TEAMWORKING BOOKS

Books on Teams

"Happy Teams are teams that work"

Quality School and The Quality School Teacher and Schools Without Failure by Dr. William Glasser, M.D. Bill has the solutions for the public school system, when the parents, public, and principals are ready to hear, read, see or listen. The system is the problem and the system is easy to change a little at a time. These system changes are also solutions for businesses, homes, churches, communes, etc. The fundamentals work everywhere, they are really used. The home school system could benefit greatly from the same books. I wish them all well. The book's subtitle tells the whole story of Reality Therapy & The Quality School in "Managing Students Without Coercion". ******* His new books are Choice Theory in the Classroom and The Control Theory Manager : Combining the Control Theory of William Glasser With the Wisdom of W. Edwards Deming to Explain Both What Quality Is and What Lead-Managers do to Achieve It. Click HERE for more from William Glasser, M.D.

Please Understand Me, Character and Temperament Types, by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates. Next to the enneagram, the Meyers-Briggs personality type is the most useful in understanding yourself and others. It helps to reframe differences in a positive light. As important, it goes into the four temperaments, that are more basic. It uses the metaphor of four mythical Gods. These four temperaments can be thought of as I win you win, I lose you lose, I win you lose, and I lose you win temperaments. ******

Personality Self-Portrait - [Why You Think, Work, Love, and Act the Way You Do], by John M. Oldham, M.D. and Lois B. Morris. Paperback, later edition. The major thesis of this book is that we have personality styles and each facet is on a continuum from easy to cope to hard to cope that they call style to disorder. It is filled with practical suggestions to improve coping. It also suggest rating where you are on each facet's continuum and to track your growth as you change. I enjoyed the large parallels with "Understanding the Enneagram". If you read either of them I recommend looking at the personality facets at coping styles that can be grown to even greater levels of coping. *******

Understanding the Enneagram [The practical guide to personality types] by Don Richard Riso. The enneagram is my favorite personality types system. For me it is a lot more useful than the Myers Briggs system. I really like Don's book for its really good showing of the levels of each personality type. This is so useful on seeing where you are and where you can go as you recover. He then goes on the the more important, what to do part. His book on Enneagram Transformations has the release statements and affirmation statements for each type. Actually all the release and affirmation statements are great self talk for everyone at any level.

Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson have revised "Understanding the Enneagram" and have taken this book to a new level by adding excellent spiritual recovery content. This book is "Understanding the Enneagram, revised edition". The start of their "CONCLUSION" on page 380 tells some of the new scope of what they have done.

"The Enneagram guides us towards nothing less than learning how consciously to surrender the ego self of personality to the greater Self so that we can become conscious participants in the sacred mystery of life. In reality, it entails the surrender of nothing -- our personality -- in orderto receive the gift of everything -- the life of the Spirit. But the first step on that path involves being willing to observe ourselves so that we can stop playing our the unconscious dictates of our personality."

Get this book and grow. *******

The Enneagram in Love and Work [Paperback] by Helen Palmer. Hardcover. I have seen Helen work in person and she is indeed an intuitive worker. The neat thing about her book is that she is writing about where we spend 80% of our energies, in work and love relationships. What she provides is understanding. Understanding does not by itself lead to healing. Knowing where you are and where you want to go will help you determine what to do. What you do determines what you are really asking for and where you will go. ******

Thorsons Principles of the Enneagram by Karen Webb. A great handbook to take with yourself as you learn more about the power of the Enneagram system. Summary books like this are valuable to gain insight. A great place to start to gain intuition in the Enneagram system. ******

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. Paperback. For people who like a lot of detail work, this could be the book to assist you. Even if you do not like to do the details, the concepts can be simplified and can be of assistance. Steven's most effective suggestion is to begin with the end in mind. That is to know where you are going so that you can get there. ******

He Wins She Wins from a Christian perspective. This is a good practical book on this subject that is at the heart of relationship problems. The full title is: "He Wins, She Wins - Make Your Marriage a Win - Win Partnership" by Dr. Glenn P. Zaepfel. The basic premise is that in any relationship where there is domination and passive resistance both "sides" lose. It does not matter when the struggle is between sexes or between people in business or church, the core principles apply. ******

The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure and a parable of some on the spiritual growth path. This book produced the most comments I have seen at Amazon.com. For those that are really on their spiritual path they will love this book. For those off their spiritual path, they will find reasons to hate this book. One can either focus on the spiritual information and use it to your advantage and advancement or focus on the book and miss. That is the same choice we have with the Bible. Many that are focusing on the book, instead of the spiritual information in the Bible, will hate this book. Many that are focusing on the spiritual information in the Bible, will love this book. *******

Growing Up Holy & Wholly, Understanding and Hope for Adult Children of Evangelicals is about how the culture of the world in some churches can wound us and how to start recovering. Recovering is necessary for ourselves as well as the teams we are on. One of the missions of the church we went to at our previous home, was to assist in the recovery of Christians, that were abused by some christian churchs. One of the books that they suggested could help was this book. This book had four rules we grow up with that need to change to better rules. Example:

The first rule is about what not to say, and what to say. 1. Don't say your truth, and only say what they want you to say, and don't question them. Recovery = Say your truth ,no matter what they want you to say, and ask your questions in the boldness of the Holy Spirit. Short version: Tell Your Truth and Ask Your Questions. ******

New Ways of Managing Conflict by Renis Likert. You can still get used copies and this is a clasic to get for your library. It is by a husband and wife team of professors, that did the research to show that productivity is proportional to how enlightened an organization is.

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The Great Disruption by Francis Fukuyama. His thesis backed up by data, seems to be that we are going to a new level of Social Order, but to get there we are going through disruptions of our current Social Order, and trends like divorce, abuse, liberated women, etc. go back to women earning both better incomes that gives they freedoms and worse incomes as single mothers that gives them less freedom.

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