Checkered Flag Teams : Driving Your Workplace Into the Winner's Circle

By Renee Merchant

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0970139020
• ISBN13: 9780970139023
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Gold & Silver Pr
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

A Toolkit for Teams

In today's increasingly complex business environment, "speed" has become the mantra of successful organizations. The ability to learn and adapt to changing conditions more quickly than the competition is what separates the winners from the losers. In their book, Checkered Flag Teams, Renee Merchant and Jo Ellen Roe capture the centrality of speed in the modern business environment by creatively building their presentation of team development around an auto racing theme. The auto racing theme also provides an interesting juxtaposition by demonstrating the importance of teamwork in a sport that to an outsider seems more of an individual endeavor. The primary strength of the book is that it is based on a theoretically eloquent and easy-to-understand model of teamwork. I have never been overly fond of Tuckman's model of team development because it focuses too heavily on the social dynamics of teams while ignoring the crucial element of the tasks that the team was created to accomplish. The authors' model of team development (presented on page 31), however, corrects this weakness by providing a convincing case for the need to balance task and process issues in team development. The more obvious strength of the book is that it provides a number of "tools" for developing effective teams. These team activities are indexed early in the book, so you can quickly locate just the activity that you need. The instructions and rationale for each activity are precise and easy to follow, so that even novice team leaders should be able to employ them successfully. In addition, most of the team activities are fairly brief and to the point which makes them perfect for teams on the move. I especially recommend the book for teams that are just getting started, as it provides an excellent toolkit for getting teams off to good start. Though it also provides a nice reference for team leaders in any field who are working to develop their team facilitation skills or are just looking for some creative new team building activities.

Excellent Use of NASCAR Metaphor and Team Exercises

Seldom do I see a business book that captures one compelling metaphor and carries it out over an entire book like this one did. The writing is good, detailed, and clear. Further, the book is filled with valuable team-building exercises that will improve communications and effectiveness, as well as work satisfication. If you work with manufacturing teams in the automotive industry, this book will be extremely valuable to you. In fact, it may function at beyond a five star level. On the other hand, if you work in high technology away from the NASCAR circuit and do most of your communicating in a virtual team by e-mail and shareware, this book may not seem very relevant. The book's main weaknesses are part of its strengths. If you do not follow NASCAR, a lot of the metaphor will be lost on you. For that reason, I think the book would have worked better with more metaphors or one that was more universal than this one. The exercises are very good for bringing out differences and welding them together into an effective team, but they seemed very dependent on having a facilitator. I suspect that this facilitator would normally have to be from outside the team, for best results. Many organizations would not have the resources to draw on facilitators this much. Also, for short-term ad hoc teams, the exercises here could be overkill. There was not enough guidance about what you could cut back on, in those circumstances. Also, I have seen a lot of team-building exercises blow up due to inexperienced facilitators. This book would not provide enough guidance to the neophyte facilitator on what to do, should a heated disagreement occur. I graded the book down one star for its facilitator-intensive approach.After you have finished enjoying new ways to improve team effectiveness, I suggest that you think about where people should work in teams but do not in your organization. What are the costs of this approach? What would have to be done to switch over to teams in those areas? Focusing on those opportunities may be an even bigger payoff than making your existing teams more effective.May you enjoy the race, as your team is able to move faster, more safely, and more efficiently!

More than thirty tools and activities

Checkered Flag Teams: Driving Your Workplace Into The Winner's Circle employs an automotive racing template to provide the corporate manager an up-beat approach to having a strong business team utilizing a "Fast Start Teamwork" process. Authors Renee Merchant and Jo Ellen Roe provide the reader with more than thirty tools and activities that anyone who drives a car can relate to. Included is a completely new communications style inventory, "CARStyles", inspired by the type of vehicle team members prefer to drive. Checkered Flag Teams is highly recommended reading for corporate policy makers, human resource directors, managers, supervisors, team members, consultants, and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Co-author Teamwork

The FAST teamwork process in this book really works! Jo Ellen and I teamed with each other, our artist, publisher, typesetter, and many others to complete our project. Our families helped also. We started with our shared vision, and our individual goals were achieved as a result!

Team building is the key to success.

This book is a good tool for anyone in a supervisory position. It can be used by the entrepreneur as a blueprint to help build a team that shares and supports the goals of the business. Civic organizations can use the methods and tools provided in the book to make their volunteer committees more cohesive and productive in achieving community goals and vision. The book is written in a way that is easy to understand with principles easily applied to family, church, community, and of course the work place.