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Dream Teams
Book

Dream Teams

Working Together Without Falling Apart

Shane Snow
Portfolio, 2018

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Recommendation

Groundbreaking ideas often stem from collaboration. But not all teamwork is created equal. In this entertaining and informative book, journalist Shane Snow guides you through the process of building a dream team that finds that teamwork sweet spot. He emphasizes the power of cognitive diversity in boosting innovation, and solving problems. Snow also outlines strategies for overcoming friction, conformity, and organizational silence, and advocates mutual respect and openness to “bad ideas.” He says team members bond by sharing personal stories that help them appreciate their differences.

Summary

Collaboration can produce extraordinary results, but it’s complicated.

People create the most amazing outcomes when they work together. From harnessing atomic energy to create nuclear power to the rap supergroup Wu-Tang Clan, teamwork produces triumphs, but it also brings challenges. Teams can be exclusionary and tribal, leery of outsiders or of those who look, act or think differently. Even a team of homogenous people who get along well can develop internal friction that makes their teamwork less productive.

The circumstances that make teams perform extraordinarily well are not obvious. People often do less individual work when they’re part of a team. And, studies show that group brainstorming is less effective at generating creative ideas than having each person come up with ideas separately.

However, if you understand how to create the right conditions for people to excel at collaboration, your team can produce outstanding results in the workplace, in everyday life, and in dealing with the larger challenges facing humanity and the planet.

Diversity – of all kinds – makes for exceptional teams.

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About the Author

Co-founder of Contently – named one of Ad Age’s best places to work in the United States – journalist Shane Snow reports on science and business.

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