Last Tuesday, June 12, it took place the presentation of my second book called The Magic of extraordinary teams in Barcelona. The event was a fantastic excuse to make the assistants share experiences and thoughts about the current health of their teams.
When writing this book, I wanted to share my experience as a coach and team facilitator for the last few years, since I have been a witness of their fears and anxiety but also their hopes and achievements for so long.
For a team to become extraordinary we need to have magic. A team also needs to reinvent itself, be capable of surprise and follow some steps towards a new dimension. A dimension that is both exciting and makes even the most difficult challenges seem possible.
The magic of extraordinary teams is a book meant for leaders and team managers that want to improve and take the next step towards an improved leadership. But also for members of a team (work team or otherwise) that want to improve their productivity and the dynamic inside it.
Structure of the book
This book has two different parts: the first part is a diagnosis, which allows us to understand the current situation of the team to check its welfare and the impact it has internally and externally; the second part provides an intervention model to help make a group of people an extraordinary team.
Diagnosis
This book helps the reader to diagnose the health of a team through the identification of their usual disorders that prevent them to be highly productive and contribute fully to the organization.
Also current paradoxes inside the teams are brought up. These paradoxes show that there is a fight between opposed internal needs that leads to tension as well as inefficiency in the workplace and so less productivity.
It also explains the leadership “twitches”, present in each member of a team and that blocks the best version of the team. It’s the toxic impact, although not intentional, determined by the behaviours of some members inside the team that affect the health of the relationships, as well as the ability to generate results.
Extraordinary teams model
Finally, a model is proposed based on five ingredients that every team needs to have to become extraordinary.
The first ingredient is “Connect” that explains the need to be able to balance oneself with the others.
The second one is “Pointing” that points out the importance of identifying the personal purpose, the team vision, as well as the vision of the organization.
The third one is “Shine” that presents the need to make every member of the team fully compromise to improve and give their best version.
The fourth one is “Let go” that points out the need to abandon everything that doesn’t contribute to the team or the organization.
And last but not least, the fifth ingredient is “Pull/Tense” that indicates the need to keep challenging the team to improve constantly and be an asset to the employees in an organization, to the clients and to the rest of society.
This book is written with the purpose that the reader finds a space of reflection and useful resources so they can contribute, with their own input, to make their team a stimulant place to grow in every sense.
Because, ¿Who doesn’t want to have fun with their team as well as achieving terrific results?
And to those who think this to be impossible, and that this is not something they can be able to do on their own, I dare them to take the chance it brings to boost their personal leadership, challenging the status quo, with respect but taking risks and taking actions to improve the health of the team.
Doing all of the above, it will benefit the client, the organization, the team but most importantly, it’s going to benefit the person, improving their current and future situation.
¿When do we start?
Enric Arola.
