People are happiest and most productive if they can choose what they work on and who they work with. Self-selecting teams give people that choice. Build well-designed and efficient teams to get the most out of your organization, with step-by-step instructions on how to set up teams quickly and efficiently. You'll create a process that works for you, whether you need to form teams from scratch, improve the design of existing teams, or are on the verge of a big team re-shuffle. Discover how New Zealand's biggest e-commerce company completely restructured their business through Self-Selection. In the process, find out how to create high-performing groups by letting people self-organize into small, cross-functional teams. Step-by-step guides, easy-to-follow diagrams, practical examples, checklists, and tools will enable you to run a Self-Selection process within your organization. If you're a manager who wants to structure your organization into small teams, you'll discover why Self-Selection is the fastest and safest way to do so. You'll prepare for and organize a Self-Selection event and make sure your Self-Selection participants and fellow managers are on board and ready. If you're a team member, you'll discover what it feels like to be part of a Self-Selection process and what the consequences are for your daily work. You'll learn how to influence your colleagues and bosses to be open to the idea of Self-Selection. You'll provide your manager with a plan for how to facilitate a Self-Selection event, and with evidence that the system works. If you're feeling the pain and chaos of adding new people to your organization, or just want to ensure that your teams have the right people with the right skills, Self-Selection will help you create the effective teams you need.

Teams are critical to the success of every organization. Departmental, interdepartmental, cross-functional, ad hoc, task-specific—teams do everything from planning the office party to setting the annual budget to establishing performance goals. But what separates the teams that really deliver from the ones that simply spin their wheels? What is the secret of high-performance teams? As he did in The Secret, Mark Miller uses a compelling business fable to reveal profound yet easily grasped truths that can dramatically transform any organization. Debbie Brewster, the heroine of The Secret, has been promoted and is now struggling with taking her new team to the next level. Her old mentor, Jeff Brown, the company’s CEO, sends her out to find the secret of teams. On her journey she learns from three very different teams—the Special Forces, NASCAR, and a local restaurant. Debbie and her team discover the three elements that all successful teams have in common. But that’s just the beginning. The devil is in the details, as the story of Debbie’s efforts to actually implement the three elements shows. You’ll learn how to change entrenched ways of thinking and acting, what you have to do to optimize each of the three elements of a successful team, how to measure your progress, and more. Creating high-performance teams does more than just give your organization a competitive advantage. It can be a performance multiplier that significantly improves results while honoring and developing people. It may be the ultimate win-win-win that your organization is seeking.

What makes a team great? Not just good and not just functional—but great? Over six years, long-time Sports Illustrated editor Don Yaeger was invited by some of the greatest companies in the world to speak about the habits of high-performing individuals. From Microsoft and Starbucks to the New England Patriots and San Antonio Spurs, what do some organizations do seemingly better than most of their opponents? Don took the challenge. He began building into his travel schedule opportunities to interview our generation’s greatest team builders from the sports and business worlds. During this process, he conducted more than 100 interviews with some of the most successful teams and organizations in the country. From those interviews, Don identified 16 habits that drive these high-performing teams. Building on the stories, examples, and first-hand accounts, each chapter in Great Teams comes with applicable examples on how to apply these characteristics in any organization. Great Teams includes: Life lessons from some of the most notable names in sports and business applied to team-making in any situation Interviews from well-known players from Peyton and Eli Manning to Kevin Durant Skills to allow culture to shape who you recruit, manage dysfunction, friction, and strong personalities Advice on how to win in critical situations, embrace change, build a mentoring culture, and see value others miss Great Teams is the ultimate intersection of the sports and business worlds and a powerful companion for thought leaders, teams, managers, and organizations that seek to perform similarly. The insight shared in this book is sure to enhance any team in its pursuit of excellence.

