22 Best Books on Teamwork

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ave you ever wondered how to be a better team player? Whether you’re leading your own team or working with people in another office, there are some books that will make you rethink team dynamics. These books are here to offer insights on what it means to work together, the power of collaboration, and the importance of inspiring others. What follows is our list of the best books on teamwork.

What is a Good Definition of Teamwork?

The combined effort of a group (consisting of team members) to achieve a common goal effectively and efficiently. To get the most out of a team, a leader should know the skills of every individual for completing the goal with maximum efficiency. For working as a team, respect for everyone’s opinion is very important.

Best Books on Teamwork: THE LIST

1 – Mastering Collaboration | By Gretchen Anderson

Collaboration is key for organizations in the 21st century, yet few business people have been trained to teach this skill. How do you advance ideas in a collaborative way and then communicate them throughout your company? In this practical book, author Gretchen Anderson shows you how to generate ideas with others while gaining buy-in from all levels of your organization.

Product managers, designers, marketers, technical leaders, and executives will obtain better insight into how team members work together to make decisions. Through tangible exercises and techniques, you’ll learn how to turn promising ideas into products, services, and solutions that make a real difference in the market.

• Use a framework to develop ideas into hypotheses to be tested and refined
• Avoid common pitfalls in the collaboration process
• Align communication approaches to ensure that collaboration is effective and inclusive
• Structure events or meetings for different types of collaboration depending on the people involved
• Practice giving and receiving critiques to foster inclusion without resorting to consensus-based decisions

Quotes from Mastering Collaboration;

“Few teams…come together and launch something absolutely, catastrophically bad.”

“Strike a balance among team members [so] there is productive tension and conflict about specific ideas, not individual people.”

“Being inclusive of many different kinds of people, skill sets and perspectives is a core part of collaboration.”

“It’s not always about the facts – but about the greatness of the story.” (Balanced Team founder Christina Wodtke)

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” (African proverb)

“While not everyone is a natural collaborator, we can all adopt different behaviors and approaches to make working together better.”

“The space becomes the canvas for ideas; the room itself becomes the artifact.” (Arango)

“Collaboration is a skill that many agree is crucial to deal with big, complex challenges where causes are unclear and the knowledge and abilities required are diverse.”

2 – Iterate | By Ed Muzio

This book is a guide to the iterative organization, the only kind of organization that can learn and adapt fast enough to keep up in today’s world. For anyone running a team of managers, or advising someone who does, it describes the fundamental behaviors that create iteration, explains how to implement them, and includes videos and online assessment to get the process started. Iterate defines what management really is and helps readers create a fast, flexible, focused management team that does it well.

Ed Muzio, award-winning author, CEO, and ”one of the planet’s clearest thinkers on management practice,” provides a research-based blueprint for a management team that will take the next best step for the organization in any situation. This book enables senior leadership, front line and middle management, and human resource executives to equip their teams with both knowledge and practical skills so that they not only understand their own purpose but also perform that purpose well amidst ever-changing conditions. Iterate will help readers create measurable business results on any management team, of any size, in any industry where complex work and frequent change are the norms.

Quotes from Iterate;

“In management, nobody has a map. All you can do is gather as much information as reasonably possible and then make and implement a decision in a timely manner.”

“Each iteration may seem better or worse at the time, but the aggregate of all of them ultimately gets you where you’re going.”

“Get used to the idea that you’re going to be wrong – a lot. Whatever seemed like the next most logical step yesterday will seem like it was a mistake in light of the new information you have today.”

“There’s no reason to believe that iterative organizations are populated exclusively by very mature or otherwise magical people. Rather, they’re populated by ordinary people doing what ordinary people do.”

“There’s no way to produce iteration if, once resources are assigned, they can never be moved.”

“The iterative organization can only make the best decision possible every step of the way by benefiting from group intelligence; group decision-making helps the management team do just that.”

 3 – Wake Up and Smell the Coffee | By Simon Mac Rory

The deconstruction of the traditional workplace hierarchy, the abandonment of performance appraisal, and the impact of millennials/generations Y and Z all point to a substantial revival of teams and teamwork for the first time in more than 20 years. Leading companies are pushing towards a team-centric model but, for many others, team development remains ad hoc as they fail to recognize that teams hold the answers to increased effectiveness. Delivering improved team effectiveness across an organization does not have to be time-consuming. The Team Diagnostic Profiler (TDP) is a methodology and process that is easy to use, self-administering, and can deliver 10 to 20% improvement in team effectiveness when deployed in a corporate team strategy. This book is based on the TDP methodology and the years of research completed by the author.

