|
The use of teams in the public and private sectors
continues to increase. Most people working today would have experienced working
in teams, and increasingly supervisors and managers are team leaders who are
expected to manage and motivate teams, not individuals. Internal and external
team training and team-building programs for staff and managers alike have
proliferated. Universities have integrated team theory and team projects into
many courses.
An onslaught of articles and books continues to extol the
virtues of teams while making the achievement of high-performance and
self-directed teams seem deceptively easy. The fact is, while teams can be
productive and fulfilling, they often fail to deliver. Team work is difficult
and gains in productivity and creativity are not automatic.
Too many authors and trainers provide “feel-good”
discussions about teams and their potential, but have little to offer when it
comes to making them work. One wonders if they have really worked in teams and
learned from the experience. Building High-Performance Teams: A Practitioner’s
Guide provides practical solutions to achieving more effective and productive
teamwork. It provides a step-by-step approach, starting with the very first days
of working with or in a new team. It provides useful and proven tools and
techniques for chartering the team, for team problem solving, decision making,
and action planning, for participative goal setting, and for leading
High-performance Teams.
Building High-Performance Teams: A Practitioner’s Guide
represents over a decade of research and practical work in and with
high-performance and self-directed teams.
Dr J. Martin Hays lectures in management at The Australian
National University and is the founder/director of Canberra-based Synapsis
Organisational Development and Change Pty Ltd. |
