 "How developing high-performance individuals and teams will create and then sustain a high-performance organization" | 2009-06-05 |
| - Reviewed By mach36 |
Howard Guttman draws upon several decades of wide and deep experience will thousands of executives within hundreds of companies throughout the world when offering in this volume everything he has learned about how developing high-performance individuals and teams will create and then sustain a high-performance organization. He asserts that there is a "code" to be cracked and cites several dozen examples of executives who have done so. He correctly points out that effective collaboration is essential at all levels and in all areas of an organization, whatever its size and nature may be. Moreover, the focus must be on cross-functional team initiatives.
"Great teams make great organizations. Period, Good and mediocre teams make good and mediocre organizations. They meet deadlines; they stay within budget; they maintain the status quo. But they do not push the envelope. They do not typically reach for performance breakthroughs. It is unlikely they will set the world on fire. And over the long haul, they will take you out of the game." According to Guttman, great business teams are led by high-performance leaders who create a "burning platform" for change, are visionaries and architects, know they cannot do it alone, build and nourish authentic relationships, model the behaviors they expect from their team members, and in unique and effective ways "redefine" the fundamentals of leadership. I wholly agree with Guttman that members of great teams are "us-directed": they tend to use only first-personal plural pronouns (i.e. we, us, our). Great teams play by protocols such as these ten agree-upon ways of working together at Chico's FAS in areas such as conflict resolution, decision making, meetings, and when determining performance expectations for both individual team members and for their leader:
1. Be candid and straightforward.
2. Be receptive to others' points of view.
3. Be accountable for your results and behavior.
4. Hold others accountable for their results and behavior.
5. Let go of "stories."
6. Resolve it or let it go.
7. Do not triangulate.
8. Do not accuse or allege in absentia.
9. Depersonalize (i.e. focus on issues, not individuals)
10. Structure decision making and follow process.
Guttman asserts that great teams continually raise the performance bar rather than allow complacency. They also have a supportive performance management system that provides whatever resources may be needed. "In order to effect permanent behavior change, a team's performance management system must support the new expectations [perhaps what Jim Collins characterizes as a "BHAG," a Big Hairy Audacious Goal]. Team and individual goals have to be crystal clear; the necessary technical and interpersonal skills have to be provided; performance has to be monitored; and feedback has to be timely and well thought out...Unless there are positive consequences for staying there [in support on the given initiatives] - and negative ones for retreating - most people will quickly revert to old, safe ways of behaving. That is why great teams only flourish when there are positive consequences [e.g. financial incentives and rewards] for embracing team values and negative ones for flouting them."
The Chico's FAS list of protocols is but one example of reader-friendly devices that Guttman skillfully uses through his narrative. Others include self-audit questions to determine how well one is adapted to the player-centric leadership imperative (Pages 39-40), six principles that can guide and inform the development of leadership (Pages 41-43), characteristics of the mindset of a "great player" (Pages 50-60), a graphic illustrating the four stages of team development from hierarchical to horizontal (Pages 82), how great teams make decisions (Pages 131-133), several behavioral protocols that great teams insist on (Page 147), how to mange key issues (Pages 148-149), ten elements of high-performance communication (Pages 156-158), and the five "musts" for building great organizations (Pages 171-1281). Readers will also appreciate Guttman's provision of two appendices, a review of the key components of "Player-Centered Leadership" and then a review of "The Skills of a Great Team Member."
One of Guttman's most important points, reiterated throughout his narrative, is that all great leaders are also great team members, and, that all team members must also provide leadership. What he proposes is high-performance collaboration within the structure of a meritocracy. "Cracking that code does not guarantee a perfect outcome every time you engage in competitive play. But, by changing your game, you will acquire a sustained competitive advantage and the ability to excel in a very different marketplace. Make the change and you will likely join the ranks of the great leaders and teams" he discusses in his book. I congratulate Howard Guttman on what I consider to be a brilliant achievement.
Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Jim Collins' How the Mighty Fall, and Why Some Companies Never Give In, Guy Kawasaki's Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition, Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter's 12: The Elements of Great Managing (based on Gallup's ten million workplace interviews), The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World co-authored by Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky, Dean R. Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement: Rethinking the Way We Measure and Drive Organizational Success, and Enterprise Architecture as Strategy co-authored by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson. |
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 "Worth Reading" | 2009-05-21 |
| - Reviewed By User: A11BQ5VFSIJCN4 |
This is worth a read for those interested in team performance and management. The author uses the case study method of getting his main points across, which I found useful from a practical standpoint, yet distracting as I couldn't really relate to the specific case situations. Overall some good tips that I can use on a daily basis.
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| "Powerful team performance boosters" | 2009-05-05 |
| - Reviewed By rolfdobelli |
| Howard Guttman gives readers a sophisticated view of all the factors that go into creating high-performing, exceptionally successful teams. He doesn't pretend that a single magic bullet can transform your team; instead, he provides a well-organized guide that shows you how leaders contribute, what team members must bring, why management support is needed to transform a good team into a great one and how coaching can accelerate a team's transformation. The book provides a great discussion on how top teams make decisions, how they communicate, and how they decide which meetings to hold and how to hold them. The book is full of ideas and illustrative stories from Guttman's consultancy, but you never feel that he is selling his consulting services or holding back any information. getAbstract recommends this sensible and useful book to team managers and members. |
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| "Great Business Teams and Beyond" | 2009-04-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: AOPR0VL1W3CTR |
| Reviewing business books requires a degree of rigor, to understand the applicable benefits of the content. Great Business Teams provides enough pragmatic viewpoints and scenarios, allowing a reader to apply the concepts in any team environment. While the book can inundate the reader with numerous lists for sustain a team, coaching a player, and creating a high performance team, the concrete examples provide a framework that a reader can quickly digest, and morph for applicable use in their organization. |
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| "Real world examples" | 2009-03-08 |
| - Reviewed By User: A10UD15J2UKAEC |
Howard Gutman's "Great Business Teams" cuts through academic theory and shows how companies in the real world are getting the most out of teams. The book focuses on teamwork at the highest levels of the company and how that teamwork then cascades to all parts of the organization. The candid views of profiled executives on what worked best -- and the mistakes they made -- can serve as a great roadmap for anyone undertaking the challenge of building teams, especially in organizations that have been ruled by silo thinking.
As companies downsize and cut costs to weather today's fierce economic conditions, being able to make fast decisions in a team environment is more critical than ever. The experiences of Gutman's clients will serve as a valuable blueprint for making this happen. |
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 "Stories and advice from an echo chamber" | 2009-02-02 |
| - Reviewed By whbock |
Howard Guttman, author of Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout Performance, heads a consulting firm that "specializes in building high performance teams." That is both the major strength and the major weakness of this book.
The strength is the stories about real business teams. The book gives you examples of effective teams in action. If that's what you're looking for, read no farther. This book is worth your time.
The major weakness of this book is that you're getting reports from an "echo chamber" where the author and his clients speak, reinforcing each other. But there are no independent or outside voices to be heard. There is no reality check about the effectiveness of recommendations.
According to Guttman, the book is "based on our work with and in-depth interviews of, 39 senior executives from 25 organizations." That causes at least three problems.
The book is only based on the work Guttman's firm has done. Decades of robust research into effective, high-performance teams have no place here. So you will not find out about effective teams sizes, for example, or the special situation of temporary teams and task forces.
The book is only based on conversations with Guttman's clients. You're getting what's worked for Guttman's firm in a subset of their engagements. You won't find stories of what didn't work. You won't find examples from outside the echo chamber.
The interviews are only with senior executives. Not with frontline workers. Not with analysts. You will not get those views of reality. For example, you will have to go elsewhere to discover that one of the companies featured in the book saw its stock drop 90 percent from the time Guttman's firm was working with them until the book's release.
Finally, the "code" that Guttman has claimed to "crack" doesn't seem very code-like. The initial chapters of the book seem to call for the same thing that many other books by consultants call for: a different kind of leader; a different kind of follower; and alignment. Later chapters, beginning with chapter 6 titled "How Great Teams Make Decisions," are more process oriented and helpful if you're looking for some step-by-step ideas to try.
Throughout Great Business Teams, you'll find descriptions of business teams at work. Since most of us learn best from stories and examples, this is where the value of book lies. But there's no reality check to help you figure out how good the advice is.
This review first appeared in the Three Star Leadership Blog [....]
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