Quotes from Wake Up and Smell the Cofee;

“It is natural for us to collaborate and, in many aspects of our lives, we do it very well – one might think instinctively.”

“Individuals and organizations [often] seem to think that by simply putting together a group of people and calling them a ‘team,’ they will perform as a team.”

“Team development is for all teams, all the time. If this approach is adopted, then there will be far fewer teams in trouble.”

“Virtual teams need to recruit people with different or additional attributes that are critical to the long-term success of the team.”

“Teams that are reflective and commit regular time to [the reflexivity] process have better coordination, clearer communication, better understanding of each other and better shared meanings.”

“Critical to the success of all project teams is mission clarity: Why does this team exist?”

“Teamwork is not fun. Effective teamwork requires sustained and continual effort and can be enjoyable when effective and successful, but this should not be confused with fun.”

“Team members who have to carry poorer performers and observe the team leader not dealing with this issue develop a number of emotional responses in terms of both the leader and other team members.”

“Organization should never be imposed but should be arrived at through consensus. This requires an ongoing consultative and engagement process with the team led by the leader.”

4 – The Best Team Wins | By Adam Robinson

Reduce Hiring Risks and Predict Success

New Mindset. In The Best Team Wins, author Adam Robinson gives you a proven, straightforward, and effective method for hiring new employees. He teaches you how to rethink the process of finding, assessing, and hiring the right people.

New Methods. Robinson, a recruiting professional with over twenty years of experience, shows you how to—

• Use a Data-Driven Job Profile to Assess Candidate Risk
• Build a Candidate Scorecard
• Rate the Candidate’s Core Competencies
• Ask the Right Questions to Dig Deeper in Interviews
• Craft an Offer the Candidate Can’t Refuse

Better Results. By following Robinson’s in-depth process, you can eliminate guesswork and focus on building a team that will bring value to your company’s culture and bottom line.

5 – Works Well with Others | By Ross McCammon

Ten years ago, Ross McCammon made an incredible and unexpected transition from working at an in-flight magazine in suburban Dallas to landing his dream job at Esquire in New York. What followed was a period of almost debilitating anxiety and awkwardness—interspersed with minor instances of professional glory—as McCammon learned how to navigate the workplace while feeling entirely ill-equipped for achieving success in his new career.

Works Well with Others is McCammon’s “relentlessly funny and soberingly insightful”* journey from impostor to authority, a story that reveals the workplace for what it is: an often absurd landscape of ego and fear guided by social rules that no one ever talks about. By mining his own experiences at the magazine, McCammon provides advice on everything from firm handshakes to small talk in elevators to dealing with jerks and underminers. Here is an inspirational new way of looking at your job, your career, and success itself; an accessible guide for those of us who are smart, talented, and ambitious but who aren’t well-“leveraged” and don’t quite feel prepared for success . . . or know what to do once we’ve made it.

Quotes from Works Well with Others;

“Authenticity and candor are crucial virtues in the workplace – and underrated virtues for interviews.”

“If you have already opened your mouth, then by all means please finish your sentence, and then: Just stop talking. Stop.”

“And if you didn’t spend time anticipating the obstacle, you’re not respecting the people you’re doing business with. In other words, you are the obstacle.”

“When I make a conscious effort to listen, it’s as if I’ve turned up the volume or put in a hearing aid or acquired a soul. Listening is a tool.”

“If you believe in what you’re saying, then the rest is easy. Because if you believe – like, really believe – then all you have to do is talk.”

“Speak under your allotted time. No one has ever walked away from a speech and said, ‘I wish that had been about two minutes longer’.”

“The first day is simply a rite of passage. It represents so much but indicates so little.”

“If you don’t think you ‘care’ about fashion, fine. But clothes matter. They have the power to change your outlook. They are representative of you, and ignoring that obvious truth is denying yourself a really powerful tool.”

6 – Pulling Together | By John Murphy

A must-read for the leader of any team, Pulling Together is the ultimate list of advice for achieving greatness on a team. From “Respecting Diversity” to “Building Trust,” the rules for teamwork compiled here will inspire camaraderie and demand excellence.

