Teach Your Team to Fish: Using Ancient Wisdom for Inspired Teamwork [Hardcover]

Kenneth Blanchard (Author), Laurie Beth Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 2002

Laurie Beth Jones has given hundreds of thousands of business readers insight into how the ideas of Jesus can be used to enhance performance. One of the most critical work areas for anyone, whether a manager or a CEO, a teacher or a pastor, is cooperative teamwork. Leaders today face their greatest challenges not only in defining strategies and getting updated information but also in getting diverse human beings to pull together without falling apart.

Jesus can be a role model for team leaders everywhere. When Jesus called out to his future disciples, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” he transformed them from people who worked for themselves to people who were part of a larger team. Jesus was constantly exhorting his people to “gather in my name” and “go out two by two” and always think and pray “as one.” Jesus’ final prayer was “that they might be one, Father, even as you and I are one,” which is ultimately about union and communion, common values and purpose—all of which form the bedrock of an inspired team.

Teach Your Team to Fish offers dozens of stories from the Bible showing how Jesus managed his team of disciples and other followers, with suggestions for how to apply these lessons to real-world teambuilding and management problems. It offers guidance and inspiration on:

* how to excite your team in order to motivate them;
* how to ground them so they’ll be realistic about what can be achieved;
* how to transform them into a truly well-functioning team;
* and how to release them into the world to improve other teams elsewhere.

Along the way, the book gives examples of companies in which teams work well together and offers lessons that can help team leaders everywhere sustain themselves and achieve their common goals.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jones (Jesus, CEO) has established something of a cottage industry by using Jesus and his teachings as models for creating successful ways of doing business in contemporary society. In this latest effort, she draws once again from Jesus' teachings to his disciples, asserting that he successfully taught people how to work in teams to accomplish their goals. Jesus, she writes, did not simply gather a group of rag-tag followers; he "excited them," "grounded them," "transformed them" and "released them." For example, Jones contends that Jesus taught his team the SQM method: simplify, quantify, multiply. This method allowed the disciples to get to the core of what they were called to do, to determine ways to measure the progress they made toward these goals and to ensure that each one had the ability to multiply the good of the team in every contact they made. Each meditation is brief, and questions accompany each reflection so that groups can use the book to improve teamwork. Jones closes each meditation with a prayer. Overall, her conclusions can be simplistic and her readings of Scripture questionable, particularly since the biblical disciples were most noted for their repeated failures to understand Jesus' mission. Her assertions that "Scriptures are designed to help prevent failure" and that "those who listen to God's words, and heed them, are promised prosperity and abundance..." transmit a possibly misguided and self-centered understanding of Scripture. However, Jones's following is huge, and her fans will devour this new book.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Once again, Laurie Beth Jones shows us a practical pathway to teambuilding illuminated by the spark of the eternal and divine.” —Michael A. Volkema, chairman, president, and CEO, Herman Miller

“Think of it. Whoever built a higher performing team than Jesus! Now Laurie Beth Jones makes this ancient wisdom accessible and useful to twenty-first-century leaders. Learn from the Master.”—Bob Buford, author of Halftime: Changing Your Game Plan from Success to Significance and Stuck in Halftime: Reinvesting Your One and Only Life

“This is Laurie Beth Jones’s best book yet, and that’s saying a lot. Teamwork is a hot topic in America today, and this book is going to be a classic on the subject.” —Pat Williams, senior vice president, Orlando Magic

“Laurie Beth Jones beautifully points aspiring team leaders and builders to the Master Servant Leader and Builder, Jesus Christ. Teach Your Team to Fish is rich in inspiration and instruction . . . well worth the read, and can be life-changing.” —Commissioner Robert A. Watson, retired national commander, The Salvation Army, and author of The Most Effective Organization in the U.S.

“Once again, Laurie Beth Jones has taken the example and life of Jesus to teach us how to lead—to be teacher-learners as we motivate others to do even more and greater things than we are able to do. It is a must-read for those who seek to lead people through challenging and turbulent times as we enter the twenty-first century.” —C. William Pollard, chairman, ServiceMaster

“Laurie Beth Jones understands that good business is built upon good relational skills. She uniquely teaches us how to apply these principles of ancient wisdom in today’s work environment.” —Jim Ellick, president, Strategy for Living

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business; 1 edition (May 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609606794
• ISBN-13: 978-0609606797
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,033,909 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laurie Beth Jones - Best Selling Author and Motivational Speaker

Laurie Beth Jones is an internationally recognized best-selling author, speaker, coach, and trainer. Her business books, written from a spiritual perspective, have received global recognition for the sound, time-proven principles contained within. As a speaker and trainer, she has been invited to present to presidents of countries and companies, business teams, government and the judicial system, churches and ministries, service organizations, and educators.

