveying a sense of a relatively narrow problem scope. The team also exhibited a
highly outcome-focused approach to its work, selecting its key objectives within the first hour
and a half, which allowed them to narrow even farther the range of alternatives and information
they needed to consider. These objectives became the guiding framework for the rest of their
work, as each possibility that arose was tested against its fit with their objectives. They also saw
the opponent as relatively weak, as conveyed through comments such as, “It is quite easy to
create an unsettling sense, and that is exactly what we want.” The team brainstormed and listed
all of the ways to make a population feel “unsettled,” reinforcing their sense that it would be a
fairly easy task. The team then focused on matching team members’ knowledge and expertise to
their plan. One member explicitly observed and commented on the complementarities among
members’ expertise, fitting together a plan based on what members already knew and reducing
the need for the team to reach out to the external research cell for information. As the team went
deeper into the details of their plan, members continued to acknowledge the expertise of other
members: “We should really leave target selection up to him, since he is an expert in [redacted.]”
The Red IED team also exhibited a very high level of effort and energy in its work. The
team needed repeated reminders to break for lunch before the cafeteria closed or to leave the
27
facility at the end of the day. When the team reconvened for a work session, some members
appeared to have worked during the break, either during lunch or in the evening, and members
communicated a lot of optimism about their work; on at least three different occasions, members
were overheard commenting, “This is going to be really fun.”
Variance in Strength of Strategic Orientation
While similar patterns were evident to some degree in all offensive and defensive teams,
there was variance observed in the apparent strength of strategic orientation. Comparisons
among the group of offensive and defensive teams suggested that the strength of their orientation
was influenced by their perceptions of oppositional strength and problem scope.
For example, as discussed above, the Red Biological Threat team exemplified a
perception of low oppositional strength and a narrow problem scope, commenting on the amount
of “low-hanging fruit” that existed, and how “shockingly easy” it would be to accomplish its
objectives. In contrast, a more moderate level of offensive strategic orientation was exemplified
by the Red Maritime/Chemical Threat team. This team exhibited a high level of awareness of the
defenses it was up against in attempting to carry out plans. One member commented, “It’s going
to take a lot of assets to accomplish these plans against [the adversary]. They are pretty well-
protected,” suggesting that team members estimated oppositional strength to be quite high. Given
the target it selected, the team also developed the view that if it didn’t completely succeed on its
first attempt, the mission would be a failure, assuming a comprehensive problem scope: “I think
we only have one shot at this, so we better make it count and take the whole place down. As soon
as we expose those assets, we’re done.” The team also took a very different approach to their
work than was exemplified by the Red Biological Threat team. Unlike other Red teams, this
28
team developed a matrix of potential targets, and spent the first day and a half of their work
systematically evaluating them, before selecting one and moving forward with their plans.
The Blue teams likewise exhibited variance in the strength of defensive strategic
orientation. As discussed above, a high level of defensive strategic orientation was observed in
the Blue Maritime/Chemical Threat team. The team conveyed a sense of being out-witted by the
adversary from the start (i.e. “We can’t even relate to what they are thinking”) and the need to be
comprehensive in evaluating all possible threats the opponent posed. In contrast, a more
moderate level of defensive strategic orientation was evident in the Blue Air/Sea Threat team.
After beginning to review the backgrounds of the members of the terrorist group and an
assessment of its likely plans, one member declared, “I don’t think they really understand
[redacted] as well as they think they do” suggesting a more moderate view of oppositional
strength. Other members agreed. As the group began to refine its own understanding of its
objectives, one member suggested a narrower problem scope: “We can’t nail down exactly what
they are going to do. We need to identify the highest probability scenarios and limit their area of
access.” The group agreed, although members raised the question again later on in their work:
“Aren’t we limiting our scope too much?” to which another member responded, “Yes, but trying
to do everything is doing nothing.”
While oppositional strength and problem scope appeared to go hand in hand in most of
these teams, this was not always the case. For example, the Blue IED threat team explicitly
decided to deal with a strong opponent by targeting areas in which focused success could be
achieved. One member told the others, “We can’t look everywhere, we need to pinpoint key
indicators and then figure out how to limit their operations,” conveying a sense of a narrower
29
scope; team members viewed their work as focused on identifying as many key indicators as
they could and limiting the threat, rather than comprehensively preventing all possible threats.
Team Products and Trade-offs
As discussed above, team strategic orientation was associated with markedly different
sets of perceptions and processes unfolding within the teams. In addition, team members' own
sense of their work and their final products took on a very different character. The result was a