What makes this book unique is its depth of content paired with its gift-sized packaging. Each rule for “pulling together” is complemented with photographs, quotations, thought-provoking questions, and smart insight. However, it’s the perfect size to be given as a gift to each person on the team! This book could be given as a gift to coaches, athletes, business leaders, or coworkers.

7 – The Ideal Team Player | By Patrick Lencioni

In his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni laid out a groundbreaking approach for tackling the perilous group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here he turns his focus to the individual, revealing the three indispensable virtues of an ideal team player.

In The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni tells the story of Jeff Shanley, a leader desperate to save his uncle’s company by restoring its cultural commitment to teamwork. Jeff must crack the code on the virtues that real team players possess, and then build a culture of hiring and development around those virtues.

Beyond the fable, Lencioni presents a practical framework and actionable tools for identifying, hiring and developing ideal team players.  Whether you’re a leader trying to create a culture around teamwork, a staffing professional looking to hire real team players, or a team player wanting to improve yourself, this book will prove to be as useful as it is compelling.

Quotes from The Ideal Team Player;

“The most reliable way to ensure that teamwork takes hold in an organization would be to hire only ideal team players.”

“When reference givers do not respond to your requests for a reference, it is possible that they aren’t enthusiastic about the candidate.”

“Hunger is the least sensitive and nuanced of the three virtues. That’s the good news. The bad news is…it’s the hardest to change.”

“For organizations seriously committed to making teamwork a cultural reality…‘the right people’ are the ones who have the three virtues in common – humility, hunger and people smarts.”

“A long list of hobbies like extreme skiing, sled dog racing, storm chasing and shark hunting might just be a red flag when it comes to someone who is not going to put the needs of the team ahead of personal pursuits.”

“Many leaders who value teamwork…reluctantly hire self-centered people and then justify it simply because those people have desired skills.”

“Too often, leaders know that an employee really doesn’t belong and would be better elsewhere, and they fail to act because they lack courage.”

8 – Extreme Teams | By Robert Bruce Shaw

Extreme Teams examines the team practices driving growth in seven of the world’s most cutting-edge firms. They do this by challenging conventional wisdom and doing things differently.  The book takes you inside these bold companies and examines the teamwork approaches powering their results, including how:

• Pixar’s teams use rapid-cycle feedback and no-holds debate to transform initially flawed films into billion-dollar hits
• A culture of radical “freedom and responsibility” helps Netflix execute on the next big thing and transform its industry
• Whole Food’s super-autonomous teams embrace tough metrics and friendly competition to drive performance
• Zappos embraces the weirdness and fun that sustains its success

Quotes from Extreme Teams;

“Teams…provide a competitive advantage when they operate well. The problem is that designing and managing teams is a complicated undertaking.”

“There is a deep human need to bond with others, often in a risky endeavor, in the pursuit of a larger or even heroic purpose. Extreme teams provide that opportunity.”

“Culture includes the core beliefs and assumptions that people have about their work, their company and their competitive environment.”

“Teams are used far too often. In some cases, the best decision in regard to using teams is not to use one at all.”

“The challenge is delivering results without creating a culture that is too harsh – a culture where people compete with each other in unproductive ways or live in constant fear of losing their jobs.”

“Companies often embrace teams, or at least the concept of teams, without providing attention to what is needed for them to be successful.”

9 – Yes, And | By Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton

Executives from The Second City—the world’s premier comedy theater and school of improvisation—reveal improvisational techniques that can help any organization develop innovators, encourage adaptable leaders, and build transformational businesses.

For more than fifty years, The Second City comedy theater in Chicago has been a training ground for some of the best comic minds in the industry—including John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and Tina Fey. But it also provides one-of-a-kind leadership training to cutting-edge companies, nonprofits, and public sector organizations—all aimed at increasing creativity, collaboration, and teamwork.

The rules for leadership and teamwork have changed, and the skills that got professionals ahead of a generation ago don’t work anymore. Now The Second City provides new toolkit individuals and organizations can use to thrive in a world increasingly shaped by speed, social communication, and decentralization. Based on eight principles of improvisation, Yes, And helps to develop these skills and foster them in high-potential leaders and their teams, including:

• Mastering the ability to co-create in an ensemble
• Fostering a “yes, and” approach to work
• Embracing failure to accelerate high performance
• Leading by listening and by learning to follow
• Innovating by making something out of nothing

Yes, And is a must-read for professionals and organizations, helping to develop the invaluable leadership skills needed to succeed today.

