The Synergist: How to Lead Your Team to Predictable Success

We’ve all worked on teams with smart, hard-working people who, oddly enough, were never able to coalesce and work together seamlessly. Consultant McKeown thinks he has the answer: the addition of the “Synergist,” the key role that exists in every successful group to tie the three other natural roles to which all of us default when we are in a group or team situation (visionary, processor, and operator). The Visionary-Operator-Processor triangle is unstable and requires a Synergist to help the group by transcending personal agendas and releasing the group’s cohesion and flow. Using case studies, McKeown discusses each role’s strengths and weaknesses, and provides tools for working with or for each personality type, explaining how a Synergist may help. His analysis of the choreography of group dynamics is insightful and easy to grasp, and though geared toward business teams, is equally applicable to any group of people working together to achieve any common goal. A thoughtful and incisive strategy for effective teamwork. (Jan.)