Amazon.com

Once again using an astutely written fictional tale to unambiguously but painlessly deliver some hard truths about critical business procedures, Patrick Lencioni targets group behavior in the final entry of his trilogy of corporate fables. And like those preceding it, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is an entertaining, quick read filled with useful information that will prove easy to digest and implement. This time, Lencioni weaves his lessons around the story of a troubled Silicon Valley firm and its unexpected choice for a new CEO: an old-school manager who had retired from a traditional manufacturing company two years earlier at age 55. Showing exactly how existing personnel failed to function as a unit, and precisely how the new boss worked to reestablish that essential conduct, the book's first part colorfully illustrates the ways that teamwork can elude even the most dedicated individuals--and be restored by an insightful leader. A second part offers details on Lencioni's "five dysfunctions" (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results), along with a questionnaire for readers to use in evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome these common shortcomings. Like the author's previous books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, this is highly recommended. --Howard Rothman ... Read more

Reviews (51)

Help for Dysfunctional Teams
Patrick Lencioni has written an exceptionally interesting fable on optimal team performance. He has prescribed guidelines for team success and applied them in an interesting, easy to read story with a twist. He has defined easy to follow principles that with practice can lead any group or team, large or small to be great.
The book begins with a story of a potentially great company with a dysfunctional executive staff. Even though this company assembled some of the best executives and attracted top tier investors (compared to their closest competitors), the company was on a downslide. Morale was slipping and key employees were leaving. The CEO (and co-founder) was relieved of his title by the board and the search for his successor began.
This company, Decision Tech, was a high profile, two years old company with much at stake. The chairman of the board pushed for hiring Kathryn, an ancient fifty-seven years old by Silicon Valley standards. Employees and the executive staff were stunned with the news of the new hire.
The story develops by weaving Lencioni's team dysfunctions into its web. The fable is enticing and not typical of your "how to produce" guidelines book. The author keeps your interest while at the same time introducing and teaching his methods.
At the end of the story, Mr. Lencioni reviews all levels of team dysfunctions and summarizes and reiterates each. Therefore reinforcing his principles and eliminating confusion.
This is the first book I have read by this author. I found it entertaining, yet very informative. I enjoyed the novel format while receiving important informational steps for success in a team or group.
I would highly recommend this book to any person or group seeking to improve or turn around the team in which they belong. It would be a great tool for corporate teams or even the local high school basketball team. All teams would greatly benefit from Mr. Lencioni's advice.

Insight Made Easy
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni attracts and captures your attention with his intriguing business story. Before going into thorough details of the five dysfunctions, Lencioni tells the story of a fictitious executive team working to revive a technology company near Silicone Valley. The characters are as realistic as can be and extremely easy to relate to. The story is quite simple to understand and keeps a quick pace. Typically, I have found educational books to drag on and only share stories that few people could relate with. However, this book leads readers through a reasonable, professional journey. The dysfunctions are practical and truthful. Often teams and groups feel that they have all of the possible resources necessary in attaining and mastering their goals, when in fact, they have a plethora of various hidden problems holding them back. Lencioni breaks apart each of these difficulties and explains how it will deny the team of their full potential. I felt that Lencioni's method of applying knowledge prior to teaching a lesson was much more effective than the traditional method of teaching then applying. When the author is finally "teaching" the lessons towards the end of the book, it seems as if you have already learned the information. Patrick Lencioni also provides a useful team assessment and a thoroughly detailed model of the dysfunctions. Insightful suggestions on overcoming the dysfunctions are included as well. Overall, this short, quick book is packed full of invaluable knowledge that can be applied to teams at all levels.

Highly Recmmended!
Patrick Lencioni offers a satisfactory fable about an executive wrestling to take hold of a company and create a smoothly functioning executive team. The narrative moves right along as he addresses the problem of feckless teamwork with the fictitious Decision Tech company as a test case. The novel is interesting, and you can read through it easily, getting to know the characters and participating in their business decisions. However, if you just want to learn about better teamwork quickly and leave, skim to the final chapters. Here, the author outlines a detailed model for diagnosing the five dysfunctions of a team and provides exercises and techniques to ameliorate those dysfunctions. The advice is complete and concrete. We recommend the meat and potatoes diagnosis and solutions as well as the cake and ice cream story, but how much narrative you want to read may depend on what shape your team is in when you start, as well as on your taste for tales.

Things to look for and fix on teams at all levels
This book is great because the simple narrative makes the 5 different disfunctions more concrete by showing exactly how they can manifest in a team. These are common issues not only executive-level teams, but also teams of lower-level folks like myself, working on individual features of a product. Some of the higher-level concepts like understanding what your 'first team' are a little bit less relevant, but most of the book is still very pertinent and easy to directly apply.

The worksheets and exercises he has in the back are also great, no-nonsense ways to bring your team back on track. The only things I might've liked to see are some more information around what can go wrong when you try to "correct" the particular issues and maybe some more concrete details on what it means to be a leader by his definition. It's a bit vauge in places and seems to be more a matter of reporting structure than technical / feature leadership (i.e. a team of all true peers but where one person is the technical / business expert), though he works to call out some of the details at the end.

Inspirational
According to Lencioni, "the ultimate test of a great team is results," and in this fable told in the style of similar books, such as The Goal, and The Present, the author discusses how to build and profit from teams. This book is not about teamwork, so much as the deliberate creation of teams to analyze and resolve problems within an organization. The book is highly readable and informative for any executive aspiring to learn about teams or share an inspirational book with his or her workforce.

Lencioni identifies 5 reasons teams fail: lack of commitment, failure to embrace conflict, lack of results focus, lack of accountability, and lack of trust. The author concludes his book and his philosophy with the statement success is a matter of "embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence."

Read this book and share it with your fellow employees. I would also recommend you read Goldratt's book The Goal (ISBN: 0884270610) in conjunction with this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Facilitating with Ease! is an updated version of the best-selling resource that offers easy-to-follow instructions, techniques, and hands-on tools that team leaders, consultants, supervisors, and managers have used to learn the basics of facilitation. Complete with worksheets on CD-ROM that can be customized to fit your personal needs, it's a complete facilitation workshop in a take-home format. Facilitating with Ease! shows you how to run productive meetings with skill and authority and includes the information needed to train others in your organization to become confident facilitators as well. The book is filled with dozens of exercises, surveys, and checklists that can be used to transform anyone into an effective facilitator. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

COMPREHENSIVE, CLEAR AND CONCISE.
Details core facilitation tools and techniques. Chapters cover: understanding facilitation; facilitation stages; assessing and understanding participants; creating participation; effective decision making; facilitating conflict; meeting management; process tools for facilitators (e.g., visioning, exit surveys, brainstorming) and process designs. This is a well organized 'soup to nuts' reference including worksheets on CD-ROM that can be customized. Comprehensive, clear, and concise.

