[.ca] High Five! CD (ISBN 0694524867)

From Amazon.com:
Organizational guru Ken Blanchard has long had a knack for writing management books that are easy and fun to read (The One Minute Manager, plus 11 other bestsellers). Now, in his latest, he becomes (with the help of three coauthors) something of a novelist, relating the saga of the Riverbend Warriors, a come-from-behind boys' hockey team, to teach a broader lesson about the importance of, and the key dynamics behind, good teamwork in organizations of every sort. High Five! starts with otherwise exemplary exec Alan Foster losing his job because--you guessed it--he isn't a team player. Unemployed, bored, and demoralized, he decides to coach his fifth-grade son's failing hockey team into better shape. But it's not until he enlists the help of Miss Weatherby, an aging African-American retired teacher and champion girls' basketball coach that things really start to turn around. As we follow the struggle of the increasingly well-oiled Warriors machine as they drill, strategize, and bond their way through the season, we learn some of the fundamental lessons of what makes good teams--and good team-building by coaches and managers. Among them are "repeated reward and repetition," the guiding notion that "none of us is as smart as all of us," and four key traits that shall here remain undisclosed (hint: their acronym spells PUCK). As fiction goes, don't expect high literature here. But to its credit, the book's ending isn't 100 percent happy, either. If you worry that the aged but whip-smart Weatherby might die at the end, don't--instead, she becomes perhaps the world's first octogenarian, black female management consultant. As books on teamwork go, Blanchard's latest is on the lighter side, but it still packs a fair share of commonsense wisdom when it comes to putting together, motivating, and sustaining work teams worthy of the Stanley Cup. And it may even have inaugurated a new fiction genre: the organizational tearjerker. --Timothy Murphy

Sounds good in theory:
I would love to go to work everyday as a member of a high performing team. The book has good ideas in theory, but it seems next to impossible to actually make them work. The real reason behind the book though is the fact that people will get farther when working together. I think that is what all the parable books are trying to tell us, to look at things from a different perspective. Also check out the book Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey, it will show you how to look at the rat race fom a whole new angle -- what do you want in return for running the race?

Sounds Good In Theory:
I would love to go to work everyday as a member of a high performing team. The book has good ideas in theory, but it seems next to impossible to actually make them work. The real reason behind the book though is the fact that people will get farther when working together. I think that is what all the parable books are trying to tell us, to look at things from a different perspective. Also check out the book Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey, it will show you how to look at the rat race fom a whole new angle -- what do you want in return for running the race?

Nice little book!:
"High Five! The Magic of Working Together" is a good read. Instead of telling you straight off the points of how to build a good team. It tells a story about how an unemployed transforms a hockey crowd to a team. Of course, there are plenty of over-simplification. However, I think one can still benefit greatly from this book. The principles are simple, but are hard to implement in real life. How often do you see people use reward instead of fault-finding to improve a team .... The book is written in a simple language that even children can understand. This is definite a nice book to bring on the bus or train to read on your journey to the office. :)

Motivating quick read:
This is a great book to share with your team members to inspire them and to help them learn how to work together more effectively. It's easy to read and will lead to great conversations.

Another Great Book:
High Five! was given to me as a gift. Once again the authors have created a rememberable story line to drive home the basics of teamwork. This is an easy to read book (I read it in 3 evenings). The story is about a 5th grade hockey squade that becomes an "undefeated" team. Easy to relate to the workplace. I strongly recommend this inexpensive book for all team leaders in your organization.