An Amazing Journey
Teams are certainly not a new idea. Most of us have had some experience participating on a team. It may have been a sports team, a debate team, a team organized to solve a problem, as part of a nonprofit organization or maybe a team at work. As a result of our individual experiences, we will each read the pages that follow with a point of view informed by our past. However, I want to encourage you to put those experiences behind you because most of us have had team experiences that were far from ideal—most of us have never been part of a true high-performance team.
If you can approach the idea of teams with fresh eyes, you could be on the verge of a tremendous breakthrough. A breakthrough in performance, a breakthrough in the development of people, a breakthrough in your own leadership capacity, and perhaps most importantly, you could experience a breakthrough in your quality of life. I realize that's a lot to promise from the simple story that follows. However, this promise is not based on the power of the story; rather, it is based on the power of the ideas represented here and my belief in the tremendous untapped potential of your team.
Getting people to work together to achieve exceptional, sustained results is more difficult to deliver than it is to discuss. Pursuing high-performance teams as a strategy for improved performance is messy and extremely challenging. But the size of the challenge is just one reason why the idea itself represents such an inviting approach for creating competitive advantage.
This book contains simple ideas that can revolutionize your team and its performance, but none of them will be possible without your leadership. At the end of this book, you'll have a decision to make: What will you do next?
In an attempt to help you answer that question, I've included some suggested action items and a High-Performance Team Assessment. I hope you'll find these tools helpful as you chart your course.
Get ready to multiply your leadership, leverage the talent of your people, and generate remarkable results … get ready for an amazing journey!
—Mark Miller