Moving Out of the Box: Tools for Team Decision Making - Softcover

Kemp, Jana M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0275997065 ISBN 13: 9780275997069

Publisher: Praeger, 2007

Synopsis

Project teams are the rule rather than the exception in today's organizations. But thanks to the pressure of performance goals, conflicting agendas, and political jockeying, few teams make superior decisions consistently. Instead, team members communicate poorly or not at all, avoid provocative discussion, occasionally stab each other in the back, or in many other ways forget that their job is to make decisions that lead the company forward. Jana Kemp, an authority on team decision making, saves the day by offering tested methods and tools team members and their leaders can use to ratchet up the performance level. That not only makes team projects more successful―it makes work fun.

Kemp argues that the way to make good decisions is to have an expansive group conversation that leads to sound decisions and swift execution. Sounds simple, but in most organizations, making a decision and seeing it through can become an exercise in frustration for managers and employees alike. At one end of the spectrum are command-and-control decisions, proclaimed from on-high and implemented through the ranks. Without input or buy-in from those affected by the decision, this approach can lead to resentment and backlash. At the other end are purely collaborative, consensus decisions that often lead to inoffensive, weak choices and sub-par results.

About this title

About the Author

Jana M. Kemp, Founder and Principal of Meeting & Management Essentials, is a management trainer, facilitator, and speaker specializing in improving individual and organizational productivity and performance. She is the author of Moving Meetings and No! How One Simple Word Can Transform Your Life. She is coauthor of Building Community in Buildings (Praeger, 2007).

Reviews

How many of the meetings you attend do you consider worthless? Your response (and those from the rest of your colleagues) will no doubt lead you to read, if not embrace, Kemp’s latest book (one of several, including Moving Meetings, 1994). By beginning with the obvious—checklists for meetings and decision making—she sets the narrative tone for her book: relatively devoid of jargon, instructional, and, at the end, engaging. She touts a rubric called ChoiceMarks, which is a typology of five styles—antisurvival, boxed-in, neutral, engaged enthusiasm, extreme excitement—all of which can somehow lead to decisions being made. Scenarios, practices, quizzes, and lists upon lists of questions infuse these styles with substance and help readers figure out how to become unstuck, collaborate, take control, act, or simply let the initiative die. The material is presented in a realistic, down-to-earth manner; too bad, though, that Kemp didn’t capitalize more on the visuals as another way to identify and prompt decision making. Appended: ChoiceMarks questions for every stage of consensus. --Barbara Jacobs

Edition details

• Publisher: Praeger
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0275997065
• ISBN 13: 9780275997069
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 184