Here’s one I liked. You may too.

A Team of Leaders: Empowering Every Member to Take Ownership, Demonstrate Initiative, and Deliver Results

By Paul Gustavson and Stewart Liff

Copyright 2014Amacom

Price $26.95

Pages: 226 and Index

Teams: the key to the future

A lot of changes have occurred in the workplace in the past twenty fives year. There have been great efforts made to increase productivity. Companies have all been hit with so many financial challenges that their people have been stretched to the limit when it comes to being able to take a breath, coordinate with their follow workers and all come together as a team with common goals. People are wearing many hats, while handling two and three jobs covering for those former fellow employees who were downsized during the recent recession. So many times this kind of working environment has led to the formation of individual silos where workers do their own thing looking only forward and never left or right to their compatriots. To say that the results have been near disastrous is still an understatement.

The time to bring leaders together into cohesive, cooperative management teams has never been better. In fact if we don’t start working as teams we are doomed to mediocrity.

This is what this new book by Gustavson and Liff, A Team of Leaders is so important.

As the authors tell us the conditions of the past few years have brought us to the brink of the lowest productivity levels in history with most managers operating at a sub 30% productivity level! This means that most of the time most managers are just spinning their wheels trying to raise above the bureaucratic gorilla dust that has been thrown up in recent years.

But now there is hope. As a management consultant I read this book with great anticipation as I also have been severely affected by the loss of productivity the extent that it has gotten more difficult than ever to execute management change with my clients when the very act of getting managers to left their heads long enough to meet in the same room at the same time has become a challenge.

But his book answered many of my questions. From the first chapter when the author start their unique team development model outlining a step-by step process from team evaluation to how to start up high performance teams they had me.

Chapter after chapter they take you through all of the necessary steps for building very effective teams, they focus on team leaders, team membership and team processes.

From the book’s Five Stage Team Development Model

• Align the team’s structure and core information systems…

• Identify and strengthen processes that support a team of leaders…

• Enable team members to fully grasp…significance of what they contribute every day…

• Tap into the power of “Visual Management”…

• Create a team-wide sense of engagement in teamwork while improving individual performance…

I have a read a number of team building books this year and I rank this one at the very top. The only advice I can give you is to not only buy and read this book but also buy enough copies for all of your teams. That only makes sense.