Team Habits - by Charlie Gilkey (Hardcover)

About the Book

"We typically work most directly with a small group of no more than 10 people, and in that team, we have a high degree of influence. Charlie Gilkey, an internationally known thought leader on productivity, planning, strategy, and leadership for creative people, explains how changing our team's habits can change our company's culture since that culture is always just an aggregation of its various teams' work habits. We all know how important habits are for personal effectiveness, success, and happiness. We can aply many of the same principles and insights about personal habits to our teams. When we do, not only do we accrue the personal benefits for ourselves, but we accrue them with and for our team. If small habit changes lead to powerful results for individuals, imagine what it can do for teams. Focusing on improving how people work together at the team level means there's no need for a top-down initiative or sign-off by the higher-ups to start making our working lives better. How a team schedules its meeting is a team habit, as is whether and how they share agendas before the meeting. how teammates loop others into emails or Slack messages is a team habit, as is whether they have the practice of CC'ing or group-bombing everyone to make sure they cover their bases. How teammates communicate about being uninterruptible, or that they are never uninterruptible, are team habits. These team habits explain how we can like the people we're working with and feel like we want the same things yet find ourselves regularly flummoxed about how hard it is to work with them. Team Habits offers a Team Habits Quiz, allowing readers to discover the patterns and areas for improvement on their business team. Gilkey offers tips on Communication ('What needs to be communicated NOW versus what can wait'), Meetings ('The ultimate question to determine whether your meeting was worth it'), Belonging ('Why getting your teammate coffee isn't about the coffee'), and much more"--

Book Synopsis

DISCOVER SMALL, TEAM-BASED CHANGES THAT HAVE COMPANY-WIDE RESULTS.

The teams we work in amplify our individual efforts, yet we constantly struggle to accomplish what is possible. You can see all the problems in a typical weekly meeting. No planning. Missing goals. Muddled communication. We think just bringing our personal hopes and desires will be enough. It's not.

The groups we work in need collective habits as much as individuals need better personal habits. Determining team habits for things like planning, decision-making, and prioritization produce reliability and ease for everyone. Team habits create better work and let people work better together.
In Team Habits, Charlie Gilkey explains how the revolution in personal habits has an even greater potential when applied to teams. With practical exercises, a Team Habits Quiz to evaluate areas for improvement, and a guide to create a team habits roadmap, Team Habits will help you transform your group so team members can flourish and thrive. If changing the smallest habit can yield powerful results for an individual, then just imagine what it can do for your team.

Review Quotes

"Team Habits will help you get away from the craziness of "who's doing what" to the calmness of a team working together to get the most important things handled."--John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Ultimate Marketing Engine

"Team Habits is success-critical reading for every leader! Packed with practical, actionable insights, tools and strategies, with a unique focus on habits that build belonging and fuel performance, Gilkey has created an essential reference for those to aspire to collective greatness." --Johnathan Fields, Bestselling author of SPARKED, founder of Good Life Project(R)

"Team Habits synthesizes complex challenges of team management into solutions that will lead to increased performance, while centering the humanity of everyone in the organization. This is the modern business handbook that should sit on everyone's desk."--Pamela Slim, author of Body of Work and The Widest Net

"Charlie Gilkey's Team Habits offers a compelling roadmap that can help any group find a path to higher performance. By addressing the small but critical behaviors that shape our daily interactions, this book equips leaders to cultivate an environment of productivity and purpose."--Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of THE POWER OF REGRET

"Team Habits details the critical role belonging plays in any team's health and results, elaborating on specific actions that establish team cultures that are truly inclusive. This is a must for anyone leading a team at a time when we are re-inventing the rules of work."--Jennifer Brown, bestselling author of How to be an Inclusive Leader

"When so many workplaces struggle with firmly established norms and limitations, Team Habits is an instruction manual to stop fixating on the things you can't change while overlooking the stuff you can change right in front of you."--Captain D. Michael Abrashoff, New York Times bestselling author of It's Your Ship

About the Author

CHARLIE GILKEY has advised hundreds of teams, from Fortune 100 companies to tiny nonprofits, through Productive Flourishing, the coaching and training company he founded. Charlie is the author of the critically acclaimed Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done. He is also a former Army logistics officer and a near PhD in Philosophy. Charlie lives in Portland, OR.