Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances / Edition 1

by J. Richard Hackman

Overview

Richard Hackman, one of the world's leading experts on group and organizational behavior, argues that teams perform at their best when leaders create conditions that allow them to manage themselves effectively.

Leading Teams is not about subscribing to a specific formula or leadership style. Rather, it is about applying a concise set of guiding principles to each unique group situation—and doing so in the leader's own idiosyncratic way. Based on extensive research and using compelling examples ranging from orchestras to airline cockpit crews, Leading Teams identifies five essential conditions—a stable team, a clear and engaging direction, an enabling team structure, a supportive organizational context, and the availability of competent coaching—that greatly enhance the likelihood of team success. 

The book offers a practical framework that leaders can use to muster personal skills and organizational resources to create and sustain the five key conditions and shows how those conditions can launch a team onto a trajectory of increasing effectiveness. 

Authoritative and astutely realistic, Leading Teams offers a new and provocative way of thinking about and leading work teams in any organizational setting.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781578513338
Publisher:	Harvard Business Review Press
Publication date:	07/10/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

J. Richard Hackman is the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

	Preface	vii
Part I	Teams
1.	The Challenge	3
Part II	Enabling Conditions
2.	A Real Team	37
3.	Compelling Direction	61
4.	Enabling Structure	93
5.	Supportive Context	133
6.	Expert Coaching	165
Part III	Opportunities
7.	Imperatives for Leaders	199
8.	Thinking Differently about Teams	233
	Notes	257
	Bibliography	283
	Index	301
	About the Author	311

Editorial Reviews

"Written with exceptional clarity and wit, and teeming with original, down-to-earth advice, Leading Teams is indispensable reading for anyone who works in teams, studies them, or wonders what makes them sink or soar." — Harvey Hornstein, Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University

"This is the book I have been waiting for on team effectiveness. Based on findings and containing insights from the leading researcher on teams, Leading Teams has everything. It is engaging, highly readable, and full of practical, useful advice." — Edward Lawler, Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Effective Organizations, Universityof Southern California, Marshall School of Business

"Full of rich stories and organized into compelling cases, Leading Teams clearly communicates an elegant analysis of effective team leadership. A gem for practitioners and researchers alike." — Chris Argyris, James B. Conant Professor Emeritus, Harvard Universityand Director, Monitor Group

"In Leading Teams Dr. Hackman takes his extensive knowledge of how to effectively lead teams and mixes it with insightful research and humor, providing the reader with a powerful prescription for improving team performance." — Dave Bushy, Former Senior Vice President of Flight Operations and 747 Captain, Delta Airlines

"Richard Hackman provides real-world tools that challenge everything you thought you knew about creating high-performing teams. I found myself cheering each time he demolished a popular but wrongheaded conception of how to lead teams and provided a common sense answer in its stead." — Michael Putz, Senior Manager, Business Development and Strategy, Cisco Systems

From the Publisher

Hackman (social and organizational psychology, Harvard U.) identifies the factors of being a team leader that will enable a team to work together efficiently to achieve organizational goals. He suggests that five conditions are necessary: having a real team, a compelling direction, an enabling team structure, a supportive organizational context, and expert team coaching. He integrates insights from interviews with team leaders with concepts from the social sciences. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews