This thesis extracts organizational lessons from the U.S. Army's Human Terrain Teams. In the past, the Human Terrain Teams have been the topic of various debates, but none discussed their performance. Studying what influences how Human Terrain Teams perform is important to the National Security System to improve its use of socio-cultural knowledge during conflicts. A contextual narrative of team members formally involved with Human Terrain Teams and information from journalistic articles tells the story of what organizational characteristics affected the performance of the U.S. Army's Human Terrain Teams. / Master of Arts