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Group dynamics, teamwork and leadership styles are complex interacting areas; but this book, purposely and successfully written as a quick-reader for all team members conveys the current thinking of these best-selling authors in an easily understandable and applicable form. Blanchard et al. mange to reduce the complexities to key points and make them relevant most directly, to business contexts. The conversational style of the book is written with regard to business projects and the key points and informative charts (though drawn from right to left, which seems rather odd for a mainly Western audience) convey the message well for such contexts.
The success of the book rests a good deal on its simplification of the subject matter, and omission of relevant concerns. The most notable to me was the exclusion of issues concerning influences of other 'roles' in group situations, aside from group leader. This topic was only briefly touched upon in relation to the stage of 'dissatisfaction' and the negative roles that are often developed. It would have been interesting to acknowledge the effect of various group-member roles at each of the four stages of group dynamics, and consider the position of group leader in relation to these.
Another area of further interest again reflects on the mainly Western audience. The issue of how people who have been taught to value individualism, self achievement, and personal self esteem, often to a greater extent than team-work, adapt to the values of working as a key member of a high performing team, is of much interest here. The skills and values developed in individualism are not necessarily the antithesis of those required for team building, as this text indicates; but the utilization and adaptation of such skills is certainly of relevance to building high performance teams.
In summary, this book is a great read if you need a quick overview of current thinking regarding the practicalities of teamwork and groups. If you want to understand more about such processes and practices, you'll only be starting here.
Yet when teams gets started, they often work less well than an individual. What's needed to get from here to there? That's what this book is all about.
A common problem is putting a team together, giving them a task, and waiting for the good results. That won't work. People have to have the right skills, knowledge, information, tools, and attitude to perform. That includes experience with working together on teams. For example, if you put a bunch of Internet-oriented people together on a team to play basketball against the Lakers, the results might not be too good for your new team. Bill Jenson's book, Simplicity, is a good resource on this point, as well.
This book does a good job of showing you how you can help the green team become the great team. If you want to enjoy more success in your enterprise, this book is essential reading.
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