Go Team! Take Your Team to the Next Level - Ken Blanchard

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rd, Alan Randolph, Peter Grazier

      Go Team!: Take Your Team to the Next Level

      Dedicated to the memory of John P. Carlos, the Great Storyteller

      FOREWORD

      We were honored when Ken, Alan, and Peter asked us to write the foreword to their new book, Go Team! Ken and Alan have been our friends and colleagues for more than thirty years. We are delighted that they are adding this guide to understanding and achieving “Next Level” team status to the Blanchard library on team excellence.

      For the past two decades significant changes have been occurring in our workplaces involving how work is structured and how decisions are made. Organizations have had to reinvent themselves to meet the demands of a rapidly changing global environment. Productivity, quality, and human satisfaction have increased in those organizations that have begun to use high involvement management practices. And teams have been the cornerstones of many of these successful change efforts.

      Teamwork and collaboration are how work gets done effectively. Team-based practices, when successfully implemented, lead to higher productivity, increased satisfaction, and better employee health, and they promote our democratic values. Most people today participate in at least one and sometimes many different teams. Unfortunately, those teams often do not perform up to their potential. One of the major barriers to effectively implementing teams is that people have not been properly trained to function in teams as contributing team members.

      When we wrote, with Ken Blanchard, The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams in 1989, we were interested in providing a basic understanding of

      • The characteristics of high performing teams

      • The stages of team development

      • The leadership behaviors appropriate at each stage

      That book, now in its second edition, has become a best-selling standard for understanding the core essentials for building high performing teams, and thousands of people have participated in training programs based on those concepts. The popular sequel, High Five! The Magic of Working Together, written with Sheldon Bowles, builds on those concepts and through an engaging parable shows what individuals and organizations must do to build successful teams.

      Go Team! Take Your Team to the Next Level expands on the principles in these two books by building on ideas in the best-selling book by Ken, Alan, and John Carlos: The Three Keys to Empowerment. Now, Ken, Alan, and Peter have created a wonderful field guide that provides practical ideas and activities for moving teams to the Next Level. As you read this book, you will gain both the ability and the confidence to make effective use of information-sharing skills to build trust and responsibility, clear boundary-setting skills to create freedom, and self-managing skills to get great results.

      This field guide will serve many teams for many years as an outstanding resource to use to increase team skills, productivity, and morale. It is an ideal follow-up to training in basic team concepts and can help ensure application and sustainability in real-world team settings.

      Excellence in leadership, innovation, quality, service, productivity, and human satisfaction in the twenty-first century will best come from people working in teams that can use their potential, knowledge, and motivation. Go Team! is a tool that can help make that happen, and we hope you will use it to Take Your Team to the Next Level.

      Don Carew

      Eunice Parisi-Carew

      Founding Associates of the Ken Blanchard Companies

      Coauthors of The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams and High Five! The Magic of Working Together

      INTRODUCTION MOVING TEAMWORK TO THE NEXT LEVEL

      People in organizations today are increasingly being called upon to work in teams. This is because the work of organizations has become amazingly complex and changes occur constantly. More and more, companies around the world are using teams to deal with this dynamic world of work.

      Unfortunately, too few people really understand how to build a team that puts into action the knowledge, experience, and motivation of its people. We do not have to look very far to see numerous examples of failed team efforts – be they in sports, business, or government. Therefore, it is no surprise that people often give up on the idea of teams and try to go it alone. We do not believe that is an effective solution for today’s workplace. Go Team! is our game plan for building better teams – Next Level Teams.

      What are Next Level Teams, and what benefits do they bring to the table? First, the benefits: Next Level Teams

      • Use all team members’ ideas and motivation

      • Make better use of the team members’ and team leader’s time

      • Increase productivity and satisfaction for you, your team, and the organization

      Second, what are Next Level Teams? They are teams that can

      • Use information sharing to build high levels of trust and responsibility

      • Use clear boundaries to create the freedom to act responsibly

      • Use self-managing skills to make team decisions and get great results

      Once the picture of a Next Level Team is clear, you and your team members can assess how you operate now. Then you can begin the process of becoming a Next Level Team that gets great results.

      Those of you who are fans of Ken Blanchard books will notice that Go Team! is a departure from Ken’s easy-reading business parables. This book is intended to be a working guide filled with detailed instructions for people who want to build high performing teams.

      Go Team! will take you through three steps to great results:

      Step 1 Begin learning Next Level skills

      Step 2 Accelerate the change

      Step 3 Master the skills

      Each step is designed to guide your team to the Next Level. As you, your team members, and your leader move through the book together, responsibility will shift naturally from your leader to your team. You will learn how to use your ideas more effectively, make excellent team decisions, and feel the pride of having contributed in new and more meaningful ways.

      Your leader will also appreciate your team’s move to the Next Level because he or she will have new opportunities to help the team. What leader hasn’t been frustrated by a lack of time to plan work, think ahead, receive training, coach team members, or investigate new equipment that may be needed in the future?

      As your group moves to become a Next Level Team, you will enhance creativity, increase satisfaction, develop a sense of group pride, and achieve outstanding results. You will suddenly find your team soaring above the ordinary.

      Learn what Next Level Teams are and what they can do. Then use this book as a resource and take three steps with your team to get great results. Enjoy the journey – and get ready to soar!

      ONE

      Understanding Next Level Teams a picture of your future

      You’ve no doubt heard about teamwork and its importance in today’s workplace. Perhaps your organization has even tried to do more with teams and has preached teamwork.

      But most people are much more familiar with the idea of a work group. It’s the front line of an organization where the product is made or the service is provided. The idea of work groups is based on a view of work that is rooted in the old notion of an organization with rigid lines of managerial control, authority, and responsibility. In other words, those in leadership positions tend to assume they should make most decisions about the work, and employees tend to assume they should do what they are told by the leaders.

      WHY IS A NEW KIND OF TEAM NEEDED TODAY?

      In today’s rapidly changing business environment, concentrating decision-making authority with a

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