Catching Lightning in a Bottle

About the Book

The first comprehensive framework for building high-performing global teams in the age of distributed work and AI.

Why Some Teams Achieve Breakthrough Performance While Most Never Escape Mediocrity

Every leader has felt it: that rare, electric moment when a team transcends the sum of its parts. When deadlines become adventures. When conflict sharpens ideas instead of fracturing relationships. When people scattered across continents and time zones operate like a single, synchronized organism. It feels like magic. It feels impossible to replicate.

It's not.

Catching Lightning in a Bottle reveals why some teams achieve breakthrough performance while most never escape mediocrity — and provides the first comprehensive framework for building, sustaining, and scaling high-performing global teams in an era of distributed work, cultural complexity, and AI transformation.

Drawing from 30+ years leading global technology teams across six countries and four continents, Tuong Do takes readers inside the room where a nine-person team at The Hershey Company scaled to twenty-seven while delivering $150 million in business value — and then shows exactly how that lightning can be caught, bottled, and replicated.

This is not a book of aspirational platitudes. Every framework is anchored in real stories from real teams: Google's Project Aristotle, the New Zealand All Blacks, Pixar's creative trust systems, NASA's Apollo 13 crisis partnership, Toyota's kaizen culture, and dozens more.

Chapter Structure

10 chapters across four parts — following the full lifecycle of building a great team.

The Four Core Frameworks

⚡ The Five Lightning Markers

Five observable characteristics that distinguish truly exceptional teams from merely functional ones. They appear in every high-performing team studied across three decades.

  • Vulnerability-Based Trust — Willingness to be wrong, ask for help, admit mistakes
  • Truth-Seeking Conflict — Fierce debates about ideas, not people
  • North Star Purpose — Everyone can articulate why their work matters
  • Distributed Authority — Decisions pushed to the people closest to the work
  • Collective Ownership — No individual heroes; team wins and learns together

💥 The Five Fragmentation Forces

The relentless pressures that pull teams apart. These forces are always present and must be actively fought against.

  • Ego — "My contribution matters more than yours"
  • Silos — "Not my department"
  • Short-Termism — "Ship now, fix culture later"
  • Synchronous Addiction — The meeting industrial complex
  • The Hero Myth — "We just need the right leader"

🪛 The Leyden Jar Model

A framework for institutionalizing team excellence through specific, deliberately constructed components.

  • Glass (Systems) — Strong enough to withstand pressure, transparent enough to see what's working
  • Conductor (Trust) — The pathway allowing energy to flow without resistance
  • Seal (Culture) — Values and behaviors that prevent lightning from leaking out
  • Three Hands (L-M-IC) — The partnership that holds the bottle steady

🚀 The 90-Day Lightning Plan

A concrete action plan to begin building your high-performing team starting Monday morning.

  • Days 1–30 — Diagnose current state using Lightning Markers and Fragmentation Forces
  • Days 31–60 — Strengthen one Lightning Marker; address the most destructive Fragmentation Force
  • Days 61–90 — Establish systems, rituals, and norms that will outlast you

If You Loved These Books...

Catching Lightning in a Bottle combines their strengths while addressing the post-2020 reality none of them fully cover.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Patrick Lencioni

The Culture Code

Daniel Coyle

Team of Teams

Gen. Stanley McChrystal

Radical Candor

Kim Scott

Multipliers

Liz Wiseman

The Fearless Organization

Amy Edmondson

Ready to Catch Lightning?

The manuscript is complete and available upon request. For agents, publishers, and media inquiries:

Request a Copy Get the Toolkit