Quotes from Yes, And;

“Improvisers are usually extremely quick-witted and nimble, able to think on their feet and adapt seamlessly to changing environments or circumstances.”

“The Second City improv-based training approach was a potent way to build the essential skills that separate the stars from the also-rans in the corporate world.”

“The…organization that takes itself too seriously and doesn’t know how to question its own beliefs is at a strong competitive disadvantage.”

“The more critical the message, the more you actually need comedy to cut through the clutter, grab attention and make the issue safe to talk about.”

“In full improviser mode, we become better leaders and better followers; likewise, we hear things that we didn’t hear before because we are listening deeply and fully.”

10 – Powers of Two | By Joshua Wolf Shenk

Lennon and McCartney, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Pierre and Marie Curie. Throughout history, partners have buoyed each other to better work — though often one member is little known to the general public. (See Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, or Vincent and Theo van Gogh.) In Powers of Two, Joshua Wolf Shenk draws on neuroscience, social psychology, and cultural history to present the social foundations of creativity, with the pair as its primary embodiment. Revealing the six essential stages through which creative intimacy unfolds, Shenk shows how pairs begin to talk, think, and even look like each other; how the most successful ones thrive on conflict; and why some cease to work together while others carry on. At once intuitive and deeply surprising, Powers of Two will reshape the way you view individuals, relationships, and society itself.

Quotes from Powers of Two;

“The lone-genius idea has become our dominant view of creativity not because of its inherent truth – in fact, it neglects and obscures the social qualities of innovation – but because it makes for a good story.

“It turns out that, amid infinite potential complexity, things tend to organize repeatedly into pairs.”

“‘Genius’ is a story made up to account for the broad and ultimately mysterious nature of creativity.”

“Creative individuals have often been mistaken for hermits, when the clearer picture would show skillful and productive relationships engaged from a deliberate solitude.”

“The best climate for progress is a mix of deference and defiance. Corporate teams do well with a clear mission and a deviant who asks uncomfortable questions.”

“Every pair has its own power dance, a choreography of thrusts and parries, of dips and turns, that shapes its way of moving across life’s stage.”

“The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference…Pairs may remain nominally together but only as performers or business partners – they may cease to create without any kind of explicit split.”

11 – The Soft Edge | By Rich Karlgaard

High performance has always required shrewd strategy and superb execution. These factors remain critical, especially given today’s unprecedented business climate. But Rich Karlgaard―Forbes publisher, entrepreneur, investor, and board director―takes a surprising turn and argues that there is now a third element that’s required for competitive advantage. It fosters innovation, it accelerates strategy and execution, and it cannot be copied or bought. It is found in a perhaps surprising place―your company’s values.

Karlgaard examined a variety of enduring companies and found that they have one thing in common; all have leveraged their deepest values alongside strategy and execution, allowing them to fuel growth as well as weather hard times. Karlgaard shares these stories and identifies the five key variables that make up every organization’s “soft edge”:

• Trust: Northwestern Mutual has built a $25 million dollar revenue juggernaut on trust, the foundation of lasting success. Learn how to create an environment that engenders trust and propels high performance.
• Smarts: In most technical fields your formal education quickly becomes out of date. How do you keep up? Learn how the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University women’s basketball team, and others stay on top by relentlessly pursuing an advantage through smarts.
• Teamwork: Since collaboration and innovation are a must in the global economy, effective teamwork is vital. Learn how global giant FedEx stays focused and how nimble Nest Labs relies on lean teams with cognitive diversity.
• Taste: Clever product design and integration are proxies for intelligence because they make customers feel smart. But taste goes further into a deep emotional engagement. Specialized Bicycles calls it “the elusive spot between data truth and human truth.” How can you consistently make products or services that trigger these emotional touchpoints?
• Story: Companies that achieve lasting success have an enduring and emotionally appealing story. What’s your company’s story? How do you tell it your way? Gain the ability to create a powerful narrative in a world where outsiders often exercise a louder voice.

Quotes from The Soft Edge;

“The battle for money and attention boiling inside most companies and among most managers is that between the hard and soft edges.”

