Never lead alone 10 shifts from leadership to teamship

Leadership consultant Ferrazzi (Competing in the New World of Work) explains how managers can foster more collaborative, productive teams in this ho-hum guide. The advice revolves around cultivating "teamship," or camaraderie, by encouraging employees to work together and staying flexible about where and when work gets done to make collaboration easier. Outlining 10 "shifts" leaders should make to promote teamwork, Ferrazzi emphasizes the importance of staying agile as a company and recounts how IBM restructured its sales department in six months by forming interdepartmental "squads" that troubleshot problems at biweekly meetings. Elsewhere, he recommends adopting "asynchronous" workflows in which teammates can use shared documents and other collaborative technologies to pursue team goals on their own schedule, as well as facilitating team bonding by asking each worker to share what's going on in their life at the beginning of meetings. The advice is sensible enough, though it sometimes feels like Ferrazzi is straining to make simple suggestions sound groundbreaking ("Don't just adapt; embrace radical adaptability"). Additionally, he has an exasperating tendency to invent jargon when ordinary language would do. (The constant exaltation of "co-elevation" can't disguise the fact he's simply talking about collaboration.) Some annoying quirks detract from an otherwise solid business manual. Agent: Esmond Harmsworth, Aevitas Creative Management. (Nov.)