Customer Reviews

Teamwork Is an Individual Skill: Getting Your Work Done When Sharing Responsibility

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Thank you; thank you; thank you, Christopher. This book is GREAT -- indeed, masterful. Don?t walk! Run to get this book!

This work adds to the knowledge on teamwork and does so in a way that is practical, easy to read, and easy to imagine applying. Avery has demonstrated his academic research skills, because even though the average reader may not see it, his work is based on knowledge of the latest research. He also demonstrates his long history as a consultant and facilitator in industries right close to home. Even though I have been studying and working in this field myself, this book added to my knowledge. Avery, Walker and O?Toole must have also demonstrated great teamwork, because the book is very clear, engaging, and immediately applicable.

Have you ever heard, ?I just got put on a bad team?? Here is the antidote for all of us. Have you ever seen a team de-motivated, deflated over someone not keeping the agreements? People think, ?Well he?s not pulling his weight, the result won?t be good, what is the use in trying?? Have you ever had a subordinate be defensive when you were trying to give her just the tip she needed to come up to the bar? Have you ever been blindsided when it looked like the group came to agreement in lightning speed and then no one followed through. Have you ever wondered how to fix broken trust when you have ?blown it?? Have you ever wondered what a model for GOOD ? functional and effective ?collaboration was?

It is all here. Read, mark, and inwardly digest. Here is management tool and employee culture with real values. Profundity and simplicity together is a sign of importance. I am raving about this book everywhere.

Actually I just heard that the book is based on the newsletter that is sent to participants of Partnerworks workshops. On Monday, when participants have to put into practice their new skills, they have a newsletter with an easy assignment. Yeah for transformational education!

Sharon Sarles, M.Div., M.A., OSD; organizational consultant with Organizational Strategies; Vice President for Research & Development, Southwest Facilitator's Network

Whose fault is it when teams don't work?

I was leery of the new book Teamwork Is an Individual Skill, by Christopher M. Avery, but got hooked halfway through the first chapter. If you work with people - as a manager, employee, business owner - even as a family member - you're likely to find valuable advice for building cooperative relationships and achieving common goals.

This is not a book about getting along with those you work with, or even about being nice to them. It's about helping them help you succeed. According to Avery, if you do your part (by taking responsibility for the team's performance), they'll do theirs. The team will achieve its goals, and everyone will be able to take the credit.

Following are a few of the book's suggestions:

· Realize that teams are defined not by the people on them but by what the team must do. To win individually, the members must win first as a team.

· Take responsibility for and act on troublesome situations, rather than waiting for those "in charge" to do so.

· Don't go along with something you are strongly opposed to. Without blaming, "push back," knowing that your silence would be equivalent to consent.

· Begin a team relationship with a contribution: evidence of your talents, special information to which you have access ... tools, contacts, whatever you have that supports the team's mission.

· Practice "servant leadership," Buckminster Fuller's concept of winning by helping others win.

The book continues with ideas for using conflict constructively, distinguishing criticism from feedback, building consensus, calling others on broken agreements, and much more. Avery has included individual and team exercises, so you can use Teamwork Is an Individual Skill as an employee-training manual.

The book entitled "Teamwork is an Individual Skill" is quite interesting. I work at a large semi-conductor manufacturer as a non-exempt fab technician on a self managed team on night shift.

I am the most experienced and capable person on my team, yet with all of my background I have come to realize how relatively little influence I often have on team performance, and on my ability to push the team in the direction I think it should go. The very first sentence in your book on page 1, "Do you share responsibility with others to get work done but don't have authority over them (and they don't have authority over you)?" absolutely floored me, 'cause that is me to the tee.

I had only gotten to page 8 of your book when I was thoroughly blown away by the directness with which the differences between flat and hierarchical structures were addressed. At my company there is no mention of this approach; even once when I mentioned the term "semi-autonomous team" to the most qualified tech (who happened to be on day shift--arguably a more hierarchical environment due to the presence of many exempt employees) he did not know what the term meant. The company has this structure in place almost as an unwritten agenda.

Your comment on page 5, "Many individuals--especially smart, high achievers--can experience great angst if asked to serve in teams." is in retrospect a great source of comfort to help me understand my angst during my three years with this company. In all of the areas I have worked in during that time I am sure that I had (at least on paper) more qualifications than any one other person (B.S. deg, two A.A.S. degs, 12+ prior years of technical experience, and a whole host of other skills that my teammates do not exhibit.) Plus add to that, that my experience has almost exclusively come from a strongly tilted hierarchical background in retrospect is why I struggled with teams, as you describe them.