“Dignity, respect, pride – and the sense of trust those feelings engender – create real-world returns and measurable increases in productivity.”

“Smarts isn’t about looking for the next star student with a 4.0 or having an IQ that can boil water. Instead, it’s about the importance of hard work…perseverance and resilience.”

“To…left-brained business titans, the soft edge looks like a realm of artists, idealists, hippies, poets, shrinks and do-gooders.”

12 – Disciplined Collaboration | By Emmanuel Gobillot

Ever wondered why your divisions are divided? Ever found yourself using the word silo when explaining sub-optimal results? Ever dreamt of having an organization that has both the efficiency of competition and the effectiveness of collaboration? If you’re tired of adding dotted lines on charts and hugging trees or colleagues on an away-day, disciplined collaboration is for you. In this engaging, thoughtful, and well-researched book, global speaker, consultant, and leadership expert Emmanuel Gobillot identifies the real barriers to collaboration and proposes a disciplined approach to removing them.

He identifies the 4 fears that no amount of dotted lines or team-building exercises will ever address. Combining the latest psychological and organizational research with pragmatic real-world application, Disciplined Collaboration shows you how to make your divisions add up again. This book will help you: Diagnose the issues that get in the way of collaboration in your organization. Discover how to master the changing nature of influence from competition to collaboration.

Learn how to deploy the 4 disciplines that will remove the fears of collaboration in your team. Find practical tools to help you reconnect individuals and teams. Be inspired by stories drawn from a breathtaking number of fields from business to history to medicine via tailoring and comedy! Described as ‘the first leadership guru for the digital generation’ and ‘the freshest voice in leadership today’, Emmanuel Gobillot, has over 15 years of experience in helping organizations and audiences globally rethink the way they build and run organizations. He has applied his mantra of ‘there must be a better way and together we can find it’ to solving issues alongside leaders of some of the world’s largest organizations and smallest startups. Before setting up his own boutique consultancy, Emmanuel was a Director at HayGroup where he led both the consumer sector and leadership services practices.

Quotes from Disciplined Collaboration;

“Dysfunctional functions, divided divisions, competing colleagues and uncooperative corporations – no wonder CEOs put collaboration at the top of their ‘things to fix’ list.

“We are at our most efficient not when a process is optimized, but when we ask the question ‘What are we actually trying to achieve through that process?’”

Winston Churchill “would question, challenge, argue and push his people to force them to challenge themselves and their biases – and then let them get on with it together.”

“When we collaborate, we need to ensure that we have the right people with the right skills and the right mind-sets in the room.”

“What is true of an individual also applies to a group or an organization. To collaborate effectively requires the discipline of value articulation. What are we here to create?”

“To ensure collaboration delivers quality outcomes, we need a clear, concise and compelling narrative that drives people to make the right decisions.”

13 – Winning Well | By Karin Hurt and David Dye

Today’s hypercompetitive economy has created tense, overextended workplaces, forcing managers to choose between results and relationships. Executives set aggressive goals, so managers drive their teams to deliver, resulting in burnout. Or, employees seek connection and support, so managers focus on relationships . . . and fail to make the numbers. The fallout is stress, frustration, and disengagement–for both team members and managers. But in order to succeed, managers need to achieve both. They must get their workers to achieve while creating an environment that makes them truly want to. Winning Well offers managers a quick, practical action plan–complete with examples, stories, and online assessments.

Managers will learn how to:

• Stamp out the corrosive win-at-all-costs mentality
• Focus on the game, not just the score
• Reinforce behaviors that produce results• Sustain energy and momentum
• Be the leader people want to work for

And more to prevent burnout and disengagement, while still achieving the necessary success for the company, managers must learn how to get their employees productive while creating an environment that makes them want to produce even more. Winning Well offers a quick, practical action plan for making the workplace productive, rewarding, and even fun.

Quotes from Winning Well;

“Too often, managers try to win at all costs, when they should be focused on Winning Well.”

“Inspiration comes from connecting people to meaning, purpose and their own ability to succeed.”

“When you tell a competent person how to do something she already knows how to do, it’s insulting and demeaning, and it degrades trust.”

“High performers hate nothing more than watching their poor-performing, soul-sucking teammates drag down results.”

“Busy doesn’t mean productive. Be intentional with time to restore your productivity.”

