James Foster

Extreme Teams James Foster

Managers want great teams, but most build them around decades-old ideas and practices made popular by companies that have lost their edge. Extreme Teams looks at the new generation of teams driving growth in today's most innovative firms. They do this by doing things differently: hiring the right person instead of the best person; focusing on one priority while leaving room to explore new ideas; creating an environment where people are comfortable dealing with the uncomfortable; and maximizing profit by not making profit what matters most. The book takes you inside top companies and examines the teamwork experiments powering their results, including how:

Pixar's teams use constant feedback and debate to transform initially flawed films into billion-dollar hits - A culture of radical "freedom and responsibility" helps Netflix execute on the next big thing - Whole Food's super-autonomous teams embrace hard metrics and friendly competition to drive performance - Zappos fuels the weirdness and fun that sustains its success

Times change, and so must teams. Designing and managing high-performance teams requires upgrading outdated beliefs and behaviors, and spurring a level of intensity and collaboration that lets them face down any challenge.