Sunday, September 12, 2004

Amazon.com: Books: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

Amazon.com: Books: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable I finally finished reading this book, several months after a friend recommended it. The book has been quite successful, and it's currently #11 on the NYT list of best-selling business hard cover books. I'm intrigued with the use of quasi-fictional storytelling as a means of conveying team dynamics (I suspect the author generalized from a few of his real-world consulting experiences), and I imagine many people find the "leadership fable" very helpful in working through challenging group dynamics.

One quote that jumped out at me: "Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think." (p. 88)

Overall, I think people trying to understand group dynamics will benefit from reading a mix of books such as this one and cultural anthropology classics such as Our Kind by Marvin Harris.

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