narrowly scoped but relatively deep set of recommendations from the Red/offense teams, and a
broadly scoped but more vaguely developed set of recommendations from the Blue/defense
teams. While neither was a slam dunk in the opinion of the expert evaluators, the two offered
potential synergies for developing a more balanced view of the competitive environment.
Offensive Team Experiences: “They are not going to know what hit them!”
As the teams went about their work, the differences discussed above were associated with
differences in overall confidence in their conclusions. The quote above was from a member of
the Red IED Threat team and is representative of statements made by members of all of the Red
teams near the conclusion of their work. The focus that these teams enjoyed in determining their
target early and narrowing the range of information they sought afforded them the luxury of
collecting confirming information and becoming more confident about the brilliance of their
plans. However, at the time the Red teams were conducting their work, no external criterion
existed regarding the quality of their plans; thus, the expressed confidence is rooted more in the
affective dynamics of the team itself rather than external indicators.
Defensive Team Experiences: “This is pretty vague . . . and meaningless.”
30
In contrast, Blue teams exhibited much less optimism and confidence in the statements
they made about their final products. This quote, from a member of Blue Maritime/Chemical,
reflects the sentiment of members of many of the Blue teams. Similarly, a member of Blue
Air/Sea commented in the team’s final work session “The more I read, the less confidence I have
in what we concluded.”
The evaluations of teams’ final products displayed in Table 3 provide additional evidence
of the breadth vs. depth and creativity trade-off embodied in the work of offensive and defensive
teams. As shown in the table, Blue teams’ reports exhibited more evidence of opinion diversity
and use of external resources, while Red teams’ exhibited better use of member expertise and
more creativity. Evaluators of the teams' final products admired the breadth of information the
Blue teams were able to cover, and expressed concern over some of the courses of action that
Red teams did not explicitly consider. In their final reports, Blue teams presented a lot of
different options they considered, and often they had considered many more options in their
discussions than were included in their final reports. In contrast, Red teams went very deeply
into their selected plans of attack, and while two teams made mention of a few other possibilities
they had considered and discarded, the other two teams made no mention of alternatives.
---insert Table 3 here ---
DISCUSSION
This paper develops a process model of team strategic orientation based on a rare
opportunity to look at analytic work in the intelligence community. The data in the current study
support the conclusion that the strength of offensive or defensive team strategic orientation
initiates a self-reinforcing cycle, where teams on offense embrace an outcome-focused strategy
encouraging a narrower search of information already held by members and energizing high-
31
effort norms, while teams on defense follow a process-focused strategy, identifying more
external information to be collected and evolving low-effort norms. Consequently, teams exhibit
a breadth vs. depth trade-off in their work products, in which teams on offense feel quite
confident that they have arrived at the perfect solution, while teams on defense are left with
many possibilities but fewer conclusions.
This model extends what we know about strategic orientation in individuals and
organizations to teams, and has significant scholarly and practical implications. For scholars, the
discrepancies in how these teams behaved given relatively similar inputs suggests the need to
evaluate the extent to which offensive or defensive strategic orientations moderates other
dynamics commonly observed in teams. For example, the lack of confidence demonstrated by
defensive teams runs somewhat counter to work on group decision-making. Existing research on
confidence in teams suggests that putting decision-makers in a group to work on a problem
together translates into higher confidence in the ultimate decision (Sniezek 1992, Sniezek and
Henry 1989), especially if the group is cohesive (Lee et al. 2002). The current study suggest that
team strategic orientation may moderate this effect.
Furthermore, creating a team offensive or defensive strategic orientation may occur much
more subtly in other settings than was true in the current context. While the teams examined here
were assigned to offensive or defensive roles, it is likely that members' interpretation of their
environment (Dutton et al. 1983, Dutton and Jackson 1987, Thomas and McDaniel 1990) could
lead a team to instigate an offensive or defensive stance in situations in which they could choose
either approach. Future research could examine the environmental cues that lead teams to fall
into offensive or defensive behavior patterns.
32
This study also builds on the large and growing literature on the approach and inhibition
systems in human behavior (Elliot 1999, Elliot and Friedman 2007, Keltner et al. 2003), and
related work on self-regulatory focus (see Higgins 1997 for a review), which has more recently
been extended to teams (Faddegon et al. 2009, 2007, Levine et al. 2000). The current work
suggests that simply knowing that a team’s goal can be broadly characterized as “promotion” or
“prevention” will not allow us to predict team behavior without knowing more about the
assumptions members hold about the opponent or the problem they face. Problem scope and
oppositional strength appear to have direct implications for team strategy and the use of member
