Synopses & Reviews
Why do so many teams fail to perform - achieving compromise at best and gridlock at worst? And what does it take to end this gridlock?
Wall Street Journal bestselling author and speaker Les McKeown shows how to take any team from gridlock to world class success.
In his new book, McKeown argues that every successful team includes a critical player, the Synergist, who can take the three exisiting types - The bold dreamers (Visionaries), the pragmatic realists (Operators), and the systems designers (Processors) - and knit them together into a dynamic, well-rounded team. Most importantly, according to McKeown, the Synergist is a role that anyone can learn.
While most attempts at teamwork improvement deal only with the symptoms of group dysfunction such as distrust, poor communication, and fear of change, McKeown address the root cause: the innately unstable Visionary-Operator-Processor triangle. Because each of the three styles' motivations, views, and goals are incompatible, without a Synergist every team will eventually implode, stall, or underperform. Only the Synergist can put aside their own agenda and interpret the language of difficult personalities, capture the best from each person, and put the good of the enterprise ahead of their own ego.
McKeown- who has used techniques presented here in his consulting with Harvard University, American Express Financial Services, the US Army, Pella Corporation, Microsoft, United Technologies Corporation, and more- shows how any individual can fill this critical role, whether or not they're the formal leader of the group.
With thought-provoking self-assesments and an extensive Synergist Toolkit, he teaches how anyone can learn to be an effective Synergist by recognizing the vital signs of inneffective teamwork and making the right interventions at these pivitol moments.
Review
"Its a bird! Its a plane! Its The Synergist! The title of Les McKeowns new book sounds like a fictional super hero created by Marvel Comics. Yet, this is a very real person who, without a cape or x-ray deflecting wristbands, expertly resolves conflicts and puts communication into bionic effectiveness. Fortunately for us, a bit of this super hero resides in all of us, and McKeown helps us to channel our inner Superman or Almighty Isis."
Marshall Goldsmith - million-selling author of the New York Times bestsellers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won't Get You There
Review
'
The Synergist speaks directly to the single greatest challenge leadership teams face today: a lack of relationship and communication. If you want to know what your leadership team needs to succeed, study this book carefully.' --Tom Rath, author of
StrengthsFinder 2.0 and
How Full is Your Bucket?'If you want to get unstuck and do big things, buy The Synergist. It's the best book I've read on high-quality team-based decision making; the key to accelerated growth and overall success.' -- Michael Port, New York Times bestselling author of Book Yourself Solid
'Les McKeown's excellent first book, Predictable Success, helped many companies—including the Motley Fool - stay on the right track. Now The Synergist unlocks the secrets to becoming an effective team leader, which anyone can use to achieve personal and professional growth.' --David Gardner, cofounder and Chief Rule Breaker, The Motley Fool
'Simple, intuitive, and transformative. The Synergist lays out not only a road map to building highly successful teams, but a process that empowers organizations, fuels progress, and dissolves gridlock.' -- Jonathan Fields, author of Uncertainty
Synopsis
A leadership model that trains managers to come together to deliver success—overcoming the gridlock and comprises that typically water down the team approach.
Synopsis
In The Synergist, author Les McKeown delivers a model that shows leaders where they fall in his model and then provides a roadmap for improving leadership that does not lead to compromise rather leads to success. In the first part of the book McKeown describes each of the three ‘natural styles in detail and illustrates how and why they best work together (and when and why they don't). Part 2 introduces us to the crucial fourth style - The Synergist. In distinction to the ‘natural VOP styles, we see that The Synergist is a learned style that anyone can develop and use in a group situation. We are shown that while great leaders intuitively act as Synergists in order to lead their groups to great success, in fact anyone who understands the VOP roles can transcend their own natural style, learn to be a Synergist and lead their business, division, department, project, group or team to Predictable Success. Part 3 of the book provides the reader with a detailed step-by-step guide to developing their Synergist skills, and shows how to use them to lead any group to Predictable Success.
About the Author
Les McKeown is the president and CEO of Predictable Success, a consulting firm with clients that include T-Mobile, Microsoft, The US Army, Harvard University, Bose, British Aerospace and many more. McKeown's previous book, Predictable Success, hit the Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-seller lists in 2010. McKeown is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and has appeared on CNN, ABC, BBC, Inc, Entrepreneur magazine, USA Today and The New York Times. Les speaks to businesses around the country helping management achieve a systematic approach to success.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Herding Cats: Why groups so often fail to achieve their goals, and how to prevent it happening to you * Chapter 1: Overview: The failure gene that's baked into the DNA of every group and how to escape it* PART I: The Unstable Triangle: The 3 naturally ocurring group interaction styles * Chapter 2: The Visionary: Hold on tight, we're going to Mars * Chapter 3: The Operator: Yay...let's build a rocket ship * Chapter 4: The Processor: Not so fast. Where's your requisition slip? * Chapter 5: Gridlock: The hidden death-grip that silently paralyses every group * PART II: The Synergist: Transforming the group by transcending personal agendas * Chapter 6: Limping to the End Line: How and why Visionaries, Operators and Processors hobble the success of their group * Chapter 7: From Triangle to Pyramid: Bringing a new dimension to the group dynamic - The Synergist * Chapter 8: Dancing With the Stars: How the Synergist releases cohesion and flow in the group * Chapter 9: Starting Fast, Finishing Strong: The lifecycle of a highly successful group * PART III: Becoming a Leader of Leaders: Developing the Synergist mindset * Chapter 10: This is not that: Teaching the Visionary, Operator and Processor to understand each other * Chapter 11: We, not me: Building the groups' agenda and ensuring it's precedence * Chapter 12: And, not or: Moving the Visionary, Operator and Processor from competition to co-operation