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Nice Teams Finish Last
Book

Nice Teams Finish Last

The Secret to Unleashing Your Team's Maximum Potential

Brian Cole Miller
AMACOM, 2010
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Recommendation

How would you best describe your team’s work dynamic? Sugar and spice and everything “Nice”? “Fierce” as a fever? Or “Bold” as brass? This book’s main premise is that teams are often too nice or too fierce, when instead they should be bold to succeed and get their work done. Management and training consultant Brian Cole Miller, a bestselling author, explains how to create a bold team. He organizes his ideas by identifying the roles participants play and by discussing the myths and truths about how best to manage teams. His suggestions for giving feedback, making requests and handling conflicts are especially helpful. Miller’s examples are basic and instructive, and he writes in a straightforward style. getAbstract recommends his book to anyone charged with leading or managing a group of people for the first time, and to seasoned leaders and managers who seek a skills review to bring their teams to new levels of performance.

Summary

“Nice” Teams Prize Peace over Performance

Modern society values being nice and getting along – especially at work and especially when you are a member of a team. But being nice all the time actually can hold back a team’s development. Teams typically take on one of three personality dynamics:

  1. “Nice.”
  2. “Fierce.”
  3. “Bold.”

Teams also go through four stages:

  1. “Forming."
  2. "Storming."
  3. "Norming."
  4. "Performing.”

When your team is too focused on being nice, its members risk staying in the forming stage and never going through storming. Participants may be unwilling to air disagreements that would enable the group to move forward to norming and, ultimately, performing. This can threaten relationships and make the squad lose sight of its mission. To maintain a nice team, managers and unit leaders often resort to behaviors designed to avoid confrontation or to appear positive. Unfortunately, this means that managers sacrifice planning, performance improvement, accountability and problem solving to keep the peace.

Managers often...

About the Author

Brian Cole Miller is the author of Quick Team-Building Activities for Busy Managers and Keeping Employees Accountable for Results.

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