Publisher's Synopsis
SECOND PRINTING
AXIOM BUSINESS BOOK AWARD WINNER - BUSINESS FABLE - SILVER MEDAL! In a world demanding 'management innovation' to solve complex challenges, the significance of team collaboration cannot be underestimated. Defined as a marked departure from customary ways in which management's work is performed, it's described in Game of Teams: Discover How to Become a Collaborative Leader, as a new framework to develop team leaders (and teams). Written as a business allegory, Game of Teams is a story about a team leader's development and the importance of coaching to become a collaborative leader. Author, Winsor Jenkins introduces an innovative, yet practical framework to support the development of collaborative leaders whose teams produce positive results. Note, this book is a sequel to his first book, The Collaborator, where our business world is compared to the game of soccer - an environment where people must effectively collaborate to succeed! Embedded in this framework is an 'operating platform' made up of several team principles and essential competencies. The principles come from the game of soccer and mirror a successful soccer team's behavior on the field. Essential competencies are aligned with these principles and come from the Polaris Competency Model; applied they describe a collaborative skill set. Combined, they provide a developmental pathway to unlock the collaboration-code and produce positive results. As the story unfolds, we follow the learning and development journey of a newly promoted team manager, Jim Hernandez. He is confronted with the need to develop a nonperforming team. He is confronted with the need to develop a nonperforming team. And he must develop a collaborative mind-set and skill set - all in real time - to effectively lead his team to collaborate and succeed. With the help of an external coach, Toni Burns, he embarks on a journey that challenges his commitment and confidence to become a collaborative leader. On his journey, he will need coaching to help him:- Develop his self-awareness and emotional intelligence
- Tackle blind spots that show up in the form of interpersonal competencies
- Be open to feedback on his performance from others, including his coach
- Challenge underlying assumptions and values regarding people and teams, if needed
- Develop new skills beyond his technical and functional skills, such as leadership flexibility
- Understand why relationship building is important, both to his success and to building self-awareness
- Learn a new operating platform for leading and managing his team
- Lead with a collaborative mind-set made up of several team principles
- Apply a collaborative skill set made up of a series of essential competencies
- Create a collaborative culture for his team
- Transition to a coaching role as needed to support his team's needs