Her first book, Jesus CEO, Using Ancient Wisdom For Visionary Leadership was written when she was struck by the notion that Jesus’ leadership approach with his staff (disciples) ran counter to many of the management styles and techniques being employed and popularized. As the owner of a successful marketing company, Laurie became increasingly dismayed to find invaluable human energy and intelligence untapped or underutilized. She made it her goal to help empower people by encouraging them to review the divine excellence in themselves and in those they serve.

She followed with The Path: Creating Your Mission Statement for Work and for Life. This book, along with Path Experience Workshops, has provided inspiration and practical advice to thousands of individuals through every step of defining and fulfilling a mission. . . a mission statement that can be created over a weekend rather than months or years. Her Personal Mission is to recognize, promote, and inspire divine connection in myself and others. She lives her mission by writing, speaking and creating opportunities for you to get clear about who you are, what you were created to do, and how to live your highest good.

In, The Four Elements of Success, Laurie introduces two new approaches to the age-old challenge of working with people. The Path Elements Profile (PEP) is an intuitive and powerful communication tool that can successfully be employed by individuals of almost any age in any situation. The Elemental Team Challenge Quiz
is a diagnostic tool for businesses based on twenty-eight principles, gleaned from hundreds of proven best practices, that can help transform a team into a powerful and productive entity.

In her most recent release, Jesus, Career Counselor, Laurie Beth defines the difference between a job, a career, and work using a construct she terms as the "Twelve Dreams" for finding and keeping your perfect work. This book is more than a manual to help you identify and find the exact job fit. Laurie's goal goes beyond helping you decide whether you want to go into pediatrics or neurosurgery, or become a part-time eBay seller or get a job at Home Depot. These are details to be determined after you have found your vocare, your calling.

Between plane trips, speaking engagements, and writing opportunities, Laurie provides amazing insights and support to her team and those she coaches. For rest and recreation she cuddles Roo, her Bichon-Frise Yorkie mix, cruises the southwest trails on Texas Range, her Palomino Tennessee Walker, and joins family and friends for opportunities of casual fun, entertainment, and enlightenment.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Teach Your Team to Fish, May 11, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Teach Your Team to Fish: Using Ancient Wisdom for Inspired Teamwork (Hardcover)

This book is a wonderful tool for focusing on the importance of your relationship with the people in your team or your employees. It gives a simple, easy to read, but important message on working with people using the example of Jesus and his disciples. I highly recommend it to anyone who manages/supervises people including children! Well written and well worth the read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome leadership book, February 21, 2007

By 

Kerry Friestad "Scott and Kerry Friestad" (Shreveport LA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Teach Your Team to Fish: Using Ancient Wisdom for Inspired Teamwork (Paperback)

This book is probably the best and easiest leadership books I have ever read. Laurie Beth Jones did an amazing job keeping the chapters short, but powerful. This is a book you will want on your desk, like a business reference! Unbeliveable!! A must read for every person who leads anything or anybody!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Skip this one and find a real leadership book actually based on Jesus' stated principles, February 25, 2008

By 

chilemery (Santiago, CHILE) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Teach Your Team to Fish : Using Ancient Wisdom for Inspired Teamwork (Hardcover)

I have read many books on leadership...many based on Christian principles as this one purports to be. This volume is perhaps one of the worst books I have read from the genre. If this were merely sold as a worldly but principle-based leadership book it would be bad enough, but it is all the more irritating to me given that the author claims to have taken her cues from careful observation of Jesus' actions and lessons.

In fact, it seems to me that Jones first made the list of leadership qualities and practices that she wanted to write about and then bent over backwards to find an example from Jesus' life or teaching to fit the items on her list. Many of her examples are such a stretch or taken so far out of context so as to be an insult to the reader's intelligence.

The author trivializes Jesus' profound teachings and exploits his servant example in order to write the book she wants, not necessarily to faithfully reflect on the kind of leader Jesus was or would endorse.

Perhaps Jones was under pressure from her publishers to follow up on Jesus, CEO, and crank something out for the hungry, lucrative Christian leadership market. Maybe next time she'll pay more attention to her integrity as an author and have more respect for the would-be buyer/reader's time and money. If Jones had taken perhaps Jesus' greatest maxim to love one's neighbor as one's self, then she couldn't have in good conscience foisted this low quality work on us.