Insightful!
Companies that embrace work teams quickly discover a basic truth: More teams mean more meetings. Management experts laud the benefits of enlightened teamwork, but they spend much less time dwelling on the often long, sometimes pointless and nearly always inefficient meetings that teams breed. With teams fast becoming a fixture in the corporate world, meeting management, or facilitation, is becoming a critical skill for anyone with executive ambitions. Author Ingrid Bens' definition of a facilitator is quite specific - someone who guides a meeting without actually participating in discussion or decision making - but her book is filled with practical advice that any professional can apply when running a meeting. A host of charts, examples and worksheets (not to mention the accompanying CD) help illustrate her process for steering meetings without controlling or directing the outcome. We [...] recommend this hands-on how-to guide to anyone motivated to minimize the waste of meeting-creep.

Facilitating With Ease!
I have had the privilege of participating in workshops taught by Ingrid Bens: this is like having her in your own training room!The information in this book is both relevant and concise.I use the book to lead my facilitation team through all of their group dynamics training.The CD-ROM allows me the freedom to customize the worksheets to meet our needs. This is a great book that I highly recommend to all individuals who work in teams, lead meetings, or need assistance in group dynamics

From one facilitator to another...
As a failitator of a process using storyboards, I am always looking for new twists on facilitation in general. As a compact, to the point resource on facilitation and basic meeting management, I think Ingrid's is at thetop of the list. While, like any such work, you truly gain the value whenyou attend a workshop, this book is worth the price in things anyone canadapt and use in any organization. You can never become "goodenough" at facilitation and I am glad someone referred me to thisbook. Two thumbs up......Oh, and one other nice thing. Everything in hereis to-the-point instruction - no big ego trips with the author's namedropped into war story after war story... ... Read more

Book Description

107 interactive games and activities can be found in the pages of this easy-to-use book. Each game is fun, experiential, easy to lead, unique, and requires minimal resources. With 65 team challenges and 42 activities that help any team get to know one another, become comfortable with each other, and open up, there is something for every group.

If you work with youth, corporate groups, therapy groups, church groups, scouts, families, school groups, sports teams, at camp, or with any other group who must work together you will find helpful games and activities in this fun, energetic, and purposeful book! ... Read more

Reviews (11)

The best I've seen.
This book was exactly what I was looking for to build teams with my middle schoolers. Many activities would also be useful with high schoolers or adults. I have a lot of the traditional games and team building activity books, but none were as well arranged or easy to use. Activities that use few or no props or items that are easy to find are what work best for me! This book is full of them!

Team-Building Games
What a great book! I am a high school teacher, and I'm not only trying to teach my students about literature and grammar, but also about teamwork, cooperation, and communication skills. This book has lots of activities that are divided into 4 levels from learning peoples' names to really opening up and sharing personal stuff. The instructions are easy to understand, and most require little preparation and supplies that you usually have around (pens, paper, tape, chairs, etc.) The book is well-organized beyond the 4 activity levels as well; for each game, the author clearly states the objective, the needed materials, instructions, and variations on the activities. For the second two levels, she also includes excellent discussion questions. It seems to me that these activities would really work with ANY group. Well worth the investment.

Pretty Good stuff!
Good book with good activities. Some are more involved than others and require some hefty prep and set up (if that's a problem, check out Miller's Quick Teambuilding Activities book, it's similar, but only has short, quick activities for when you are on a time crunch). I especially liked the writing format here, easy to skim the activities and quickly grasp the essense so you can decide if this is the one you wanna use!

Great for Boy Scout Junior Leadership Training!
I purchased this book to supplement the team building games provided by BSA. I was extremely pleased with the games that are offered in this book. We decided to try "Cup Stack" at one of our first training sessions, and since then it has become a staple game for us. The variety of games available has enabled us to create a completely new variation of Junior Leader Training every time out. I have just ordered Alanna's second book to enhance our program even further.

Excellent
Not a bad book... it is easy to follow, very easily adapted to many different audiences and I cant wait to use it this summer. Activities are well organized and practical.

I am so pleased with this book, I am going to order more by Alanna Jones. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Organizational guru Ken Blanchard has long had a knack for writing management books that are easy and fun to read (The One Minute Manager, plus 11 other bestsellers). Now, in his latest, he becomes (with the help of three coauthors) something of a novelist, relating the saga of the Riverbend Warriors, a come-from-behind boys' hockey team, to teach a broader lesson about the importance of, and the key dynamics behind, good teamwork in organizations of every sort.

High Five! starts with otherwise exemplary exec Alan Foster losing his job because--you guessed it--he isn't a team player. Unemployed, bored, and demoralized, he decides to coach his fifth-grade son's failing hockey team into better shape. But it's not until he enlists the help of Miss Weatherby, an aging African-American retired teacher and champion girls' basketball coach that things really start to turn around. As we follow the struggle of the increasingly well-oiled Warriors machine as they drill, strategize, and bond their way through the season, we learn some of the fundamental lessons of what makes good teams--and good team-building by coaches and managers. Among them are "repeated reward and repetition," the guiding notion that "none of us is as smart as all of us," and four key traits that shall here remain undisclosed (hint: their acronym spells PUCK).

As fiction goes, don't expect high literature here. But to its credit, the book's ending isn't 100 percent happy, either. If you worry that the aged but whip-smart Weatherby might die at the end, don't--instead, she becomes perhaps the world's first octogenarian, black female management consultant. As books on teamwork go, Blanchard's latest is on the lighter side, but it still packs a fair share of commonsense wisdom when it comes to putting together, motivating, and sustaining work teams worthy of the Stanley Cup. And it may even have inaugurated a new fiction genre: the organizational tearjerker. --Timothy Murphy ... Read more

Reviews (28)

I'm a Raving Fan for High Five
Typical. That may be the best word to describe Ken Blanchard's recent book, High Five. It's typically written and, as typical for Blanchard, easy to comprehend the point he is trying to make. The story is one of a displaced (fired) Alan Foster, a great performer but horrible team member. Foster has the incorrect notion that individual production is more important than company performance. Too often, people in business and sports begin to believe their production is essential to the team when in fact there production is breaking down the team. High Five takes you into the concept of teamwork with a look at Alan Foster's fifth grade son and his hockey team. They are the cellar dwellers and with good reason...no teamwork. With the help of an aged woman and a bit of introspection, Foster helps turn a band of underachievers into a team worthy of a championship. As a coach of elementary-aged students and a manager of people, High Five is a helpful, instructional tale that will benefit me greatly in both roles. There's a reason for the terms "team sports" and "sports teams". Football, basketball, hockey, baseball, soccer...they are all driven by a team. Michael Jordan is a great example of a star who shined the brightest when he adapted his individual talents to the goals and values of the team. This same concept works in your company, in your department and in your office. To beat the competition, it takes everyone working together...as a team. Ken Blanchard continues to underwhelm me with his style and overwhelm me with his message. You'll be a Raving Fan for teamwork when you read High Five.

