Overall 5/10 – An OK book with little surprising content and an OK story.
I think the core content is true, but the narrative that the author tried to use to deliver his points was thin and didn’t resonate with me.
The one thing this book reminded me of was the interesting research google performed analysing their teams. Over “two years we conducted 200+ interviews with Googlers (our employees) and looked at more than 250 attributes of 180+ active Google teams”, interestingly if you look at their five points (listed 1-5) it closely parallels this book (image below).
- Psychological safety: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
- Dependability: Can we count on each other to do high quality work on time?
- Structure & clarity: Are goals, roles, and execution plans on our team clear?
- Meaning of work: Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us?
- Impact of work: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters?
Key Takeaways
Each level relies on the one below. A team must first have trust, then no fear of conflict, then commitment to team goals, hold themselves accountable and be commited to team results.
Ryan Hamilton 