Harvey Robbins - The New Why Teams Dont Work: What Went Wrong and How to Make It Right

Praise for
Why Teams Dont Work
Winner

Financial Times-Booz Allen & Hamilton Global
Business Book Award
Best Management Book, The Americas, 1995

Why Teams Dont Work is a great business book because it looks up from the bottom, not down from the top, as most do. They describe in winning terms the tensions and anxieties that keep organizations from achieving worthwhile goals.

Michael Treacy, co-author, The Discipline of Market Leaders

We all want to be part of authentic teams. How do we go about it? Finley and Robbins set us on a compelling journey to teams success by helping us see and embrace the secrets we often hide from ourselves and our teammates.

Richard J. Leider, author of The Power of Purpose and Repacking Your Bags

Michael Finley and Harvey Robbins, despite the title of their book, are the most pro-team guys youll ever read. What they have done is to bring our consideration and discussion of teams out of the classrooms and boardrooms and into the trenches of the workday world. The message is that teams CAN work but just not in the way we may have been led to expect. Robbins and Finley not only set us straight on the real world of teams but also tell how to make them work for our organizations.

James A. Autry, author of Confessions of an Accidental Businessman

Teams generally fail not because managers dont manage, but because there is something wrong with the mindset of the team. An entitlement attitude, secret agendas, glory-hogging, and hiding under the covers are sure ways to drag a team down. Why Teams Dont Work hits it on the head.

Judith M. Bardwick, author of Danger in the Comfort Zone

This is an immensely helpful book. Finley and Robbins show that that the secret of great teams isnt found in buzzwords or gimmicks, but in bringing out the best in every individual. Their suggestions are compassionate, yet tough-minded and practical. Read this book, heed its wisdom, and experience the simultaneous pleasure of feeling better about yourself and seeing your teams performance and productivity rise.

Robert K. Cooper, Ph.D., advisor to organizational leaders and best-selling
author of The Performance Edge and Executive EQ

This book is a masterpiece of explanatory journalism.

John Bicknell, New Orleans Times Picayune

Too many books on teams focus on the how-to technicalities. It is rare to find a contribution where the personalities of the team members occupy central place. Why Teams Dont Work, an extremely enjoyable book, takes on this challenge, and by doing so provides a highly original view on team behavior.

Manfred Kets de Vries, Raoul de Vitry dAvaucourt Professor of Human
Resource Management. Professor of Leadership Development, INSEAD

Robbins and Finley make a compelling case that the reason teams fall short is less a management issue than a failure of the soul of the team. This is a book about group intelligence, challenging us to understand one another in our rich human complexity I like it a lot.

Danah Zohar, author of Rewiring the Corporate Brain and SQ: Spiritual Intelligence

Why Teams Dont Work is that rarest of beasts: a book of truths. Using language that is remarkably entertaining, honest, and brief, Robbins and Finley dissect the hackneyed assumptions about teams to explain why so many companies that switched to teams have not been experiencing the organizational bliss they counted on.

Jim Kane, Linkage, Inc.

Serves well any managers interest in maximizing productivity and quality improvement with teams. Recommended for all quality professionals!

Quality World

With its slant on the psychological, this ones a gem.

Soundview Executive Summaries

This book is for the millions of workers who either volunteered or were enlisted by a team, gave their honest best to the cause, and then wondered why.

Library Journal

The title tells it allif you believe in teams and want to make them work for your organization, this book is for you.

Pete Nelson, Thomson Learning

For all public library business collections.

Library Journal

Robbins and Finley are provocative writers the read is fast, funny, and highly stimulating.

Business Book Review

Reading The Wisdom of Teams without also reading Why Teams Dont Work is like making a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich without bread. You may very well end up with a sticky mess! Why Teams Dont Work is a wonderful excursion through the minefield that threatens to destroy the best team intentions.

Dan R. Dick, Director of Quest Resources, General Board of Discipleship

The New
WHY TEAMS DONT WORK

What Goes Wrong and How to Make it Right

Harvey A. Robbins
Michael Finley

BERRETT-KOEHLER PUBLISHERS, INC.
San Francisco

The New Why Teams Dont Work

Copyright 2000 by Harvey A. Robbins & Michael Finley

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

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First Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-57675-110-7
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-60509-385-7
IDPF ISBN 978-1-60994-369-1

2009-1

Interior Design: Gopa Design
Proofreader: Henrietta Bensussen
Editor: Elinor Lindheimer
Indexer: Paula C. Durbin-Westby
Production: Linda Jupiter, Jupiter Productions
Cover Design: Richard Adelson

We dedicate this edition to our wives
Nancy Robbins and Rachel Frazin, our real-life teammates.

For putting up with our occasional dysfunctionality
and, during the toughest times, mopping our fevered brows.

Good women and true, you are the best.