High Five Ho-Hum
The management principles illustrated in this book are sound but could be more effectively displayed on a poster.Blanchard lists basic principles that have been the staple of many management books in the past decade: hire good people, define goals, provide the tools staff need, encourage teamwork, and reward achievement. Knowing what needs to be done is not the problem; knowing how to implement the principles is the challenge, and it's precisely that challenge that Blanchard ducks. My impression was that the book was not carefully written or researched. Take, for instance, the scene in which member of the boys' hockey team is rushed to the hospital with a closed head injury. The boy is unconscious, and Blanchard has an EMT administer codeine "so he won't wake up and thrash around." Sorry, Ken -- but how long the victim of a head injury is unconscious is a key diagnostic tool. Sedatives that prolong unconsciousness or supress the respiratory system would not be administered in an ambulance. This gaffe made me wonder how much care the author took with other information -- and whether or not the physician-author of "Who Moved My Cheese?" read the book carefully before writing his glowing endorsement. All in all, a disappointing work.

Sounds Good In Theory
I would love to go to work everyday as a member of a high performing team. The book has good ideas in theory, but it seems next to impossible to actually make them work. The real reason behind the book though is the fact that people will get farther when working together. I think that is what all the parable books are trying to tell us, to look at things from a different perspective.

Also check out the book Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey, it will show you how to look at the rat race fom a whole new angle -- what do you want in return for running the race?

Motivating quick read
This is a great book to share with your team members to inspire them and to help them learn how to work together more effectively. It's easy to read and will lead to great conversations.

Sounds good in theory
I would love to go to work everyday as a member of a high performing team. The book has good ideas in theory, but it seems next to impossible to actually make them work. The real reason behind the book though is the fact that people will get farther when working together. I think that is what all the parable books are trying to tell us, to look at things from a different perspective. Also check out the book Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey, it will show you how to look at the rat race fom a whole new angle -- what do you want in return for running the race? ... Read more

Amazon.com

The key to building a superior company, an increasing number of observers now agree, is the ongoing ability to recruit and retain superior personnel. In Topgrading, industrial psychologist and global consultant Bradford Smart expands upon this idea by examining in great detail exactly how today's premier organizations have assembled such top-level employees, and then showing precisely how others can do it, too. "Simply put, topgrading is the practice of packing the team with A players and clearing out the C players," Smart writes. "'A players' is defined as the top 10 percent of talent available at all salary levels--best of class. With this radical definition, you are not a topgrader until your team consists of all A players. Period." Essentially a best-practices manual for developing this outstanding personnel pool, the book is based on more than 4,000 interviews and case studies conducted by Smart at major corporations like General Electric as well as fast-growing high-tech companies and small family-owned firms. He further bolsters its effectiveness by including his extensive "Chronological In-Depth Structured Interview Guide," along with other assessment tools and hands-on strategies for assembling an ideal work team. --Howard Rothman ... Read more

Reviews (33)

Manage an Organization as Nature Would ...
... with the neither malice nor pity.That's the gist of this excellent book, and it's not offensive to the concept of human dignity.To the contrary, Dr. Smart notes that "A players" can (and should) exist at every level.Every CEO, every acountant, every sales rep, and every Wal-Mart greeter should be best in class -- and they should be required to stay competitive in their skills.That's not ruthless.That's natural.But this book goes one step farther, making the compelling case that -- left to their own devices -- the "C players" in any organization will destroy value over time, whether they intend to or not.Accordingly, Topgrading is essential.

Very interested, until...
After reading the reviews of this book, I wanted it...but there's one hesitation.

One company the marketers of the book hold up as an example of why the author's work is effective is GE. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many I've spoken with in my world, GE's products are not superior...so this makes me wonder

The Best Book on this Topic in 21 Years
I have been a professional recruiter for over 21 years.Topgrading is the best book that I have read on the topic of selecting impact performers.This book is a valuable read for both hiring managers and candidates.The appendix is worth the price of the book by itself.

I have recommended this book to my clients on my recruiting contracts because many have never been taught how to conduct a structured interview.Consequently, they tend to ask one set of questions to one candidate and another set of questions to another candidate for the same job.How will they be able to compare the two candidates?Brad Smart gives them a nice track to run on.

My only major difficulty with the book is the amount of time between the initial interview and the final interview a month later.In my experience as a professional recruiter, that is too long between interviews.In recruitment, time is your enemy.There are too many companies who are searching for A Players.You could lose an A Player easily within a month to another, more efficient company.As our economy moves from the Baby Boomers as the primary workforce to the Gen X'ers, we are about to experience a shortage of workers.If you wait too long to extend an offer, the Recruiterguy will get them!

On the other hand, Brad's reference checking information is so valuable that I have been teaching my clients to use it.I agree with him that it is important for the hiring manager to conduct the reference checks.It's simple psychology.If I call the manager of a candidate and identify myself as a recruiter, the former manager will give me some information about the candidate.However, their perception is that I am not their peer (unless they know me from a previous relationship).However, if the hiring manager calls the former manager, they are peers and the information given and received will be much more valuable.

The 50 manager competencies listed in the appendix are great tools for developing a structured interview and Job Description.They are also valuable for candidates who need to prepare for interviews by giving examples of their competencies.

Is Topgrading perfect for every interviewing situation?There probably isn't a perfect book.However, this one is easy to read.Take the valuable information that he offers on the interviewing process, the reference checks, and coaching (and protecting) A Players and you will be way ahead of most hiring managers.

If you are a candidate searching for your next job, Topgrading is a must read for you.He asks some tough questions.Some people may be offended.However, I agree with his points.Use the sample competencies in the appendix to strengthen your interviewing skills.

Pick up the book. You will benefit from reading it.

