Flying Fox

Subtitled A Business Adventure in Teams and Teamwork , this ``business novel'' purports to demonstrate a management technique called ``cross-functional teams,'' in which members of different departments within a company cooperate to develop, market and sell a new product. Ron Delaney, a mid-level manager at Fungible Company Incorporated (FCI), heads a group working on a new piece of office equipment called ``FlyingFox.'' Ron and his team members, all corporate stereotypes, act out an array of problems, setbacks and solutions involved in ``realistic'' cross-functional teamwork. Judged on its fictional merits, this book is a sound loser; anyone in his or her right mind would rather be reading John Grisham. It fares better as a business aid, but only if the reader is prepared to glean personal career tips from Ron and his cohorts as they write memos, attend meetings and obsess about their corporate futures. First-novelist Butman ( Car Wars ) occasionally offers philosophical pointers on living and working in the brave new world of corporate teamwork, but he fails to provide the kind of concise, practical information that would make his fiction a useful primary business text. (Apr.)