14 – Antipatterns | By Colin Neil, Phillip Laplante, and Joanna DeFranco

Emphasizing leadership principles and practices, Antipatterns: Managing Software Organizations and People, Second Edition catalogs 49 business practices that are often precursors to failure. This updated edition of a bestseller not only illustrates bad management approaches, but also covers the bad work environments and cultural traits commonly found in IT, software development, and other business domains. For each antipattern, it describes the situation and symptoms gives examples, and offers a refactoring solution.

The authors, graduate faculty at Penn State University, avoid an overly scholarly style and infuse the text with entertaining sidebars, cartoons, stories, and jokes. They provide names for the antipatterns that are visual, humorous, and memorable. Using real-world anecdotes, they illustrate key concepts in an engaging manner. This updated edition sheds light on new management and environmental antipatterns and includes a new chapter, six updated chapters, and new discussion questions. Topics covered include leadership principles, environmental antipatterns, group patterns, management antipatterns, and team leadership.

Following introductory material on management theory and human behavior, the text catalogs the full range of management, cultural, and environmental antipatterns. It includes thought-provoking exercises that each describe a situation, asks which antipatterns are present, and explain how to refactor the situation. It provides time-tested advice to help you overcome bad practices through successful interaction with your clients, customers, peers, supervisors, and subordinates.

Quotes from Antipatterns;

“One can handle most situations with some simple strategies that involve honesty, hard work, kindness and humor.”

“Understanding yourself and other personality types increases your tolerance level for people unlike yourself, which can facilitate the effectiveness of a team in the long run.”

“When a manager insists on doing it his way and will not give in during any negotiation, bad things are going to happen.”

“Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing.” (Warren Bennis)

“Counterintuitively, you will be far more effective in getting things done by adopting the same style as those you are working with.”

“Management antipatterns are the result of bad managers, management teams or executives.”

15 – Millennials@Work | By Chip Espinoza, Peter Miller, Curtis Bateman and Curtis Garbelt

Work-life is different from anything you have experienced up to this point. Not because it is work, but because authority figures at work may appear very different from those you have encountered in your life so far. It is not an overstatement to say that many young professionals experience a hefty dose of a culture shock when they enter the workforce. The promise of this book is to help you understand the challenges that can stand in the way of success and teach you the skills necessary for achieving greatness at work. Using years of research to back our advice, this book is a helpful tool that will help you identify potential roadblocks in your career so you’ll know exactly what to do when you encounter them.

Learn about:

The potential roadblocks you will face at work and how to work around them

Seven key skills that will help you become more valuable and advance your career

How to communicate more effectively with older generations

Quotes from Millennials@Work;

“Millennials seem to expect certain guarantees from work and demonstrate unrealistic expectations about how quickly they should advance.”

“If there had to be one factor separating you from the…herd of humans…working on the planet today, it’s your monumental technology skills.”

“It’s super easy to get so caught up in the dramatic details of something that you fail to see the little things that could help you make sense of your situation.”

“Not only is the skill of relationship building essential to the other skills, it is absolutely crucial for finding happiness and satisfaction at work.”

“More than 50 years of cognitive science and specific studies on multitasking have shown that multitaskers accomplish less…and miss key information.”

“When you agree to be held accountable for specific results, your accomplishments will give you more satisfaction than pulling a quick one on your boss.”

“Millennials who had the ability to build relationships with authority figures advanced more quickly.”

16 – From Me to We | By Janine Garner

Steel yourself, your career, and your business against future threats with effective collaboration

From Me to We shows business decision-makers how the ability to effectively collaborate for mutual commercial benefit is the solution to future-proofing a business. Smashing the myth of the “Me Economy,” this insightful guide explains the model of Commercial Collaboration and the mindset and think-space it requires. Expanding upon Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” premise, this book emphasizes the need for continuous professional evolution and effort and describes why women hold an important role in effecting change. Ideas are illustrated with examples and backed by sector-specific research and interviews with business leaders who have seen real-world results of effective business collaboration. The Seven ReConnect Principles outline methods of realizing change, providing readers a way forward that will future-proof themselves, their careers, and their businesses.

Collaboration isn’t just a soft skill that’s nice to have – it’s a vital business practice that affects the bottom line. As the way we do business continues to evolve, collaboration is becoming ever more crucial to steeling an organization against the threats of tomorrow. From Me to We is a practical handbook for a more robust business strategy.

• Learn the key principles at the heart of Commercial Collaboration
• Discover the value of trusting others in business relationships
• Become authentically invested in the “We” space
• Gain the tools to open up to a smarter, savvier way of business thinking

Business leaders and entrepreneurs have the complex responsibility of constant strategic thinking. If those finely tuned minds can be brought together for mutual benefit, the possibilities expand and the rewards can be dramatically amplified. From Me to We helps leaders drive better business, armored against future threats.

Quotes from From Me to We;

“Commercial collaboration is the key to endless opportunities to future-proof your business, your career and your own success.”

“Save ‘Me’ for the mirror and join the ‘We’ space in the real world. Other people give far more interesting answers than your own reflection.”

“Without questioning and exploration, doors to the future are slammed firmly shut, the lens of opportunity becomes blurred and thinking becomes contracted.”

“The 21st century is the ‘Women’s Century.’ Women’s economic participation and entrepreneurial growth will drive the world’s economy.” (Coca-Cola chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent)

“Questioning the status quo opens up a world of opportunity. It’s the catalyst for change that can alter your outcome and help you become an inventor and explore the possibilities. Always assume there is another way.”

17 – Co-Leaders | By Warren Bennis and David Heenan

Today’s heads of big companies are as recognizable to us as the most popular entertainers or sports stars, but the heart and soul of every organization are those leaders below the CEO. Today’s celebrity CEO has become either a figurehead or an egomaniac, and often too public a personality to get the real work done. That work is done instead by teams of leaders-exceptional deputies who forge great partnerships to maximize both organizational and personal success.

Heenan and Bennis believe we must look beyond the Bill Gateses of the world to understand what makes an organization excel. Written for CEOs, managers, and anyone else interested in modern organizations, this is the first comprehensive study of co-leaders and their often quiet power. Exhaustively researched and illustrated with memorable anecdotes and lively stories, Co-Leaders examines a dozen great partners such as Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, Bob Lutz of Chrysler, Bill Guthridge, coach of the University of North Carolina basketball team, and Anne Sullivan Macy, Helen Keller’s teacher.

The changing nature of corporate leadership has seen the emergence of a new Silicon Valley model of success, where boss and subordinate seem more like peers with the spotlight on great partnerships. Talent, not title, is the source of power at a growing number of hot high-tech companies. In these collegial, non-hierarchical organizations, today’s deputy can become tomorrow’s CEO simply by taking his or her breakthrough idea and walking out the door. Good ideas belong, initially at least, to the people who have them, not to the company and not to the boss which is why this new egalitarianism isn’t just a matter of style-it’s a question of survival. Co-leaders know both the executive and subordinate experience, making them better adapted to the needs of the new millennium where men and women who can command and follow will prove to be the greatest assets of any organization.

Co-Leaders is intended for everyone who aspires to make his or her organization great. By showing the enterprise through the eyes of inspired deputies, this book reveals how both organizations and individuals can benefit from a more inclusive, less celebrity-oriented definition of leadership. This groundbreaking book argues for a new paradigm: gifted leaders and their talented co-leaders working together to make their organizations stronger, more nimble, more equitable…and ultimately more successful.

Quotes from Co-Leaders;

“We have long worshipped the imperial leader at the cost of ignoring the countless other contributors to any worthwhile enterprise. In our hearts we know that the world is more complex than ever and that we need teams of talent – leaders and co-leaders working together – to get important things done.”

“Great co-leaders are often born when leaders decide to do the one thing that most often distinguishes a great organization from a mediocre one – hire people who are as good or better than they are.”

“That the American workplace needs to be rethought is increasingly obvious. The mounting anger over executive pay is only one piece of evidence.”

“Man’s inability to get along often transcends economic logic. Fueled by ego, warring partners routinely forget that their collective talents far outstrip their individual abilities and that their professional fortunes are married together.”

Final Thoughts on Teamwork

Struggling to find the right read for your team? The right book can change everything. If you’re leading a team, you know how important it is to be able to communicate effectively in order to reach group goals. This blog post will give you the tools that you need in order to motivate your team, whether it’s by using storytelling, negotiation techniques, or even just by making sure that everyone feels heard.

Do you see a book that you think should be on the list? Let us know your feedback here.