Billy Strayhorn was right: "Take the A Train"
Smart formulated what he calls the Chronological In-Depth Structured (CIDS) interview approach. After studying 4,000 managers in relation to (on average) ten different jobs per manager, he arrived at a number of conclusions. They serve as the core material of this book in which he explains how both companies and individuals can gain and then hold a competitive advantage which Peter Drucker identifies as follows: "The ability to make good decisions regarding people represents one of the last reliable sources of competitive advantage, since very few organizations are very good at it." As Smart carefully explains, topgrading is the practice of packing any team with A players and clearing out the C players. "A player [italics] is defined as the top 10 percent of talent available at all salary levels -- best of class. With this radical definition, you are not a topgrader until your team consists of all A players [last three words in italics]. Period." Those who read this book and then apply the principles, strategies, and tactics which Smart recommends will be well-prepared to (a) hire only A players or those almost certain to become one and (b) those who are or wish to become A players and need expert guidance to achieve that objective.

For me, the most stunning revelations in the book are found on page 50, in Figure 3.2, "Cost of Miss-Hire Study Results." According to the results of Smart's research study of more than 50 corporations, the sum of costs of a mis-hire (on average) are as follows:

Base salary Less than $100,000: 14 times salary

Base Salary $100,000-250,000: 28 times salary

All Salaries: 24 times salary

Now go back and re-read those statistics while keeping in mind that, for various reasons which Smart briefly explains, "the numbers are probably conservative." Organizing his material within two Parts (one for companies, another for individuals), Smart offers a cohesive and comprehensive narrative within which he includes all manner of graphic illustrations as well as a number of exercises and questionnaires which enable both those who hire and those who are candidates to understand what topgrading is, what the CIDS interview approach is and how to derive the greatest benefits from it.

Most important of all), Smart explains how to achieve what Jim Collins describes so well in his most recently published book: the good to companies "...first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats -- and then they figured out where to drive it. The old adage 'People are the most important asset' turned out to be wrong. People are not [italics] your most important asset. The right [italics] people are." Presumably Smart would agree that the right people share the same values and, together, sustain their organization's commitment to those values. If involved in their organization's recruiting and interviewing process, as they should be, they will help to ensure that the right people will be hired (i.e. allowed on the "bus"). Obviously it is important to get talent and task in proper alignment. It is equally important to keep an organization's values in proper alignment with its objective(s). Although Collins does not use the term, the good to great companies he discusses are all topgraders.

The reader will especially appreciate having the information provided by Smart in (count `em) seven appendices: CIDS Interview Guide, Career History Form, In-Depth Reference-Check Guide, Interview Feedback Form, Sample Competencies --Management, and Sample Competencies -- Wm. M. Mercer. Here in a single volume is about all anyone needs to know and have inorder to understand what topgrading is, how it works, and why it will probably be essential to those who hire as well as to those whom they consider.

Lest there be any misunderstanding by anyone reading this review, I want to point out that any organization (regardless of size or nature) can be a topgrader and that is even more important to smaller organizations with limited resources. Why? Because the cost of a miss-hire could be catastrophic, not only in terms of total compensation but also in terms of mistakes, failures, alienated customers, lost business, wasted opportunities, and disruption of the workplace. Some may respond, "I cannot afford to hire all A players even if I could find them!" On Smart's behalf, I presume to reply that no organization can afford NOT to hire only A players or those who, with proper development and supervision, can become A players.

The #1 source for world-class hiring and coaching processes
As an HR consultant and executive coach, Topgrading is my bible.It's taught me skills that have really worked to help clients hire nothing but A players and coach their B players to become As.I agree with the review in Recruiting Magazine Online that says, for those that hire people, this is the "most important book ever written."Needless to say, I give the book 5 stars! ... Read more

Book Description

As we enter a new millennium of leadership, the rules of the game have not only changed they are constantly changing. How can an organization hope to survive when the environment in which it is doing business is continually confronted by broadening competition, shorter product cycle times, old paradigm/new paradigm leadership questions, and an increasingly high premium on available time? The answer is surprisingly not about working more, harder, or faster. It is actually conveyed in the title of this book. The secret of a winning culture is the building of high-performance teams. Is that a secret? Probably not. The real secret this book reveals, then, is in how to make it happen.

The Secret of a Winning Culture: Building High-Performance Teams sets forth a proven series of principles and processes that ensures an organization's success when leaders change, mergers and acquisitions join cultures, change initiatives are introduced, and faster simply isn't enough. Putting these ideas into action unlocks the power of high performance teams, which in turn, produces high performance organizations.

The secret to building high-performance teams ultimately lies in the health of the organizational culture. Are people throughout the company feeling energized, motivated, able to grow personally and professionally? Or are they overstressed, overworked, focused solely on numbers and results?

This book outlines how to realize a set of healthy working principles for organizational change and life-effectiveness that both produces results and is inherently fulfilling. Change is not about to go away, which is why the message of The Secret of a Winning Culture: Building High-Performance Teams is so valuable —to ensure today's corporate cultures are still thriving tomorrow. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Practical, wise, comprehensive and infused with clear vision
This slim volume has packed so many practical and wise ideas, examples and tools gleaned from "20 years of consulting with hundreds of organizations and over 200,000 managers." It is worth repeated readings and reference. The authors have focused on the key components of building winning culture and high-performance teams. Many other approaches to management change fall short because they failed to integrate or align strategies, structures with culture. Different phases in reshaping the corporate culture are clearly explained and illustrated. There are many useful questions, measurement tools, quotes, lists of attributes, guiding behaviors for teamwork and tables of comparison. The listing of "Ineffectual Organizational Habits (old culture) in contrast to "High Performance Behaviors (desired culture) on p. 51, the "high-performance pyramid" chart on p. 136 and the table of "Transitions Toward Leadership in 21st Century" on p. 172 alone are already worth the price of the book. There is much more. For example: a quote from Jack Welch, CEO of GE, General Electric. "Our job is to provide a culture in which people can flourish and reach their dreams--in which they can be all they want to be." (p. 92)

Informative, recommended, groundbreaking reading.
The Secret Of A Winning Culture: Building High Performance Teams is a groundbreaking, practical study based on the management principles developed by the Senn-Delaney Leadership Consulting Group. Senn-Delaney Leadership's philosophy is based on a simple concept: culture and teamwork are everything. The character of the culture, how employees and managers perceive it and their roles within it, how the culture supports teamwork and reacts to change (whether occasioned by expansion, merger, acquisition, technological advances, fluctuations in domestic or global economies) are critical to a company's short-term and long-term success. The Secret Of A Winning Culture is a superbly written, "reader friendly" guide that is highly recommended for anyone aspiring to or charged with managerial responsibilities at any corporate level. ... Read more

Book Description

Every group can benefit from team-building exercises. But sometimes it's not practical to embark on a full-scale training initiative. Now,supervisors, managers, and team leaders have 50 team-building activities to choose from, all of which can be implemented with no special facilities, bigexpense, or previous training experience. Readers will find engaging exercises for:

* Building new teams and helping teams with new members * Dealing with change and its effects: anger, fear, frustration, and more * Recognizing individual efforts and team accomplishments * Finding creative ways to work together and solve problems * Increasing and improving communication * Leveraging diversity and individual differences to meet team goals * Keeping competition healthy and productive within the team

Instructions and tips for follow-up and variations are included for each activity, and an additional chapter provides valuable advice for working throughunexpected difficulties in team-building. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Affordable book, easy to do activities
For the money, this is one of the best activity books you will find. All of the activities are easy to set up and easy to complete -- but they do all serve a purpose. When the author says that these are 15 minute activities, he means it. I am an independent leadership consultant and I have started using this book over and over again when I present workshops. You'll love it!

