There is an I in Team: Unexpected Lessons for Business from Sports

by Mark de Rond, Richard Hytner (Foreword)

Foreword by Richard Hytner, Deputy Chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide

We’ve all worked with one—a smart and immensely talented individual who brings enormous value to the organization. The problem? He’s an awful teammate.

So as a leader, do you consider this key player toxic or irreplaceable?

There Is an I in Team explores the relationship between individual and team—asking the question, How can we harness the talent of individual performers into a cohesive, productive team that creates overall value? And why are so many of our assumptions about teams wrong?

Business challenges like this one mimic many of the issues facing sports teams, though admittedly the sports metaphors most commonly used in business are trite and superficial comparisons. What’s needed are real and substantial lessons that managers actually can take from the world of high-performance sports and use in an everyday work environment. This book meets that need.

University of Cambridge professor Mark de Rond has combined cutting-edge social and psychological research with rich stories from world-class sports teams, coaches, athletes, and even business executives. The result challenges our most popular notions about teams. Equally critical, it teaches an innovative way to transform team potential into measurable business advantage.

You’ll
• Why there is an I in team—and why that matters
• Why an ideal team is rarely comprised of the best individual performers
• Why conflict happens even when intentions are perfectly aligned
• Why likability can trump competence even in technically sophisticated environments
• Why a focus on interpersonal harmony can actually hurt team performance
• Why data and sophisticated statistical tools are unlikely to eliminate the role of intuition

At once readable and teachable, There Is an I in Team will strengthen your understanding of the issues that permeate teams of high-performers, and it will help you apply these new insights to your own work—giving you and your team an edge over the competition.

Genres: Business, Sports, Nonfiction

184 pages, Hardcover

First published June 12, 2012

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audio book and it is very interesting. De Rond uses sports teams and athletes to make his points that teams perform better with superstar individual performers.

De Rond references the Chicago Bulls of the 1990's and just how out of sorts the team was when Michael Jordan retired, played baseball with the Chicago White Sox, then returned to the Bulls only to realize that his return upset the team dynamic. De Rond uses lots of data from the annual Oxford & Cambridge crew boat race and I have since discovered that De Rond is associated with Oxford which explains why he has so much knowledge of crew races. There is a great example of the coxswain being replaced at the last minute with a female coxswain because the male one only pointed out what the rowers were doing wrong rather than having them visualizing winning and success. There are other sports teams comparisons used for support too.

There is also data presented that the efficiency improvements moving from 2 to 4 to 8 person boats only increase performance in the low single to high teen digits which I found fascinating.

I learned about the Ringelmann Effect which shows that individual members of team expend less effort in a team setting versus an individual setting which I had never heard of before.

This book will make you think differently about high performing teams compared to low performing teams and why.

I highly recommend this book.

[Walter Adamson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked most of the book. What I particularly liked was that it spoke up for speaking out, particularly in teams. Many of the failures in corporate cultures are because people don't speak out. The Abilene Paradox was an eye opener - that problems arise not because there is conflict but preciously the opposite - because there is none.

[Liam Vo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, analyzing all of dynamics and characteristics of individuals that can either contribute or hinder a team's performance.

[Dhruv · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of a dull book - too much emphasis on obscure sporting trivia and not enough discussion of principles and best practices. Didn't like it much

[Clive Kornitzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read and a great perspective

[Walter Adamson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book although oddly enough when I finished it I wondered if it was just a collection of anecdotes. Then I realised that it had brought together a wide collection of beliefs, clichés and behaviours and made them accessible and applicable to many sport and business settings. I found myself referring to them almost immediately afterwards in reflections and assessments of what was going on e.g. the Abilene Paradox. This demonstrated to me the actual worth of the book, beyond my initial perspective upon initially reading the book. IN fact, I plan to read it again.

[An Shun · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this day and age where there emphasis is focused on teamwork and talent, it is important to understand how dynamics work between having a team of top talent. Studies in this area stem much from the elite sports arena where coaches strive to extract the best performance from their top talent. This book provides great insight on the dynamics and humanity among elites who have to work together.

[Cindy (BKind2Books) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was okay but there was not much new in to be found here. The author uses the sports arena as examples for team building using high performers. It was too tedious, especially if you're not that interested in rowing teams or soccer. There were sections dealing with diverse topics like superstition and using statistics - but it comes off too disjointed. I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator was awful and I'm sure that did not help.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book that pulls together lots of research on seemingly disparate concepts and then tries to tie it all together. It moves quickly and is written well, but does use a lot of jargon that obscures the key points. Also, it's heavy on throwing out (and discussing) new ideas and light on really taking a stand on what those ideas mean for teams and performance.