knowledge and skill vs. external knowledge, apart from overall strategic direction.
In terms of practical implications, it is possible that the training and work of government
intelligence analysts is too idiosyncratic to generalize to other organizational settings. However,
parallels with work on entrepreneurial decision-making at the individual level (i.e. Moore et al.
2007) and the rise of competitive intelligence functions in business organizations (Ganesh et al.
2003) suggest that playing offense or defense is not exclusive to the military and intelligence
communities. Furthermore, it could be argued that the task facing the Blue teams in the current
situation was inherently more difficult than the task facing Red, which could account for the
observed behavior apart from their team strategic orientation. While the observations suggest
variance in the difficulty perceived both between and among Red and Blue teams, future
research in more controlled settings should examine how altering the complexity and relative
probability of success or failure of teams, independent of strategic orientation, contributes to the
behavioral patterns observed.
33
In addition to situations in which teams explicitly play offense or defense, the model
developed in this paper can help us better understand the behavior of teams in which these
orientations evolve more subtly, change over time, or even when facing a non-human opponent,
such as the spread of a disease or a natural disaster (such as Hurricane Katrina; Milliken et al.
under review). Teams in these situations may implicitly adopt an offensive or defensive strategic
orientation, with implications for the perceptions and behavior that subsequently evolve. Thus,
those charged with leading teams in competitive or adversarial situations should be cognizant of
the possible consequences of playing offense or defense and be prepared to counter them.
Most standard analytic techniques used in both government and business settings (Heuer,
1999) encourage the analyst to think more broadly in an effort to counter the tendencies of
decision-makers to develop tunnel vision and confirmation bias (Wason and Johnson-Laird
1968). Such techniques may be helpful when playing offense, where the natural tendency is
toward too narrow a focus, but need to be supplemented with techniques to encourage more
selective focus when playing defense. For example, recent work in forecasting demonstrates that
using metaphors and role-playing are effective tools for filtering qualitative information and
narrowing the options for predicting the likely activities of an opponent (Armstrong, 2001, 2002;
Green, 2002). Similar approaches may be useful for helping to focus the activities of teams
playing defense, where the potential for overly broad analysis exists most. While future research
should further explore the interventions that will be most helpful, what is clear is that continuing
to manage teams without considering the implications of team strategic orientation is likely a
losing course of action, with potentially dire consequences.
34
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Table 1: Analysis of Strength of Strategic Orientationa
Strategic Orientation
Team/Threat Team # Oppositional Strength Comprehensive vs. Narrow
Size Agencies Problem Scope
Rep.
Defense (Blue)
Maritime/ 7 5 High: “These people have a Comprehensive: “We need to get our
Chemical completely different mindset .. they arms around this thing.” Many group
(Strong) know stuff we don’t know and we arguments throughout work about
can’t even relate to what they are where to focus, how much detail to go
thinking” into.
Biological 9 4 High: “These guys could do this Comprehensive: “We need to solve
(Strong) stuff anywhere, any time . . . and if this thing and roll these guys up.”
they did, it would be chaos.” Several members of teams look for
“These guys have a lot of expertise very specific details of possible plan
we don’t have . . .” that could lead to arrest.
IED 6 5 Moderate: “They are good, but I Moderate: “We can’t pinpoint
(Strong) don’t think they will do anything too everything, we need to identify the
extreme; they might hurt their own key indicators.”
people.”
Air/Sea 7 6 Moderate: “I don’t think they really Moderate: “We need to identify the
(Moderate) understand [that area] as well as they highest probability scenarios, and
think they do.” limit their area of access.”
Offense (Red)
Biological 7 6 Low: “It would be shockingly easy Narrow: “There is a lot of low
(Strong) to overwhelm the system.” hanging fruit here; we just need to set
off one or two of these triggers and we
are off to the races.”
IED 5 5 Low: “It is quite easy to create an Narrow: “We need to look for the
(Strong) unsettling sense, and that is exactly simplest means necessary to carry out
what we want.” the selected objective; we want to
keep it as simple as possible.”
Air Sea 5 5 Mod/High: “If we are going to hit Moderate: Tension in the group;
(Moderate) them, we better hit them hard and hit some members argue to “keep it
them often.” simple” while others criticize the
group for “thinking small time,”
arguing that they needed to make a big
impact.
Maritime/ 7 6 Mod/High: “It’s going to take a lot Moderate: “I think we only have one
Chemical of assets to accomplish these plans shot at this, so we better make it count
(Moderate) against [the adversary]. They are and take the whole place down.”
pretty well-protected.”
a
Teams are arranged in order of assessed strength of orientation, from strong to moderate/weak.
43
Table 2: Evidence of Team Process Related to Strength of Strategic Orientationa
Team Process
Team/Threat Strategy Internal Knowledge Emphasis Ext. Norms for Effort/Perseverance
Info Use
(RFIs)
Defense (Blue)
Maritime/ High process focus: First morning High external emphasis: One member comments: 166 Low effort: Members take many breaks
