Book Review: Red Teaming

Guest review by R. Umashankar

A friend had called me a 'disruptor', I did not know what it meant, until I understood something critical about the business world - it is geared to go a certain way, but only until someone changes it.

There are ethical detours that change the way any kind of business is done, and it takes a lot of courage to be in that group of risk takers, that challenge convention. And I was an unconventional business woman, an unconventional author, a disruptor.

I was looking forward to reading this book. Thinking about how the business world works is necessary when you feel like a lone entrepreneur in a forest of seasoned wolves. It seemed like a good book for people wanting to understand or practice business strategies that change up the playing field.

My husband Uma helps me brainstorm through all sorts of work issues. Being a one woman business, I have yet to find a core group of peers who can help with that, or one I can explicitly trust, day or night. There are some folks, but some things are deeper than that.

Uma is the strategist of the two of us and he helped jump the review queue on this book, with his 'Cliff Notes'.

Although it took him some time to read it, he said he savored every page he read. Here is what he had to say about the book, in his own words.

Red Teaming: How Your Business Can Conquer the Competition by Challenging Everything

Bryce G. Hoffman.

By guest reviewer, R. Umashankar, Senior Planner, UCR

"When I first picked up this book, I had no notion of what red teaming was. Having an intimate understanding of large public higher-ed. institutions that are often times steeped in culture, tradition, hierarchy, entitlement, and a systemic resistance to change or challenging the status-quo, where the contrarian view, especially in the administration and operations fronts are perceived as an inconvenience, I am convinced that red teaming needs to be a critical tool to institute positive change, to sustain and to remain relevant, let alone grow.

While the book initially focuses on military applications, followed by corporate examples, the concepts put forward, and methodology for implementing red teaming have broader applications in many types of organizations, especially in this era of disruptors, who have challenged us and changed our lives on so many fronts. I would, without doubt, make this book a required reading for my team."

Disclaimer: I received this book from Blogging for Books for a review. The review is unbiased.