IEEE ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT REVIEW
Book Reviews: Volume 31, Number 1, First Quarter 2003
Leading Teams:
Setting the Stage for Great
by J. Richard
Hackman
Harvard
Business School Press, 2002
ISBN
1-57851-333-2
Breadth of Audience: 3.63 (Outstanding)
Topical Utility: 3.50 (Good)
Content Applicable: 3.50 (Good)
Writing Quality: 3.50 (Good)
Overall: 3.53 (Good)
COMMENTS FROM
THE REVIEWERS:
1. Hackman sets the stage for thinking about team performance by outlining the five conditions for team effectiveness. Citing experiences from teams studied for each concept, “Leading Teams” follows through and where success was partial, the causes are analyzed and deficiencies uncovered. Far from being a cookbook for success, the book is not a “feel good,” “you can do it,” “all it takes is to follow the steps” type of motivational management manual full of self-help hype. In fact, its greatest contribution may be to reinforce a concept that is
(or was) oft
forgotten in a microwave, superstar, dot com millionaire world: creating,
nuturing, and sustaining a highly successful team is a very valuable but really
rare accomplishment.
2. The main
message of this book for leaders and team members is that their first priority
should be to get in place conditions that foster team effectiveness. Once these
conditions are established, leaders and members can make small adjustments and
corrections as needed to smooth a group’s progress toward its objective.
However, the author points out that an open system like a team or organization
is also subject to the principal of equifinality—many different ways to achieve
the same outcome. The book also offers readers an alternative to traditional
cause-effect models of team leadership by showing that team behavior is shaped,
often in unseen and nonobvious ways, by the task and organization conditions
that characterize the performance setting.
The extensive
notes and bibliography would be of great interests to researchers interested in
leadership. Prof. Hackman has also provided numerous stories and case studies
from normal business environments, which makes it easier to relate to the
context. This book should also be of great interest for leaders in making
adjustments to their leadership strategy. A must read for aspiring leaders.
3. Dr. Hackman has taken the broad topic of teams in almost every application imaginable and broken the circumstances down to the fundamental underlying issues. By using extensive examples from research and academia, he has presented the concept of work teams in a most inviting way. The reader is compelled to continue to become part on the unfolding events of team play. With the identification of the three criteria and five conditions relating to work teams, the topic is further broken down into the basics of the social sciences in a very readable manner.
Complementing the details of the team itself, as well as the environment the team must work in, is a discussion of the effects of leadership. It is refreshing to see no assumptions made with respect to the impact leadership could have on team performance. A broad discussion of leadership styles and impacts—both positive and negative—culminates in a review of leader attribution error, a real problem both on the positive and negative side.
A good read on
the general topic of work teams with many insights and thought-provoking
discussions.
ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT REVIEW
A publication of the IEEE Engineering Management Society