Chemical together spent discussing process; “We do not have enough expertise on our team. In throughout work, and evolve norms of
(Strong) framework identified to guide the end, they’re going to tell us we got it all members leaving the room with no
information gathering. Meetings wrong.” Team overlooks member who has physics explanation. The observer notes “the team
begin by revisiting the framework, degree until their second-to-last meeting. seems a bit burnt out” at the end of the
which becomes the centerpiece of second day. Two members become
their report. withdrawn early in work, one drops out of
the team.
Biological High process focus: Team begins by High external emphasis: Team defers to one 151 Low effort: Many instances of team
(Strong) brainstorming external intelligence to member repeatedly with key expertise, otherwise waiting without active work taking place –
request; remainder of work do not identify others who have key knowledge for members to return from lunch, or for
characterized by generating lists of and skills. expert informants to arrive for an interview.
information to search for.
IED Moderate process focus: Members Mixed internal/external emphasis: Members 77 Moderate effort: Team has bursts of
(Strong) adopt a framework to guide data share lots of real life war stories; identify one or energy punctuated by lulls and long breaks.
collection and analysis within first two members with relevant background to Several instances of waiting for information
two hours, trying to match it with interface and get information from experts. to arrive; two members are very quiet/low
analytic objectives. Framework contributors throughout
becomes center of final report.
Air/Sea Mixed outcome/process focus: Mixed internal/external emphasis: Teams 84 Moderate/high effort: Teams works hard
(Moderate) Team reaches out to try to clarify frequently share real-life “war stories” and defer during all sessions, and all members are
their objectives with key questions to each other based on expertise: “Let engaged. Toward the end of several
stakeholders. Adopts different me ask you since you have so much knowledge of sessions, however, observer notes indicate
frameworks at different points in [redacted].” “the team seems tired and a bit
their work, advocated by members overwhelmed.”
with different agency backgrounds.
44
Team/Threat Strategy Internal Knowledge Emphasis Ex. Info Norms for Effort
Use
(RFIs)
Offense (Red)
Red Biological High outcome focus: Within first 45 High internal emphasis: One member explicitly 0 High effort: At the beginning of each work
(Strong) minutes member says: "I have a few states: “Devising a plan built on what we know is session it is evident that members had been
quick ideas for an attack if anyone the way to go, since there are any one of a large working on and thinking about ideas
wants to hear them." number of ways we can accomplish these between sessions, frequently coming in and
The group resists a member’s attempt objectives.” presenting the work they had done to the
to formalize process, and focuses on rest of the group. Sessions run long with
symbolism as a key priority in the few breaks.
design of its attack.
Red IED High outcome focus: Determines High internal emphasis: During initial 3 High effort: Team needs repeated
(Strong) key objectives within the first hour. introduction, one member comments on reminders to break for lunch or to leave the
A member attempts to get the group complementarities in members’ skills and facility at the end of the day. Some
to establish a formal process, but the identifies gaps. When new member enters, he members appear to work through lunch and
others resist: “We shouldn’t break interviews him to see how he fills the gap in breaks.
into roles and chop this into parts, we expertise. Throughout work, members frequently
need to keep the communication defer to other members’ expertise
open.”
Red Maritime Moderate outcome focus: Some High internal emphasis: Once basic plan is in 4 Moderate to high effort: One member
/Chemical members try to interject to get team place, group repeatedly breaks into subgroups to seems to be less engaged, but the group
(Moderate) to discuss process but are ignored. work the details based on areas of expertise. takes few breaks and works consistently in
Members quickly agree on priorities: Members make a point of highlighting and each work session.
"attacks on military, impact on deferring to expertise of other members.
economy, and a high body count -- in
that order."
Red Air Sea Mixed outcome/process focus: Mixed internal/external emphasis: Collects more 9 Moderate effort: A bit of internal debate
(Moderate) Takes a more systematic approach to external info at the beginning; gradually reveals over objectives; one member becomes quiet
determine its intended target; spends member capabilities as plan evolves; members add and withdrawn. The rest of the members
time creating a matrix of possibilities elements based on special skills and abilities, remain highly engaged.
before selecting and refining the shifting the focus to inside the group.
details of its plan.
a
Teams are arranged in order of assessed strength of orientation, from strong to moderate/weak.
45
Table 3: Evaluations of Red and Blue Team Work Products by External Observers
Blue Red
Number of Courses of Action 5.50 (2.10) 1.75 (0.50)
considered
Evidence of Expertise from 6.50 (2.75) 2.50 (1.19)
Outside of the Team
Depth of Domain-Relevant 1.25 (.51) 6.25 (2.06)
Expertise Evident
Evidence of Creativity 3.50 (2.01) 6.00 (2.63)
Note. Team final reports and briefing documents were rated on each dimension on a scale of 1 to
7, where 1 indicated "Little or None" and 7 indicated "Extensive." Measures are means and
(standard deviations) for both observers for all teams.
46
Figure 1
Process Model of Effects of Strategic Orientation on Team Process and Products
47

