Team Players and Teamwork: New Strategies for Developing Successful Collaboration

I was lucky enough to discover this book when it was first published. Since then I've frequently gone back to it and always find useful "gems." Now that we're more virtual, the new edition helps translate team principles to the current reality and its challenges. I not only recommend this book, I also suggest you look at Mr. Parker's "Team Player Survey."

Glenn Parker's book, Team Players and Teamwork (second edition: 2008) offers a variety of insights and ideas to help organizations and teams succeed in a world of cross-functional teams. While the first edition of this book provided valuable information for internal and external team-builders, the second edition offers even more for "people who see teamwork as a business strategy and want it to come alive." The book presents data from 51 organizations that have used teamwork in a strategic manner and achieved desired results. Correctly, Parker sees teamwork as a way for forward-thinking organizations to improve results, enhance productivity, generate innovations, build collaboration, maximize diverse contributions, and improve service. The book is about "team players," and continues his exploration of the four styles of the team player that are identified in the Parker Team Player Survey (PTPS): Contributor, Collaborator, Communicator, and Challenger. This book delves more deeply into the typical characteristics of these team player styles and examines the virtues of those who possess more than one prominent style. Further, this book applies the positive actions of each type of team player to Tuckman's "stages of team development." This helps team players know the actions they can take at the various stages to support their team in its development. This content will be very valuable for trainers and facilitators who work with the PTPS in team development interventions. The book also adds emphasis to the leader role's in team success. This edition takes the style concept and broadens the ways that team leaders can know themselves and bring their best as team leaders. In addition, Parker presents 12 characteristics of an effective team, relating the team leadership styles directly to several of these characteristics: planning, communication, risk-taking, problem-solving, and decision-making. This chapter will be very helpful for team leaders who want to apply the team leadership concepts directly in these important roles. Finally, I found great value in the data presented in the "Resources" section of the book. It presents more data on the distribution of team player styles in organizations, in some cases broken out by industry sector. Since I use the PTPS in team development workshops, this added data will strengthen understanding of one's own style and appreciation of others'. Team Players and Teamwork will help readers see the strategic value of team development, the elements to address, and the important role of "style" in helping teams perform at high levels.

This book is a must-read for team leaders and team members alike. The basics of traditional team efficiencies (as well as reasons why they may not be) are bolstered with insightful assessments of the developing challenges we see in supporting "virtual" teams. Little is taken for granted in discussing what makes effective teams effective, and how to address the issues that keep great teams from reaching their potential. After reading this book, it becomes much clearer to me which of my project teams are "teams" as opposed to groups of people gathering on a routine basis.

I was introduced to the first edition of this book as part of the MSOD program at AU/NTL in Washington, DC and it has remained a useful part of my library ever since. The second edition is equally as helpful as a template for emerging leaders and a tool for refreshing more experienced ones. I recently used it and the Parker Team Player Survey in a large-scale training event for leadership in emergency situations, and it was well received. Just like the book, Glenn's model is valid, easy to embrace and portable. It uses good examples and makes it possible for people to quickly recognize their strengths in this area and develop their weaknesses. It also helps leaders recognize the balance (and imbalance) of team player behaviors on their work teams and find creative ways to compensate when the needed behaviors are missing from the situation. I recommend this important lens for any leader or would-be team player.

Once again, Glenn has produced a work that is comprehensive, well organized and easy to read. Much has changed since the first edition of this book in the way teams are employed and the demands on them. Glenn has carefully researched these trends, and cataloged and illustrated the most significant of them in this edition. He now includes much new material on virtual teams, the use of technology in facilitating teamwork, cross-cultural and cross-functional teams. Drawing on his extensive work as a teambuilding consultant with a broad range of sophisticated clients, Glenn now includes insights into the need for fully integrated systems of rewards and recognition and performance measurement for teams and team players. Examples of how these clients have built successful team-driven cultures and sustained them will provide others with fresh ideas. For students, it's and excellent and comprehensively updated guide to teams and team players, and they will continue to find the text amply footnoted and well-researched. For experienced team players and business leaders, it's a useful refresher - and more: Glenn provides ample real-life examples, complete with realistic dialog and comments that bring the material to life. More importantly, the guides, surveys and other tools are relevant to virtually all teams in a business setting. Glenn's team player style model is skillfully used to illustrate how each style impacts on team leadership, and provides vivid examples of how the style impacts on team player effectiveness - or lack of effectiveness. While a dynamic global business environment has made an update of Glenn's 1990 work necessary, it has not required a change to the original templates Glenn used to describe and define team and team member behaviors. His well-researched team player styles model and his 12-point characterization of effective teams comprise an effective and relevant framework for the examination of team dynamics. All in all, the book is well worth having in your professional references collection.