You Are the Team: 6 Simple Ways Teammates Can Go from Good to Great

by Michael G. Rogers

Traditionally books written about teams have focused on helping leaders improve teamwork. "You Are the Team" is focused on helping members of your teams commit to and improve teamwork. This is a book for your entire team, not just the leader.

You Are the Team inspires teammates to:
• Serve each other
• Put others and the team first
• Tell the truth and be transparent
• Keep commitments
• Be direct and honest in discussions
• Take accountability
• Learn from mistakes
• Seek honest feedback from teammates
• Improve personal gratitude
• Refrain from negativity and gossip
• Compliment teammates more frequently
• Celebrate teammates successes
• Extend more kindness
• Seek to understand teammates first before reacting
• Demonstrate greater empathy towards teammates
• Get it done and then some
• Improve personal focus on goals
• Bring solutions, not problems
• Invest in personal development
• Inspire and lead

Would you agree that the above actions improve teamwork? Could your team improve by teammates implementing even just a couple of these concepts?

You Are the Team is both engaging and practical. Author Michael Rogers uses a variety of stories to highlight each of the concepts in the book. Introspective questions are at the end of each section to help teammates reflect on how they are currently applying the concepts. The end of the book includes an assessment to gauge the overall effectiveness of teammates.

You Are the Team is written for every member of every team. Becoming a successful team begins with teammates who want to provide more value than they receive. You Are the Team was written to help members of teams understand the value they bring.

Order a copy for you, for your team, for your entire organization.

Would you agree that every member of your team has the potential to be great? Would you agree that if every member of your team was great, your teamwork would be extraordinary?

Everyone knows that remarkable teamwork equals remarkable results. That’s why organizations spend so much time and money on team-building and team-development activities.

However, few teams succeed in actually improving their teamwork because team members have little commitment to the team or its outcomes. Egos, money, and personal aspirations get in the way of effective teamwork; this results in selfishness, little trust, lack of constructive peer feedback, negativity (including gossip), lack of respect and kindness among teammates, and little interest in becoming better.

The sad reality is that many team members are performing far below what they are capable of achieving, and consequently, they hold their teams back from being extraordinary.

You Are the Team was written with the purpose of moving teammates from good to great by improving their investment and commitment to the team.

Most of the pressure for improving teamwork has been placed on team leaders. That’s why a quick search on “leadership books” on Amazon.com provides 14,782 results. You Are the Team is different because it puts the focus on the teammate to improve overall teamwork. Until teammates are committed to teamwork, the team has little chance of becoming great.

Author Michael Rogers has over 20 years of experience working with teams in business, sports, and a variety of volunteer organizations.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Leadership, Management

129 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 5, 2017

About the author

Michael Rogers is the best selling author of You Are the Team--6 Simple Ways Teammates Can Go from Good to Great, and an Inc. Top 100 Leadership speaker.

Michael is president of The Teamwork and Leadership Company, a workshop and consulting group focused on building better teams and leaders. As a speaker, trainer, and consultant, Michael has worked with hundreds of senior and middle level leaders in building more effective teams.

His blog, Teamwork and Leadership, regularly ranks in the top ten blogs in leadership and has a monthly following of over 30,000.

Michael resides with his wife, Terri, in beautiful Cedar City, Utah. They have been married for 30 years and have six sons (one daughter-in-law), two daughters (two son-in-laws), and seven grandchildren.

Reviews

[Deanna Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whether you are looking to build stronger relationships within your team, family, or friends, this book will help you get there. The reading is inspirational and the end-of-chapter questions are key in helping you identify and reflect on your personal development opportunities. I am definitely calling this one a must-have book for my leadership toolkit!

[Allen Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to be a better leader, the six B's of this book will help you focus on the ingredients that are critical in getting the most out of every member of your team; starting with you.

[awesome.nerd.reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best professional growth book I’ve read. Our campus does a book study every summer. This was summer 2022’s pick and it was great! All six steps will lead you to greatness. My favorite one was truthfulness!

[Robert Macy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once in a while an author strikes solid Gold. Mike Rogers did just that! "You Are the Team: 6 Simple Ways Teammates Can Go from Good to Great" is solid Teamwork GOLD. Full of nuggets of usable stories, narrative, easy to understand how-tos in taking your self and your team to the next level.

Mike has a wonderful, use friendly writing style that enables all levels of person (age, position in leadership, etc) to grasp each of the 6 ways in going from Good to Great in Teamwork. As I read the content it enabled me to assess where I stand personally, how I can apply it to teams I interact with, and "Yes" even to my family and other relationships. Practical and doable!

Maybe I should say, it is Solid Gold and the heart of the content radiates the value of any precious stone. Amazing enough it matters not how you come to the book, even if the reader starts as a "diamond in the rough". You will, I promise, upon completion reach of the stars and step up to a new level in your commitment to becoming the best you can be as a teammate that makes the difference in those teams you are involved with.

Good Job Mike! Onward and Upward! The Best is Yet to Come!

