HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER
Title: Glenn M. Parker
Competency: team building, meeting management
Who benefits: anyone involved in teams or meetings (I think this is just about everyone)
Consultant Usage: practical material for use in consulting
What’s it about? Doris Kearns Goodwin’s  Team of Rivals (previously reviewed on this site) is all the rage these days as comparisons of Lincoln and Obama are written, spoken and much debated. It is all about building a team at the Presidential level.Â
But what about building a team at the level where you and I live – at our work and in our organizations. Many of you readers are already familiar with the body of work done by Glenn Parker. His work has been around for almost 20 years now. His emphasis is on practical advice and ease of understanding team dynamics. (Disclaimer: As far as I know I have never met or talked with Mr. Parker) For those of you who are less familiar with him, here are some books of this well known practitioner:
The second edition of his best known book came out last year: Team Players and Teamwork, Completely Updated and Revised: New Strategies for Developing Successful Collaboration. It was a most welcomed update because of the extreme change in the practical applications of team work over the past 15 years. Today’s teams are much more likely to be cross-functional, cross-cultural, virtual, and dependent on communication technology. For these very reasons, trust is more difficult to achieve and sustain, team meeting are more critical than ever and team leadership is more challenging.
There is a lot of emphasis on what makes a team effective. The material is supported by two assessments readily available to the reader: The “Team Player Survey†and the “Team-Development Surveyâ€. A high-light in terms of importance is an in-depth description of his “twelve characteristics of an effective teamâ€.
The book is user friendly and comprehensive as introduction to team building. If you want more from Parker, you may also be interested in Cross- Functional Teams: Working with Allies, Enemies, and Other Strangers (2002), Meeting Excellence: 33 Tools to Lead Meetings That Get Results (2006), and/or Rewarding Teams : Lessons From the Trenches(2000).
If this is a subject you are interested in, this will serve as a good reference or starting point. There are of course many other good authors on the topic and a great number are mentioned in these books. One thing for sure, teams aren’t going away. They may be teams of collaborators or teams of rivals, but they will be there!
Catch you later.
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[tags]team building, building teams, team consultant, roles in teams, meetings, meeting management, cross-functional teams, rewarding teams, team surveys, team characteristics, glenn m parker , bill bradley, william bradley, bradley[/tags]
Bill Bradley
Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.
First, I think you meant Doris Kearns rather than Doris Lessing. On the larger point you are correct that there is a rage around that book AND teams of rivals (or just normal human differences in personality and motivation) can work if you know how to manage them.
I appreciate the references and will look them up. I would also recommend Ingrid Bens work such as “Facilitating to Lead,” “Advanced Team Faciliation,” and her book on “Advanced Faciliation.” All of these are excellent and I have found very helpful.
bill clover
Thank you Bill for catching my error and your spot-on observation about people. I have made the correction in the posting. I also hope readers will note Bill’s additional recommendations.