Clear and concise with good ideas
Great resource...from the intro chapters that explain clearly and concisely how to run an activity as well as what could go wrong and how to avoid it (or deal with it), to the the 50 activities themselves. Everything is so clear and concise...the whole book is written in bullets. And none of the activities are so out there that you'd be afraid to try them. I've used several with my staff and we've all (even me!) had a great time and grown stronger together.

Great Reference for Today's Managers
This book brings together several mutually-supportive elements: managers with heavy, fast-moving schedules; team members who want to feel a greater sense of belonging; and an era that demands higher levels of collaboration....teamwork.

The book is organized into two parts. The first section is instructional; the second section consists of bullet-pointed presentations of fifty short easy-to-run exercises. The opening section has two chapters that are worth the price of the book all by themselves: How to Run a Successful Team-Building Activity and What Could Go Wrong with a Team-Building Activity. What a sense of security this section gives managers: these activities are simple to use...and your experience is practically fail-safe.

Each of the activities is presented using the same format. The bullet-point sections are This is, The Purpose is, Use This When, Materials You'll Need, Here's How, For Example, Ask these Questions, Tips for Success, and Try these Variations. It doesn't get much more comfortable than this! Understanding today's work environment, Miller promises no role-lays, demonstrations, outdoor activities, handouts, or touchy-feely stuff. The activities are organized by areas of need: Communication, Connecting, Cooperation, Coping, Creativity, and Teamwork. A strong index complements the well-organized table of contents, making the volume highly user-friendly.

Recommended for managers and supervisors, as well as training and development professionals. Consultants will also find this tool to be useful as they work to bring people together to achieve results. Everything is explained so that the exercises can be led by laymen or by professionals. A wide variety of tools is offered, enabling the reader/user to choose the experience that will be best for the participants and the circumstances.

Makes it so easy
This book is terrific and so, so easy to use! How many times are you asked to add some sort of quick teambuiling exercise to a meeting and you have to scour your brain to come up with new ones that won't get groans from the team? This is the perfect solution for on-the-spot energy boosting activities. The author really understands "busy managers!"

This is just what I've been looking for!!!
In today's world of do more in less time it's important to find suggestions that are both helpful and insightful. Brian Miller has nailed it! I am committed to providing my associates with a monthly teambuilding session but have often come up short because I am unable to find interesting, relevent and, dare I say, FUN, exercises. This book will make quite a difference in my upcoming meetings. I highly recommend it for all levels of associates. Thanks, Mr. Miller! ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Six Sigma and Project Management Tips
This Six Sigma book is for those who have little direct experience as a project manager. In addition to an introduction to Six Sigma (albeit not as efficient introduction as "What Is Six Sigma?"), the authors go into depth on team dynamics and other project management information.

While the project management information is good and an excellent refresher for those who are only peripherally involved with project management, it helps to feed the Achilles heal of Six Sigma: the perception that it's the same old stuff repackaged and given inflated value.

A quick read of the reviews on Amazon will give you a feel for why people are skeptical of 6 Sigma: the feel-good tone of most writing on 6 Sigma and the insistence that it "is not a flavor-of-the-month management trend" make many of us suspect that 6 Sigma is not much more than hollow jargon and acronyms.

Lets accept that these criticisms are valid and further that many "practitioners" are just self-aggrandizing or worse. But that still leaves us with the essential difficulties of positive change in any organization: you need to overcome assumptions that your organization's subculture may not even realize it has. What a corporation does by accepting Six Sigma is that it empowers people to gather data to challenge what "everybody knows". Most importantly, it sets a very high quality standard, which further sanctions data-driven change.

I was not surprised to see that this book was used successfully in a college-level course on Six Sigma. That audience is less cynical that many in the corporate world and certainly could use exposure to project management.

I feel that the greatest flaw in Six Sigma is that many practitioners and even the books permit the basics to be lost in the shuffle. If one listens to people talk about Six Sigma, its easy to forget that a critical part of Six Sigma is that the data comes first, not the solution. I often hear co-workers say "we need to finish this project to improve our six sigmas" or "if we could get rid of this server we'll all get our green belts".

The term Six Sigma is derived from statistics. This book covers all the necessary statistics and other "tools".

If you just want an introduction to Six Sigma, I would recommend "What Is Six Sigma?" (by some of the same authors). If you'd also like to read about project management, this book will serve you well. But be warned, you'll see feel-good digressions such as an explanation of why Sherlock Holmes would have made a great Six Sigma Black Belt. Some will find these digressions annoying.

I would also recommend Michael Lewis' Moneyball as a companion book. Lewis (author of "Liar's Poker") uses Wall Street trading as an analogy to explain why the Oakland As baseball team is one of the successful teams with much less money than most. But I also see an analogy relevant to the topic of Six Sigma. "Moneyball" also shows how one can achieve superior results by testing what everyone thinks they know with fact gathering and rigorous analyses. "Moneyball" may prove to be an inspiring book for those about to measure processes and look for opportunities for dramatic improvement: precisely what Six Sigma practitioners SHOULD be doing.

Just right for Green Belt training
The Six Sigma Way Team Fieldbook is an excellent companion to the original Six Sigma Way. I'm using it as a primary textbook in the Green Belt course at the college where I teach. The Fieldbook does a good job of laying out the "nuts and bolts" process of attacking a problem and making improvements. The book is a little light in some of the more techinical areas, specifically in the Analysis Stage of the DMAIC model. That's where I come in as the course instuctor. I supplement the Fieldbook with the QCI CSSBB Primer and use MiniTab software for statistical analysis. It all blends together, and is held together, by the very well written descriptions of DMAIC methodologies in the Team Fieldbook. This book is exactly what it is intended to be -- A Team Fieldbook for Six Sigma practitioners. Used with the guidance from an experienced Six Sigma practitioner (Black Belt), it is an excellent tool for both training and basic reference.

