Building Smart Teams is an essential guide to creating a smart team fast. Based on research results from close to 2,000 individuals organized in more than 250 teams, Building Smart Teams identifies the three critical skill sets that teams need and shows how to transfer these skills to a group. The authors' research and experience shows that, by concentrating on these three critical skills sets, a group is almost certain to become a high performing team quickly.

High-functioning teams are increasingly important to organizational success, but just throwing a team together will not give the desired results. Building Smart Teams gives you the theory and rationale behind high performance teams, but, in addition, it is packed with exercises, diagnostic tools, tips, and techniques to use with groups. The exercises are time-tested with the more than 100 groups trained by the authors.

The approach is not to dictate the one best way for teams to behave, but, rather, to help team members build skills and implement processes to increase success. Within this model, there is ample room for teams to discover their own unique culture, performance strategies, and paths to success.

Key Features:

• Team Effectiveness Model was developed from research into the factors that lead to team success--over 250 teams were studied
• Provides both theory and tools to get smart, fast results
• Identifies the three critical success factors for high team performance and provides a diagnostic tool to assess levels of team functioning for each
• Many targeted processes and exercises that team leaders can apply to enhance team functioning
• Provides both the road map for creating effective teams (the Team Effectiveness Model) as well as the vehicles for getting there (exercises and process tools)

1 Building smart teams : a roadmap to high performance - an introduction
2 Creating smart team management practices
3 Team problem solving for pros
4 Handling team conflict
5 Fostering a supportive infrastructure for teams