[Erin Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giving 3.5 stars mentally because I enjoyed this, it was a fast read, and has some great advice for anyone on team of any kind. I feel like often, “team” books or professional development is centered on how you can get ahead at the expense of others and I really appreciated how focused the principles were on serving others and being kind. He illustrates his points with interesting tales, which is enjoyable.

[Dunori · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4; almost half of this is stuff written or said by other people so I’m not sure how much credit to give the author as a book author. All of the quotes by others are pretty kool though and he nicely tied them into the points he was trying to get across. It’s a pretty easy read because of how the text was formatted and from a writer with 8 children I think there might be an understandable limit to how much critics can “hate”.

[Lakshmi Vijayan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this was a quick read. Very intentional writing with some great anecdotes and stories. It is relatable and the author details a variety of examples on how you can improve relationships and strengthen collaborations professionally as well as personally.

[Erin Lewantowicz · Rating 2 out of 5]

read for class. nothing groundbreaking

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just bought this book for my team

To build teamwork from the ground up requires a simple and concise plan of action. This book provides a thought provoking process that supports the value of positive contribution by each team member to achieve a greater good. Just purchased for my team!

[Ebrima B. Sawaneh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every team need this book

Excellent material for team building. Leaders should encourage their team to think about others, be humble etc. I like the stories that explained the concept.

[Elsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

EMPOWERING AND MOTIVATING!!!
One message that I’ve learned from this book: In service and united as a team, greater things can be achieved.
I highly recommend this book for few reasons: you realize the importance of service you provide to others, you discover more of yourself and your value as you serve, and you change your perspectives on people. It motivates you to do more for others and so much more.

[Jed Jurchenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful book for all teams! Filled with practical wisdom, engaging stories, and personal examples from the author's own life, this book will help you level-up your teamwork. I especially appreciated the author's passion for teams and love for people--which is evident throughout the book. I highly recommend this dynamic leadership book for all types of teams!

[laura vedas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Full of pretty cheesy stories and no novel ideas. A good point here and there, but buried amidst too much that isn’t worth reading. Reading the table of contents/chapter titles will give you the main ideas without actually having to read the book.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Read

This book is a fantastic read that falls right into line with many others on leadership. I do like the many stories used as application,

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick read that encourages you to act

This is a relatively quick read with easy-to-remember stories. Each chapter has actionable steps to be a better team member and leader.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was a good primer and a good perspective on how well a team can work if everyone follows his rules. Pretty simple, to do what you say you’ll do and to do everything to support one another. But also super hard because when teams are big and complex but also not enough to handle the workload, it can be hard to follow through on his guidance because it does require much greater effort than simply doing your assignments and staying in your own lane. Especially the emotional work of it all.

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great stories that I’m sure I will come back to reference from time to time, and a simple take as to how to anecdotally becoming a better teammate while at the same time improving the nature of the teams you are in or will be in. A majority of the book is pulled from an abounding amount of resources, so I hope Rogers can continue to conduct his own research/studies to gain even more credibility. Awesomeness professor by the way too!

[Trae Mitten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Content had some good principles for enhancing team effectiveness from the individual standpoint, the "6 Bs."However, the bulk of the text is just recounting of various fables and wise tales. While there are certainly valuable nuggets of truth to be gleaned here, there could have been far more theory incorporated into the book to really flesh it out. An easy read.

[Courtney Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

It felt like the rough draft of a high school paper, almost like the author forgot to smooth out the overall message throughout.

I was really hopeful in the beginning, but as I continued reading I had the feeling of whiplash going from one fable to the next.

There were some good takeaways, which is why I gave it 3 stars, I just wish it flowed better.

[Melissa Clements · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love the practicality of this book. It was a quick and easy read and provided some great tools for leaders to use. I think the title speaks for itself- YOU are the team opposed to highlighting it’s primarily the leader’s responsibility to improve teamwork and boost morale. This is a collaborative approach if the goal to go from Good to Great

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite part of this book is the "Application" challenge at the conclusion of each section. In truth, I would have preferred a few more "team examples" as they relate to business, but the parables and quotes used were interesting from a higher level.

[Kelsi Portz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this short read for professional development and learning how to be part of the team. I learned a lot that will apply to my work life and personal. Short story of Socrates was well worth the read.

[Isaac Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to read this for work, and its good don’t get me wrong. It has some good stories and quotes. Unfortunately most of them weren’t even his, so I don’t know how much credit he should get as an author for just compiling them together

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tad light for my tastes but a few nuggets of wisdom here and there.

[Ian Goss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for Coaches

[Daniel Bastardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could have a been a blog post. The concepts Rogers discusses are not particularly novel, and he incorporates way too many quotes into his writing.

[Joe DeGraaf · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was simple and to the point but lacking some depth and nuance. The lessons were useful and good, but nothing new to most team practice.

[Anna Mason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've now realized I may not be a self help book kind of person but it was a good read for trying to get into a teamwork kind of mindset

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing book. Will definitely be using for continued reference snd inspiration

[Shelby Gipson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the concepts and the ideas but felt like the writing was borrowed and unoriginal. A great foundation for a team but no ground breaking ideas.