Understanding Command and Control Teams Operating in Complex Environments

Abstract

Teams are becoming increasingly common within organizations. Furthermore, the risk of a breakdown in teamwork is often amplified within dynamic environments. As such, a great deal of research has been conducted in an effort to understand the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required by teams operating in highly complex environments such as that of command-and-control teams. Although much is known, relatively little of this theoretical information has been translated into practical guidelines for practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to use the literature on team decision-making under stress to extract key principles related to effective command-and-control teams. In addition, several challenges related to the increased use of distributed command-and-control teams are addressed.