Why Teams Don't Work

The first books about teams told you how great teaming would be. But the truth is, reality is falling short of its promise. Why Teams Don't Work tells you how it really is. According to Robbins and Finley: "A team is a surprising, perplexing, up-and-down, value-creating thing. A human thing that needs a ton of attention. That has to be pampered, fed, stroked, and have its pen hosed out from time to time."
They concede that teams are messy - and prone to as many problems as human nature allows: teams become confused about their goals, individual team members don't accept their roles, teams have a hard time making decisions, team members often aren't rewarded appropriately, and team leaders don't always act like one.
In fact, few will deny that the promise of teams has fallen far short of our expectations. But we keep hearing about them because when they work, teams increase productivity, improve communications, do work ordinary groups can't, and are more creative and efficient.
Packed with down-to-earth questions and answers about teams, Why Teams Don't Work identifies the obstacles preventing teams from achieving their potential (most of them people-made), suggests ways to remove those obstacles, and explains how to take care of those "human things." That's what makes this book special - its focus on the human factors of teamwork. Robbins and Finley know what goes wrong with teams - and how to make it right.

Teaming has been a craze in modern organizations. This book is neither a condemnation of teams nor an in-depth look at the history of teams in organizations. It is more about people. In their epilog, Robbins and Finley write, "Teams are trouble, because they're made of people, and people are trouble." Indeed, after the authors give an accounting of all the things that can go wrong with teaming, the reader might marvel that they still have hope for the process. After all, there are so many uncontrollable variables at work just below the surface, not least of which are the hidden agendas of team members. As the authors demonstrate, teaming is actually an extremely complicated, sometimes painful process that can take years to refine. This book is for the millions of workers who either volunteered or were enlisted by a team, gave their honest best to the cause, saw the team go down the tubes, and then wondered why. For all public library business collections.?Randy Abbott, Univ. of Evansville Libs., Ind.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.