Accessories

Foundation for Team Building
We are launching Strategic Planning for the next 5 years...our facilitator of our Strategic Planning suggested that all 16 employees read this book before we launch our planning sessions...it was terrific! Gave everyone a volcabulary and context in which to work as we journey forward to make our own organization totally functional!!!!

Improve Your Teamwork
As a corporate human resources director, I am continually searching for material that will enhance our organizations team skills. Somewhat like another management book that I recommended Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions, the author uses fictional tales to deliver truthful insights into our business practices. I found the book to be a very intertaining and fun read along with a ton of valuable information. The concepts within the book can be easily implemented and will result in continual improvement in your team building endeavors. The value of teamwork within the modern corporate structure is sometimes a hard sell in the real world. Managers need reference material and books that contain much needed advice if they are going to `prove' the value of teamwork to the CEO. Like communication, everyone says it is important but the rubber rarely meets the road.

The part of the book that details the "five dysfunctions" is a great reference guide and also a topic that sounds eerily familiar as all seasoned managers have been down that road. The `five' are:

1. Absence of trust,
2. Fear of conflict
3. Lack of commitment
4. Avoidance of accountability
5. Inattention to results.

Buy this book. It will be a valuable addition to your bookshelf and certainly one that will be referenced again and again through the years. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR Author of Wingtips with Spurs

great point of reflection
just gets the mind going in some good thoughts. a great, quick read to plug some new ideas into one's head. i recommend.

Best book I've read all year
I read a great number of titles on leadership, organizational development, and team building.

This book, told as a fable, is a very quick read and will seem unlike any other book of this sort you've read. As you read it, you'll feel as though the author has been following you through your life at work. It's a very eerie feeling when you realize that each of the characters already works with you at your office.

I particularly enjoyed the focus on organizational alignment, team building, and healthy conflict. These are essential ingredients to the recipe for an excellent team!

I've recommended this book to several other executives where I work and have received 5 star ratings in return.

Spiritual leadership is the key.
The Five Dysfunctions of Leadership was given to me at a company leadership course. While the course itself was excellent the book is not the most technical of leadership guides. It uses for some a shallow fictional premise and story to guide readers through a corporate teams rebuilding phase. And while I agree with some of the other reviews in that this book may not provide the reader with an in-depth or technical, step by step, how-to version of effective team building methods. I think it does give the reader some insight as to the thinking process leaders encounter when faced with the prospect of strengthening and/or rebuilding and redirecting highly capable individuals. It also does a good job of addressing the compassion needed to properly nurture and shape team members. I would not depend on this book as my only avenue for learning and perfecting corporate team building. But it's not completely devoid of helpful information and since it can be read in a couple of hours, it's worth a look.