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Offense and Defense in Teams

Is it really easier to be the bad guys?

Anita Williams Woolley

the Intelligence Technology Innovation Center at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Is it really easier to be the bad guys?

The effects of team strategic orientation on team process in competitive environments

Teams are frequently called upon to address critical situations in competitive

in the intelligence community that explicitly adopted an offensive or defensive strategic

strength of a team’s strategic orientation was enhanced or inhibited by its perception of

knowledge and skill.

competitive environments is critical to creating the conditions for effective performance.

Furthermore, much of a team’s ability to engage in the labor-intensive task of information

effects are likely to occur is important to sort out.

One potentially important explanatory variable to consider in understanding the effects of

competition on group functioning is strategic orientation. I conceptualize the construct of team

when operating vis-à-vis an opponent. Team strategic orientation can be characterized as

offensive, or focused on pursuing objectives whose attainment occurs at the expense of an

respective influence on levels of riskiness vs. conservatism in decision-making (Florack and

or external information use, performance strategy, and overall levels of motivation.

opportunity to observe eight interagency counterterrorism teams in the intelligence community,

orientation they adopt.

Furthermore, my analysis reveals some new dimensions underlying a team’s strategic

team conclusions and action plans.

Existing work on strategic orientation has evolved independently but somewhat in

our evolving understanding of strategic orientation in teams.

Work at the organizational level characterizes firm strategic orientations as

1997, Venkatraman 1989).

characterizes individual strategic direction as promotion or prevention, with associated effects

heightened vigilance and inspection of punishment contingencies. By contrast, the behavioral

A well-rounded understanding of team process needs to consider use of member

highlight existing gaps that the current study aims to address.

Member knowledge and skill

2004, Henry 1995, Littlepage et al. 1997, Woolley et al. 2008).

performance in competitive environments, understanding underlying issues that drive this

internal vs. external trade-off can be critical to improving team performance.

orientation an organization adopts in a competitive environment influences the priorities it sets

strategic orientation affects or is affected by team performance strategy. Furthermore, while

facets of team process.

Team effort and motivation

under which motivational decrements are likely to occur is critical.

Focus of Current Study

posture in order to get a different perspective on a situation.

asked to adopt an offensive or defensive strategic direction in examining a current, active

develop theory; in many business environments, the adoption of an offensive or defensive

How does strategic orientation shape team process?

including extensive background information on the suspects involved.

followed their work.

and reward exist is an important empirical question for future research.

conclusions were reviewed by two experienced government intelligence professionals, who

evaluated them for the level of depth and breadth of coverage.

theory (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007).

between noteworthy breaks), conducting within-case analysis as recommended by Eisenhardt

combination of observations of the extensiveness of members’ initial self-introductions to the

allowing others to carry the load.

A PROCESS MODEL OF STRATEGIC ORIENTATION

norms for effort that were evident in their work.

hopelessness and reduced effort.

---insert Figure 1 here ----

Strength of Strategic Orientation: Oppositional Strength and Problem Scope

offensive strategic orientation.

is judged to be capable of initiating or mustering in response to an attack. While work on group

(as evidenced in their working notes and final report documents).