A book about teams to help teams become more positive, united and connected. Worldwide bestseller — the author of The Energy Bus and The Power of Positive Leadership shares the proven principles and practices that build great teams - and provides practical tools to help teams overcome negativity and enhance their culture, communication, connection, commitment and performance. Jon Gordon doesn’t just research the keys to great teams, he has personally worked with some of the most successful teams on the planet and has a keen understanding of how and why they became great. In The Power of a Positive Team, Jon draws upon his unique team building experience as well as conversations with some of the greatest teams in history in order to provide an essential framework, filled with proven practices, to empower teams to work together more effectively and achieve superior results. Utilizing examples from the writing team who created the hit show Billions, the National Champion Clemson Football team, the World Series contending Los Angeles Dodgers, The Miami Heat and the greatest beach volleyball team of all time to Navy SEAL’s, Marching bands, Southwest Airlines, USC and UVA Tennis, Twitter, Apple and Ford, Jon shares innovative strategies to transform a group of individuals into a united, positive and powerful team. Jon not only infuses this book with the latest research, compelling stories, and strategies to maintain optimism through adversity… he also shares his best practices to transform negativity, build trust (through his favorite team building exercises) and practical ways to have difficult conversations—all designed to make a team more positive, cohesive, stronger and better. The Power of a Positive Team also provides a blueprint for addressing common pitfalls that cause teams to fail—including complaining, selfishness, inconsistency, complacency, unaccountability—while offering solutions to enhance a team’s creativity, grit, innovation and growth. This book is meant for teams to read together. It’s written in such a way that if you and your team read it together, you will understand the obstacles you will face and what you must do to become a great team. If you read it together, stay positive together, and take action together you will accomplish amazing things TOGETHER.

Creating Effective Teams: A Guide for Members and Leaders, 3rd Edition is a practical guide for building and sustaining top performing teams. Based on the author’s many years of consulting experience with teams in the public and private sector, the Third Edition describes why teams are important, how they function, and what makes them productive. The author clearly illustrates the developmental nature of teams and describes what happens in each stage. Separate chapters are devoted to the responsibilities of team leaders and team members. Problems that occur frequently in groups are highlighted, followed by what-you-can-do sections that offer specific advice. Real-life examples and questionnaires are used throughout the book, giving readers the opportunity for self-evaluation. New to the Third Edition: Discussions of diversity within teams havebeen added throughout the text, focusing on how different ethnic or cultural groups may have differing perceptions of group interactions. Also provided will be specific strategies for ensuring that groups are respectful of these different beliefs while still being as effective as possible. References to the research the text is based on will be added, giving readers the theoretical and research background for the practical, application-based material in the text. More real-life examples and problem-solving skills will be added, including step-by-step directions for becoming a high-performing team. New checklists and self-evaluations will be added, building on those currently included in the text and providing even more information on what kind of leader or team member the reader is.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Talent Code unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups and provides tomorrow’s leaders with the tools to build a cohesive, motivated culture. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG AND LIBRARY JOURNAL Where does great culture come from? How do you build and sustain it in your group, or strengthen a culture that needs fixing? In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle goes inside some of the world’s most successful organizations—including the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six, IDEO, and the San Antonio Spurs—and reveals what makes them tick. He demystifies the culture-building process by identifying three key skills that generate cohesion and cooperation, and explains how diverse groups learn to function with a single mind. Drawing on examples that range from Internet retailer Zappos to the comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade to a daring gang of jewel thieves, Coyle offers specific strategies that trigger learning, spark collaboration, build trust, and drive positive change. Coyle unearths helpful stories of failure that illustrate what not to do, troubleshoots common pitfalls, and shares advice about reforming a toxic culture. Combining leading-edge science, on-the-ground insights from world-class leaders, and practical ideas for action, The Culture Code offers a roadmap for creating an environment where innovation flourishes, problems get solved, and expectations are exceeded. Culture is not something you are—it’s something you do. The Culture Code puts the power in your hands. No matter the size of your group or your goal, this book can teach you the principles of cultural chemistry that transform individuals into teams that can accomplish amazing things together. Praise for The Culture Code “I’ve been waiting years for someone to write this book—I’ve built it up in my mind into something extraordinary. But it is even better than I imagined. Daniel Coyle has produced a truly brilliant, mesmerizing read that demystifies the magic of great groups. It blows all other books on culture right out of the water.”—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Option B, Originals, and Give and Take “If you want to understand how successful groups work—the signals they transmit, the language they speak, the cues that foster creativity—you won’t find a more essential guide than The Culture Code.”—Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better