Every page of your book is quite thought-provoking, causing me to pause and reflect on how your observations compare to my situation.

I enjoyed reading and digesting the practical, easy to understand advice given by the authors of this book. Members of any team can gain valuable information and insight on how to function more effectively on their teams. However, the sage advice given in this book will not set well with those reluctant to take responsibility for their own actions. The focus is on personal responsibility and developing what the authors' term "TeamWisdom." By following their advice, those with TeamWisdom can create highly responsible and productive relationships at work. The book can equip you with individual skills and behaviors to make a difference in the success of your team, provided of course that you are ready to accept responsibility and take action. Each topic in the five chapters is organized in a format that highlights and explains the skill or behavior necessary to gain TeamWisdom. This is followed by both a Personal Challenge to help you put it into practice and a Team Challenge to help you implement it with team members. Each topic ends with a real life example of how each skill or behavior has been put to practice. As someone you works to develop collaborative partnerships, I found the advice in this book realistic, clearly presented and concise. I highly recommend it as a sound, practical guide for anyone who shares responsibility with others to get work accomplished but doesn't have authority over them.

Many of us charged with leading teams are expected to take the role of 'scapegoat' for team performance. While most of us agree that the team leader does contribute (critically) to the team's success, each individual member can and does impact the team's performance. This book provides a validation that individuals impact teams and goes further to explain that every team member has an obligation to provide for the success of the team. This book helps empower those that want to make a difference in their teams.

For years, I have resisted the popular notion of "there is no `I' in "teamwork" because teams are a collection of individuals working toward a common goal. Each of us brings our own values and skill sets to the table. It is our choice to work together (or not) as a team.
Christopher M. Avery has captured this idea and more in his latest book, Teamwork is an Individual Skill: Getting Work Done When Sharing Responsibility. Chris suggests that individuals take responsibility for team success versus blame others He challenges the reader to be proactive and work through team issues rather than avoid or accommodate others.
This is a perfect book for team members who have been on teams before. It will validate good team behaviors and point out areas to upgrade...in a gentle and non-threatening way. The book is easy to read with lots of stories and examples to highlight the key points.

Exceptional book! This book will give you real life examples as well as opportunities to practice theories as an individual or with you team. Too many books and theories focus on the team as a whole. Mr. Avery makes people realize that it is an individual's choice that makes a team successful. Depending on your level of commitment and taking responsibility, everyone can be on a productive and inspiring team. I would highly recommend the book as well as Partnerwerks seminar, "Being Powerful in Any Team".

An excellent book. The text in all its controversy (when compared to what you typically learn about teamwork) is very refreshing. It obviously provides very useful tools for improving team performance.

It does, however, have much more value than just teamwork performance improvement. Most of it (if not all) can easily be applied in building powerful relationships between teams and groups as well as between companies.

Excerpt from Fortune Article: How to build a great team by Jerry Useem, FORTUNE, June 1, 2006: 3:31 PM EDT

........ The fact is, most of what you've read about teamwork is bunk. So here's a place to start: Tear down those treacly motivational posters of rowers rowing and pipers piping. Gather every recorded instance of John Madden calling someone a "team player." Cram it all into a dumpster and light the thing on fire. Then settle in to really think about what it means to be a team.

We're certainly not against the concept of teamwork. But that's the point: All the happy-sounding twaddle obscures the actual practice of it. And teamwork is a practice. Great teamwork is an outcome; you can only create the conditions for it to flourish. Like getting rich or falling in love, you cannot simply will it to happen.

We will go further and say: Teamwork is an individual skill. That happens to be the title of a book. Christopher Avery writes, "Becoming skilled at doing more with others may be the single most important thing you can do" to increase your value - regardless of your level of authority.

As work is increasingly broken down into team-sized increments, Avery's argument goes, blaming a "bad team" for one's difficulties is, by definition, a personal failure, since the very notion of teamwork implies a shared responsibility. You can't control other people's behavior, but you can control your own. Which means that there is an "I" in team after all. (Especially in France, where they spell it Equipe.)

This book is a must for anyone who is managing an office. if your office is full of egotistical employees or employees who are not term players, this book will help you to help employess get on the right track.