July 1, 1997
The American business approach to workplace teams is filled with powerful subtleties and is quite different from the Japanese concept. The phrase "How come all this quality stuff doesn't work?" nicely sums up the challenge facing corporate America. The authors (Robbins is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of Turf Wars, Scott Foresman, 1989, and Finley is a business columnist for Knight-Ridder and coauthor, with Robbins, of Why Change Doesn't Work, Peterson's, 1996) present practical solutions to the problems and discuss misconceptions about teams that will be valuable to any organization inclined to assign teams to work on legitimate operational issues. Pragmatic team tips covered here include decision-making, communications skills, the importance of effective team leadership, and more. The authors swap narration of chapters, enlivening the recording. This is a good supplement to Peter Scholtes's The Team Handbook (Joiner Assocs., 1988) and serves well any manager's interest in maximizing productivity and quality improvement with teams. Look to The Stuff Americans Are Made Of (Macmillan, 1996) and Incredibly American (Quality Pr., 1992) for a more in-depth explanation of how Americans really feel about working on teams and to The Quality Relationship Challenge (Irwin Professional, 1997) for help applying this knowledge. Recommended for public libraries.--Dale Farris, Groves, Tex.