"Great teams are comprised of ordinary people that are empowered and inspired. They are empowered to solve hard problems in ways their customers love yet work for their business. They are inspired with ideas and techniques for quickly evaluating those ideas to discover solutions that work: they are valuable, usable, feasible and viable. This book is about the idea and reality of "achieving extraordinary results from ordinary people". Empowered is the companion to Inspired. It addresses the other half of the problem of building tech products?how to get the absolute best work from your product teams. However, the book's message applies much more broadly than just to product teams. Inspired was aimed at product managers. Empowered is aimed at all levels of technology-powered organizations: founders and CEO's, leaders of product, technology and design, and the countless product managers, product designers and engineers that comprise the teams. This book will not just inspire companies to empower their employees but will teach them how. This book will help readers achieve the benefits of truly empowered teams"--

An organization’s fate hinges on its CEO—right? Not according to the authors of Senior Leadership Teams. They argue that in today's world of neck-snapping change, demands on leaders in top roles are rapidly outdistancing the capabilities of any one person - no matter how talented. Result? Chief executives are turning to their enterprise's senior leaders for help. Yet many CEOs stumble when creating a leadership team. One major challenge is that senior executives often focus more on their individual roles than on the top team's shared work. Without the CEO's careful attention to setting the team up correctly, these high-powered managers often have difficulty pulling together to move their organization forward. Sometimes they don't even agree about what constitutes the right path forward. The authors explain how to determine whether your organization needs a senior leadership team. Then, drawing on their study of 100+ top teams from around the world, they explain how to create a clear and compelling purpose for your team, get the right people on it, provide structure and support, and sharpen team members' competencies - and your own. Timely and practical, this book enables you to create and sustain a leadership team whose members learn from one another while collaborating to pursue your company's objectives.

Teamwork makes the dream work. Or not. Human beings are wired to form connections, but that doesn't mean that they are naturally equipped for teamwork. Too many people find that working with others makes them miserable, wastes their time and makes them feel like kicking the dog at the end of the day. What Great Teams Do Great is a practical guide to activating the power of choice and the right team processes that create excitement, shared mission, trust and collaboration to achieve bold objectives (and have fun along the way).

WINNER of Computing Reviews 20th Annual Best Review in the category Management “Tyler’s book is concise, reasonable, and full of interesting practices, including some curious ones you might consider adopting yourself if you become a software engineering manager.” —Fernando Berzal, CR, 10/23/2015 “Josh Tyler crafts a concise, no-nonsense, intensely focused guide for building the workhouse of Silicon Valley—the high-functioning software team.” —Gordon Rios, Summer Book Recommendations from the Smartest People We Know—Summer 2016 Building Great Software Engineering Teams provides engineering leaders, startup founders, and CTOs concrete, industry-proven guidance and techniques for recruiting, hiring, and managing software engineers in a fast-paced, competitive environment. With so much at stake, the challenge of scaling up a team can be intimidating. Engineering leaders in growing companies of all sizes need to know how to find great candidates, create effective interviewing and hiring processes, bring out the best in people and their work, provide meaningful career development, learn to spot warning signs in their team, and manage their people for long-term success. Author Josh Tyler has spent nearly a decade building teams in high-growth startups, experimenting with every aspect of the task to see what works best. He draws on this experience to outline specific, detailed solutions augmented by instructive stories from his own experience. In this book you’ll learn how to build your team, starting with your first hire and continuing through the stages of development as you manage your team for growth and success. Organized to cover each step of the process in the order you’ll likely face them, and highlighted by stories of success and failure, it provides an easy-to-understand recipe for creating your high-powered engineering team.