Team Building: An Annotated Bibliography of My Personal Favorites
Steven Phillips and Robin Elledge, The Team Building Source Book, Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer. The best resource on how to design and implement real team building covering such areas as data collection, analysis, feedback, implementation and follow-up.
William Dyer, Team Building: Current Issues and New Alternatives, Addison-Wesley. Everyone should read this little classic by the grand master of team building.
J. Richard Hackman, Editor, Groups That Work (and Those That Don't), Jossey-Bass. An eclectic collection of 27 case studies of teams that range from a string quartet to an operating room to credit analysts and show why some teams succeed and others don't.
Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith, The Wisdom of Teams, Harvard Business School Press. The new "classic" that studied 50 teams in 30 organizations and found that the one clear distinguishing factor in high performing teams was clear performance objectives.
Jack D. Orsburn, Linda Moran, Ed Musselwhite and John Zenger, Self-Directed Work Teams, Business One Irwin. The first book to make sense of the challenges faced by organizations attempting to implement self-directed teams.
Susan Albers Mohrman, Susan Cohen and Allan M. Mohrman, Jr., Designing Team-Based Organizations, Jossey-Bass. The best book around on the structure and systems required for the strategic deployment of teams.
Linda Moran, Ed Musselwhite and John Zenger, Keeping Teams on Track, Irwin. Here's a practical guidebook for organizations who are several years into teams and need help on how to deal with issues faced by mature teams.
Rodney Napier and Matti Gershenfeld, Groups: Theory and Practice, Houghton Mifflin. If you can still find this book, you'll love the authors' clear explanation of group dynamics (e.g., communication, norms, membership, leadership)and advice for practitioners on how to apply the knowledge to the facilitation of teams.
Carl Larson and Frank LaFasto, Teamwork: What Must Go Right/What Can Go Wrong, Sage Publications. The authors identified eight characteristics of effective teams and then tested them with very diverse group of 32 real-life teams such as a college football team, a Mt. Everest expedition, an IBM PC team, a theater production and a presidential cabinet.
David Johnson and Frank Johnson, Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills, Prentice-Hall. Another "oldie but goodie" (my copy is held together by tape), that successfully integrates readable social psychology with practical team exercises.
Jack Zigon, How to Measure the Results of Work Teams, Zigon Performance Group. The title says it all. It's 300 pages loaded with how-to information and real-world examples.
Jerry McAdams, The Reward Plan Advantage, Jossey-Bass. The first book to present a clear explanation of the differences between group incentives, project team rewards and team recognition.
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Copyright © 1998 Glenn Parker