Black belt, here I show you the book of idols
Lets analyze this book deeply. Actually this book is totally useless. Here the authors dig deeper into the magic, the sophistry, of Six Sigma. Please tell us more practitioners of this blind faith.

This book details how to create the teams needed for Six Sigma. First it explains the role of the 'black belt' and 'master black belt'. We're not given insights into why a business model for grown ups has to treat us all like children, having teams and coaches and lots of 'feel good' language invovled. How bout a chapter on firing lazy employees? How bout a chapter on what to do when 10% of the items coming off the line are defective? No, that would be too realistic. No wholesome language, Just wizardry. When every single item coming off the line is defective we must sic the teams on it and analyze the issues, the diversity, the feel goodies of it. How bout just firing every single person on the line? This book is pure sophistry detailing a fad, a flavor of the week approach developed at GE and now appearing in every book in the world on business.
Business existed before Six Sigma and it will exist when this flawed system is gone.

Every Bit As Good As The Original Book...
A few people have written that they were disappointed in this book in comparison to the original "The Six Sigma Way." However, I couldn't disagree more. This is a terrific book. Where "The Six Sigma Way" served as a comprehensive foundation into the fundamentals of Six Sigma and offered a number of case studies, "The Fieldbook" is a no-nonsense roll-up-your-sleeves guide to implementation. The Bottom Line? If you want an overview of Six Sigma, buy a copy of "The Six Sigma Way." However, if you are a member of the management team (or a black belt) overseeing a Six Sigma program, "The Fieldbook" is definately the book for you.

Great source of information for the practictioner
This book is the one book for someone who is joining their first six sigma team. It will give you a feel for the tools and methodology that you will be exposed to and provides handy references of forms, metrics and best practices if you are requested to complete a task in a six sigma project. The material is very well organized and summarized for usage as an ongoing team resource. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player is another in a long line of titles by John Maxwell aimed at helping people attain their personal and leadership potential in the workplace. The book is organized into short chapters, each devoted to one of the 17 qualities that Maxwell deems essential to a successful and harmonious workplace, qualities such as competence, discipline, adaptability, commitment, selflessness, and preparedness. Maxwell's prose reads like a series of sermons, peppered with inspirational stories and quotes from personalities as diverse as Vince Lombardi ("The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender") and Henry Ford ("Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success"). The book is for Maxwell fans and anyone looking for a sensible and formulaic approach to improving their lot, both at work and in life. --Harry C. Edwards ... Read more

Reviews (13)

THE QUALITIES OF A STRONG TEAM PLAYER.
I enjoyed this book for the wisdom it contained. Whether one is part of an office team, a charitable organization or on a sports team, it is not always as easy as one might think to develop strong teamwork. There are those who can never master the feat of being a team player and those, if you are fortunate to find them, who excel both as a team player and independent worker. The author has demonstrated the 17 essential qualities of a strong team player. Learning specific skills can be much easier than learning new habits or changing negative personal qualities which have often developed over a lifetime. Employers should remember to take that fact into consideration during the hiring process; you need to match an individual's qualities to the job to achieve the desired result. Not everyone possesses the essential qualities to be a team player. To the book's credit, it contains accurate and proven theories on creating a strong team. The author bases his theories on such factors as self-descipline, competence and being prepared to adapt and change your ideas and actions.

The minor downside of the book is the various quotes by well-known successful people. They are interesting but they have appeared in print so many times before that they come across as "classic cliches". Also, the book is relatively short and it would have been twice as interesting if the author had expanded on his words of advice in more detail. Overall, the positives far outweigh the negatives. The book is well worth reading, and the reader will likely find the stories quite inspirational.

Maxwell hits the bullseye again!
John Maxwell has written an easy-to-read, easy-to-apply book on teamwork. Anyone beginning a new team or taking the leadership of a team already in progress is sure to find information from this book helpful and applicable. Beware, however, that Maxwell is beginning to repeat the same stories and lessons from his previous books. These stories and lessons can be good reminders although it may be time for Mr. Maxwell to research other people and companies in the leadership field.

Thought provoking yet very easy to read
I thought that the book was very easy to read and it's shorter length makes it very accessible to those with very busy lives.

I really enjoyed the little stories and the descriptions of the elements that compose the 17 qualities were very well written. The main thing I enjoyed about the book was not that it taught me a lot of things I didn't know, but that it put those things together in a more coherent picture and made me ask myself some hard questions about how I can be a better team player and whether or not I've neglected some areas.

I find I perform at a much higher level when I keep these sorts of ideas in mind as I plan my tasks. This book is small enough to travel well and profound enough to keep pushing me to higher levels.

Love this book recommend highly
Recieved the book and i amenjoying it very much so far it has been very helpful to me would highly recommend to church team players in leadership spots

Excellent Teamwork Resource for Organizations
I purchased this book as a resource for my graduate students in a university course on school leadership. I was disappointed to learn that the website cited in this book did not work. After a search on the internet I did locate the site under a different URL title -- http://www.lawsofteamwork.com/

John Maxwell has many valuable insights into organizational leadership and principles of teamwork that many of my graduate students enjoy. This book relates several good stories about the importance of teamwork, including one about former MLB player Reggie Jackson and Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver. The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player is a great resource and a fast read for those interested in learning more about leadership and teamwork. ... Read more

Book Description

Written by an eight-time veteran CEO, this book equips managers everywhere with the right business tools to accelerate business results dramatically for themselves, their employees and their customers.Kraig Kramers cites experiences from running companies that range in size from $1 million to $250 million annual sales.These experiences are translated into practical business tools that any manager can use immediately.Many tool implementation aids are provided, including a CD/browser for two dozen of the nearly 150 management success tools.CEO Tools is a must for every business manager's bookshelf and computer desktop. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Terrific Book for any CEO or leader!
I feel that in many ways this is the ultimate book for a CEO or leader. I jokingly told one of my CEO clients, "Read this book and you won't have to read any others and you can throw away the ones you have read!" The inclusion of the CD is a special plus and the many forms and tools make this an ACTION book. I have heard Kraig speak and he is a zealot about leadership tools and it certainly comes across in this jam packed book. Each of his Top Ten lists stand on their own and are very powerful. It is the kind of book that you could keep on your desk and use as a reference each time you are dealing with one of the primary areas of your business. Every CEO should own this book!

Kraig and his advice ar the real deal - from a thankful CEO
Kraig in a true professional, his body of work and his contribution and skills have helped make American capitalism what it is today, the best and mose powerful force in the world.

