The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player: Becoming the Kind of Person Every Team Wants (Hardcover)

by John C. Maxwell (Author) "His friends call him Q..." (more)
Key Phrases: Bob Taylor, New York, Mary Hays (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player is another in a long line of titles by John Maxwell aimed at helping people attain their personal and leadership potential in the workplace. The book is organized into short chapters, each devoted to one of the 17 qualities that Maxwell deems essential to a successful and harmonious workplace, qualities such as competence, discipline, adaptability, commitment, selflessness, and preparedness. Maxwell's prose reads like a series of sermons, peppered with inspirational stories and quotes from personalities as diverse as Vince Lombardi ("The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender") and Henry Ford ("Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success"). The book is for Maxwell fans and anyone looking for a sensible and formulaic approach to improving their lot, both at work and in life. --Harry C. Edwards --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

Where can a person go to learn how to become a better team player? Your choices are definitely limited. John C. Maxwell takes the pain out of knowing what makes a team tick. If you want to have a better team, you have to develop better players. Great team players, like great teams, are formed from the inside out.

The qualities Maxwell teaches quickly take you to the heart of teamwork. Anybody can understand them and apply them -- whether at home, on the job, at church, or on the ball field. If you learn the 17 essential qualities of a team player, you can become the kind of person every team wants. If everyone on your team does it, there will be no holding you back.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson; 1 edition (October 13, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785288813
• ISBN-13: 978-0785288817
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #41,145 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #15 in	Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Teams
  #40 in	Books > Religion & Spirituality > Authors, A-Z > ( M ) > Maxwell, John C.
  #61 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Business Management > Organizational Behavior

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book but website FAILED TO DELIVER, January 23, 2002

By	Dan E. Ross "Dan Ross" (Frisco, Tx USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The 17 Essential Qualities Of A Team Player Becoming The Kind Of Person Every Team Wants (Hardcover)

17 Qualities of a Team Player is an easy read chocked full of great quotes and stories on each of the qualities mentioned in the book. The book has a quote, a story and then a brief evaluation of what he is trying to convey to the reader. I believe Maxwell's interpretations are right on the money and a very refreshing way of looking at teamwork, a skill that is essential in today's economy and future economy, which promises to be more based on social skills and business networks.

Mr. Maxwell uses 17 qualities to describe a successful team player: Adaptable, Collaborative, committed, communicative, competent, dependable, disciplined, enlarging, enthusiastic, intentional, mission conscious, prepared, relational, self-improving, selfless, solution oriented, tenacious.

I believe the key ingredient in getting long-term value out of this book is to highlight the quotes/stories you love and integrate them into your daily life. Practice what you read if it ties in with your VALUES. I believe that the values / qualities expressed in this book provide a practical guide to achieving personal fulfillment in your career, marriage and social relations.

I gave the book a 4 star rating because the website, which has assessment tests, is not up and running until February yet I was able to buy and read the book well before such date. If a publisher/author is going to incorporate such tools/add-ons into a book they should make sure they are operational and running 100% effectively by the time the book is published. To me, that is business 101. Perhaps Maxwell should learn something about that! After all, commitment and vision were two of the qualities he espoused in his 21 qualities of a leader book. Practice what you preach John!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking yet very easy to read, February 18, 2004

By	John Martin (Diamond Bar, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The 17 Essential Qualities Of A Team Player Becoming The Kind Of Person Every Team Wants (Hardcover)

I thought that the book was very easy to read and it's shorter length makes it very accessible to those with very busy lives.

I really enjoyed the little stories and the descriptions of the elements that compose the 17 qualities were very well written. The main thing I enjoyed about the book was not that it taught me a lot of things I didn't know, but that it put those things together in a more coherent picture and made me ask myself some hard questions about how I can be a better team player and whether or not I've neglected some areas.

I find I perform at a much higher level when I keep these sorts of ideas in mind as I plan my tasks. This book is small enough to travel well and profound enough to keep pushing me to higher levels.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mostly fluff, December 9, 2007

By	Marc A. Baldwin (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've read most of Maxwell's stuff and I'm not a huge fan. This book is another in his series of "17" books, and I find that once again he could have combined most of them and made it the five or six essential qualities of a team player.

The book is laid out systematically: name of the quality, feel-good story, 3-5 points of explanation, 3-5 points of application, next quality. It's chocked full of stories and quotations, so if you're looking for anecdotes, this is the book for you. It's a very easy read.

It's not a bad book and there are a few points that I found useful, but for the most part it's just a run-of-mill Maxwell book. He's more of a storyteller. If you're looking for a good book on improving teamwork, I would recommend Patrick Lencioni's "Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators".