"Coming together is a beginning;
keeping together is progress;
working together is success."
– Henry Ford
Here are some of our favorite resources and books on team dynamics to help you get better at creating and managing your team.
If your group is actually a team, you need to create the right dynamics for them to thrive. These dynamics include getting the right size, clearly communicating the mission and goals, maintaining an effective accountability and feedback system, nurturing the team’s culture, and more.
This interview of Professor Sara Singer at Stanford Business School and Medical School is packed with tips on communication and fostering rapid learning on your team. A huge part of getting team dynamics right is creating a place where people can learn personally and collectively. This episode will help you get that right!
This article blew me away when I was teaching leadership at the Naval Academy. It’s still one of the first I recommend for teams that are struggling to perform. The depth and rigor of their research at the MIT Lab is amazing, and their findings make sense. Communication is the lifeblood of your team, but the way information flows through and around your team is often invisible. Read this to start figuring out how to get the right people talking at the right time!
I first read this article in a tent as I thought about teaching teams to a group in Yosemite. It immediately struck me as one of the most practical guides to leading a team I have come across. Often team literature is full of platitudes and feel good advice. This starts out with a focus on structure and moves to practical tips for building a great team culture.
The CEO of a highly successful company told me this was the only book I needed to read about leading teams. This is one of our go to books on team dynamics. It is a unique and useful take on teams and how they either thrive or become insular and ineffective. It should be on a leader’s bookshelf.
No list of books on team dynamics is complete without this one! Gen McChrystal starts out a little miliary heavy and slow. Stick with it, and you’ll be treated to a wide ranging and fascinating look at everything from the history of management to how complexity theory impacts leading teams. You’ll also get highly practical guidance to help you lead leaders of teams.
