The Secret of Teams: What Great Teams Know and Do

Mark Miller

Language: English

Published: Sep 8, 2011

Description:

Teams are the bedrock of every organization. Most of what gets done today gets done through teams. 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 it’s not news that getting people to work together to achieve exceptional, sustained results can be a challenge. 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 here uses a compelling business fable to reveal profound yet easily grasped truths that can dramatically transform any organization. In fact, he even uses the same characters! In The Secret of Teams, Debbie Brewster, the heroine of The Secret, has been promoted and is now struggling with taking her team to the next level. She turns to her old mentor, Jeff Brown, the company’s CEO. Rather than tell her what to do, Jeff sends her out to visit some high-performance teams and find out what makes them tick. Debbie and her team discover the three elements that all successful teams have in common. But that’s just the start. 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 leaders 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 all organizations are seeking.