It's about time we all have access to a book of Kraig's wisdom. His principles have helped me be a better and more successful CEO. I live by Kraig's advice in the business I run daily, and it works. Kraig, thank you for helping me build wealth and success for my family and me. And lastly, congratulations on creating such a great body of practical and powerful advice in one place, a book called CEO Tools: The Nuts-n-Bolts of Business for Every Manager's Success.

CEO Tools: The New Nuts & Bolts of Business
This is a TERRIFIC book for any manager and especially small business owners! It is filled with real world, easy to use, proven tools to make good things happen, including more profits. Here's a guy who has done it all and boiled down the real secrets into not only an easy book to read but to understand how to make what he has learned work in my business. There is even a CD included that I used to put my own business data into and work his secrets on my problems. WOW! I learned more useable stuff from this one book than dozens of others I have read. Buy it now! You will not be disapointed.

CEO Tools Raises the Bar for Business Books
Most business books tend to be long on theory and short on implementation techniques. Not so with "CEO Tools: The Nuts-n-Bolts of Business for Every Manager's Success." This new release not only offers more than a hundred practical ideas for becoming a better CEO or manager, it actually gives you the tools to do so through an attached CD-ROM. If a particular management tool or technique happens to strike your fancy, you can download a form or template and start using the tool in your business the very same day.

Kramers believes that running a successful company requires using a variety of tools as part of an organized, disciplined management process. His process consists of seven discrete steps: 1) Use goals to motivate employees, 2) Communicate to get meaningful results, 3) Track performance, 4) Anticipate the future and realize it, 5) Place and coach winners, 6) Organize yourself and others, and 7) Celebrate success.

Using this model as a framework, Kramers organizes "CEO Tools" around these essential steps. Each chapter contains an eclectic mix of ideas, tools and management practices for getting more out of employees and improving bottom line results. While many business books would stop here, Kramers takes it to the next level by offering numerous practical tips and techniques for implementing these principles.

What really sets "CEO Tools" apart from other business books, however, is the companion CD-ROM (tucked inside the back cover) that contains more than two dozen forms, charts, spreadsheets and tracking templates. These easily downloadable tools enable you to immediately put Kramers' goal setting and other management concepts to work in your business, using your data and your key indicators.

Ultimately, good management comes down to making the right decisions in a timely manner and then following through with appropriate action. "CEO Tools" is designed to help you do just that. Most of the tools and techniques discussed in the book come directly from Kramers' personal experience as CEO of eight different companies. Others come from ideas and practices he has picked up from consulting with companies of all sizes around the world.

Regardless of where the tools come from, they all have one thing in common -- they work! Whether you're a business owner, CEO, senior manager or anyone in charge of managing and leading a group of people toward a common goal, this book belongs on your work bench, not on your shelf. ... Read more

Book Description

Never before in the history of the workplace has the concept of teamwork been more important to the functioning of successful organizations. Ken Blanchard bestselling coauthor of Raving Fans, The One Minute Manager, and Gung Ho! teams up with Donald Carew and Eunice Parisi-Carew to explain how all groups move through four stages of development on their way to becoming high performance teams -- orientation, dissatisfaction, integration, and production. The authors then show how a manager can help any group to become fully effective quickly and with hardly any stress.

The valuable addition to The One Minute Manager® Library is essential for anyone who works with groups and wants to build a high performing team.

This valuable addition to The One Minute Manager. Library is essential for anyone who works with groups and wants to build a high performing team. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Simple, fun superficial read
Kenneth Blanchard turns his attention to small group dynamics and group performance in this, on of the stable of One Minute Manager books.

Academically, the two principal concepts that Blanchard and his co-authors use, are the stages of group development and Situational Leadership. The familiar stages of forming, storming, norming and performing are termed orientation, dissatisfaction, integration and production. Situational Leadership in this context refers to changing leadership styles according to the stage of the group, thereby filling in for process tasks that the group is unable to accomplish for itself.

Groups tend to start in a high-energy, high motivation but low skills and understanding mode of operation. In this stage, directive leadership provides the structure necessary to move forward. The second stage is one of dissatisfaction, questioning of leadership and clarification of roles. As unpleasant as this stage is, we are reminded that conflicts cannot be resolved if they are avoided. A resolving attitude on the part of the leader is exactly what is needed. As confidence and morale return to the group members, they pass hesitatingly into a third stage, termed integration. In this stage, commitment on goals, roles and tasks increases, as well as to the norms, values and processes of the group. A collaborating leadership style that allows control to be shared and facilitates the surfacing of disagreements is critical to the group's continued growth. Finally, the production stage is characterized by high levels of trust, morale, energy and empowerment. The team can pretty much function autonomously, without a leader whose primary purpose is to validate.

Blanchard's strength is his manner of presentation and clarity of relating ideas from disparate sources. The book is a quick read and yet it presents some fairly profound concepts, connecting the dots in a way that reading a collection of "Harvard Business Review" articles can never accomplish. Most of the book is a conversation between Dan Brockway, the director of training at a chemical company, and his mentor, The One Minute Manger. The coordinator of customer service programs, Maria Sanchez, disagrees with the presentation of material for The Essentials of Management course that Dan is coordinating.

Instead of helping Dan convince her that she is wrong, The One Minute Manger allows Dan to observe the functioning of four groups at different stages of development at his own company. The gradual, real-world exposition of the central issues of group dynamics leads into three-way discussions between Dan, Maria and the Manager about the practicalities, pitfalls and variations in group development. The goal is to produce what Blanchard and others have called "Highly-Effective Teams", effectively defined in the early pages.

The intent of the book is to teach and, with two educational doctorates as co-authors, the structure and style is simple to read and flows so logically that it is as easy to digest as Jello. A busy manager can read this book in a single New York commute and keep revisiting it as needed, while his teams evolve. Students can learn and integrate new concepts more fruitfully, as they learn how the pieces all fit together. Participants in teams can quickly get a sense of what they need to do to effectively contribute to the tasks at had, which inevitably include the processes that the group uses to get things done. Anyone reading this book is well advised to realize that this is a brief synopsis and oversimplification of group dynamics and leadership styles. Extended discussions of roles played by participants in dysfunctional groups and extensive elaboration of Situational leadership are found elsewhere and should be referenced when necessary. In the end, drawing on all our creativity and individual knowledge and experience is the path to generating value in a knowledge economy.

Wonderful book
I think this is a wonderful book. It belongs on the bookshelf over every manager and should be read by everyone who is or aspires to be a manager. We must learn to turn groups of individuals into teams. This book offers solid concepts and practical advice on how to do it.

Twenty Minute Bath
I read this while I was soaking in the bathtub last night. It reads a lot like The Tenth Insight series - easy to follow, pretty simplistic. I chose this book because I have been observing the group process in many different contexts and because I am currently struggling with managing a brand new membership committee at church, as well as a new team at work. This book provides a good hook on which to hang team-building concepts.
The team management principles are easy to apply to the church Membership Committee. I have a lot of autonomy in management at church. I can decide without going through the hierarchy (church board) how to conduct this committee. They are very happy for me to decide how leadership is provided and how group meetings will happen.
One Minute Manager's "Group Developmental Stage" concept includes the stages of Orientation, Dissatisfaction, Resolution and Production. These stages make sense to me and dovetail nicely with concepts of human developmental stages. The Membership Committee has only met once under my leadership and is obviously in the Orientation Stage. I wish I could jump over the next two stages and get right to the Production Stage. I am getting a lot of pressure from board members to produce all sorts of results. One Minute Manager has validated what I already knew about managing this team; we have to go through these stages, and I need to work on getting my style of leadership to match the team's developmental stage. It will take some time, and I will have to get some of the "production" done with little help from the team until this team growth happens.
However, management at work is a totally different situation. I am on several teams, but only have one leadership role so far. This is a newly organized group called the RAT (Rapid Assessment Team) charged with the initial emergency response at the District Public Health Level. I share responsibility for leadership of this group with my supervisor. So far we have had two organizational meetings and two training meetings. The One Minute Manager concepts will help me address a couple of issues I have been struggling with.
The first issue has to do with leadership of this group. In the Orientation Stage, a group needs clear messages from a clearly designated leader. I need to take responsibility for delivering these messages. I need to remember to observe the group interaction, including the content and process, so my leadership style can change with the group's changing needs.
I will also need to figure out how to balance my leadership style with my supervisor's leadership style. I tend to be more the "Low Supportive and Low Directive" type of leader. She tends to be a "High Supportive and Low Directive" type. In the Orientation Stage that this team is in, we need to provide High Directive and Low Supportive Behavior. Providing High Directive isn't a difficult change for me to make because as the trainer, I am responsible for teaching what and how to. As this group moves into the Dissatisfaction Stage, I need to encourage my supervisor to provide the High Supportive Behavior that she is good at. As we work together and make progress with this group, the One Minute Manager concepts will help us coordinate and balance our leadership.

Just in time
This book has come to my aid at the most appropriate time. I am in the midst of an exercise, as a leader of an internal task force entrusted with the responsibility of recommending a solution in a short time. This group is heterogeneous, drawn from different departments with a common problem on hand.

The four stages of group behavior (orientation, dissatisfaction, integration, and production) as described in this book, and the different styles of leadership appropriate at each stage is very essential understanding for any manager. More than this it is important to diagnose the stage at which the group is in and what action the leader needs to take to lead the team quickly to the Production stage.

This is a must read for all managers who wish to understand group behavior - for achieving optimal output.

Solid principles and reminders, though a little overcooked
This book, like its predecessors, is written in a story format. The basic storyline is Dan Brockway's series of visits with the One Minute Manager, in which he learns about team building and the "situational leadership" that team building requires. The One Minute Manager has him visit a team in each of four stages: Orientation, Dissatisfaction, Production, and Integration. The visits provide information about the unique characteristics of each stage, and the book provides discussion of these characteristics by a series of dialogues between Dan and the One Minute Manager. After the visits have concluded, some discussion of how to lead a team depending on its stage occurs.

This book reinforces the important concepts and major characteristics of each stage by including charts and outlines for each stage of team development, as well as reiterating key points throughout the book. The section on situational leadership is valuable also, and the book seeks to answer potential questions from real readers by having the characters ask them during the course of the sessions with the One Minute Manager.

Overall, this book is very insightful, and its tenets are presented in a very creative, though occasionally corny, manner. (It contains frequent subliminal messages: "Let's make an appointment for next week to talk this over" said Dan. "No," said the One Minute Manager, "let's do it right now.") The charts and diagrams are the real treasures in the book, and in spite of its brevity, the book manages to be a fairly good primer on the subject. ... Read more

Book Description

Famous "Work-Out" change-management tool explained by the people who helped develop it.

GE's legendary Work-Out program played a key role in the company's phenomenal success over the past decade and has been implemented in many other organizations. Now three executives and consultants who developed the original Work-Out approach at GE­­often working directly with CEO Jack Welch­­discuss the inner workings of Work-Out and their experiences at successfully implementing the program at GE.

Filled with effective assessment and decisionmaking tools, The GE Work-Out provides concrete and realistic guidance for anyone who wants to implement Work-Out and break down bureaucracy and hierarchy within an organization.

Reviews (4)

Packed Wiyh Knowledge!
There's no denying the effectiveness of the Work-Out system at General Electric (GE). This book is a straightforward and comprehensive introduction to what Work-Oout means and how it helped GE achieve such astonishing results under Jack Welch, who introduced it. This clear, well-organized book makes it possible for any executive or manager to apply at least some elements of the work-out program in any organizational context. We do caution you, however, that the Work-Out program as portrayed here demands a great deal of commitment and moral fortitude from leaders. Empowerment may be effective, but it is rarely comfortable for the powers that be. Just ask "Neutron Jack."

Good Idea - Bad Book
I completely agree with the reader who said that this book could have been written much more effectively. It is nearly 400 pages and should have been no more than 25 to 50. Most issues or thoughts in this book while being solid are explained in far far too painful of detail with a great deal of redundancy. This made reading the book extremely wasteful of my time.

Perhaps the authors should have a "Work Out" on improvement of their materials.

Great. Lots of first-hand tips to turnaround a large company
Unlike other books on Six Sigma that focus on variation reduction, statistics and other tools, this book is full of practical examples of techniques and implementation tips. The focal point of the book is on the process of generating the turnaround in a large conglomerate such as GE. In this case the aspects of organizational behavior constitute THE critical success factor (rather than statistical/other tools). Workout has undoubtedly been fundamental for generating the cultural transformation in GE. This book is addressing these organizational behavior aspects in a pragmatic manner presenting a detailed road-map from planning all the way through implementation.
Most examples deal with administration/bureaucracy and I would have expected to read more on operational aspects such as value chain improvement in a Production/Logistics environment.
This book is a must for top managers that search for a generic methodology to translate their vision into reality.

Very Bad Buy
This is one of the worst books I've ever purchased. The ideas in this book could be fully explained in no more than two or three pages. I bought it relying on the CV's of the authors but it turned out to be a true dud. It rehashes the same ideas over and over and over and over. It's for the braindead. ... Read more