Michael Finley Books

To teach the justice in morality it would be wrong if you don't get this book. This book brings up all the ordeals someone would need to know. And how to act with a moral decision process, This book is gret for people that care. Personally I would recommend it for teenagers and up

I liked what I read on the back cover of Michael Finley's book, and I bought it as a kind of "self-defense"; course to protect me from someone who has been subjecting me to their symptoms of compulsive technophoria. On the basis of my preliminary scan, it seemed like a good collection of idiosyncratic cases of technological extremism -- no great depth, but some useful ammunition. The more I read the book however, the more I revised that judgement. This book is by far the best compendium of computer-culture wisdom that I have ever come across. Both the extent of knowledge and the breadth of comparison that Finley brings to bear on this topic, are truly exemplary. There is a short test to administer and score yourself, and it tells you what kind of computer person you are -- from power user to technophobe, and everyone in between. It's short, simple, and very insightful. And on the basis of both mine and my wife's results, I can assure you that it's right on! There is a running thumb-nail history of the evolution of computers that is better than many of the other books and charts I have seen elsewhere. And, it is modularized (the secret of good instruction), so it doesn't sidetract or waste time. The advice on how to develop a relationship with an after-sales service provider, is a gold-mine of useful tips. We are all lost without repairmen and online help desks, yet we usually deal with these people haphazardly, and they don't do much better by us. Finley explains how and why we need each other, and how to behave to minimize difficulties. The essential theme of Finley's book is that both technophoria and technophobia are undesirable extremes (I suspect they are forms of psychopathology) that should be avoided by anyone with good sense (wisdom). Neither lionizing nor demonizing gizmos is a fit attitude for self-respecting adults. Throughout the book, Finley recommends frugality, self-reliance, patience, and good sense when dealing with computers and technicians -- and these are precisely the virtues which my own experience also recommends. There is, in addition, much more of value in the book, which is exactly why you should buy it, read it, and take it to heart! END

it is fine

This is a useful and very entertaining take on the change process. The methods the authors promote are probably too "soft" to stand alone in a change effort, but they are make a great addition any consultant's tool kit.

I am working on my Doctorate in Management and have read numerous books on teams and team building. This is one of the best. It tells you the real workings of teams, not just theory. In fact, it will tell you a great number of things you probably don't want to hear. Many of the truths about teams that you have been told are flat wrong! I am sure that these guys are not on the Chirstmas card list of many team building gurus. An easy, fun read.

After reading The New WHYTEAMS DON'T WORK by Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley, I thought two things. The first thing that I thought was, what a great book and the second thing that I thought was, what else have these two written.
The book was very easy to read because it was so well written and they succeeded in making it a fun read as well. I am an art lover, so the first thing that caught my mind was the front cover. I thought that the picture was creative, artistic and it sure did fit the topic at hand. The next thing that I really enjoyed about the book was the fact that the chapters were not long and drawn out. The way that I read this book, all of the data was quite educational. The authors did not seem to stretch what they needed to say in order to add fifty or sixty more unneeded pages to this book. Another aspect that caught my attention about this book was the fact that it was written for all people. The language, sentence structures, format and word choice were all used so that readers of all ages and social statuses could read the book. Some authors tend to do everything in their power to speak over the heads of their audiences and I did not see that in the case of this book. The chapters were nicely separated and they stayed on topic. For example, when I started to read chapter two on Team Instinct, I did not feel that the authors took a dozen pages to reiterate what was talked about in chapter one. Again, keeping a nice flow to the book and making my read an easy and enjoyable one.
Finally, I really appreciated the fact that the book gave both sides to the question at hand. WHY DON'T TEAMS WORK? It gave reasons and solutions. I enjoy a book that is not one sided. I like to hear both sides of ever story before I pass judgment or draw opinions.
In closing, I just want to restate my appreciation for having the opportunity to read such a great book. Just like a movie that someone enjoys that they can watch twice on the same day, I see myself picking this book up again in the near future to scroll through the pages, and catch back up on some of the notes that I took and lines that I highlighted. This was a great book and I look forward to reading more from these authors.
Thank You.
Chris K

Teams have been touted as efficient, creative and able to innovate quickly for many years now. In this flood of books, articles and teamwork guru's, many organizations have been changing their organizational structure from traditional managerial hierarchies to team-based work. Unfortunately, teams don't always bring the results that management was hoping for. Why not?

Authors Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley say that there are many reasons why teams may not be working, but the principle one is that managers have forgotten that teams are made up of human beings. A team is not a piece of machinery that can be assembled and then turned on. It is a collection of human beings with all their various faults, ambitions, and insecurities, who are attempting to work together. Using teams does not mean that leadership is no longer required. Teams need to be led, motivated and nurtured. The strength of teams is creative, an opportunity to bring the expertise of many different people together to reach a common goal. When teams are used simply as cost-cutting devices to replace middle management, this primary strength of teams is being ignored.

Here is some of the advice the authors have for building and maintaining successful teams:
· Make sure the team members remain focused on the common goal.
· Make sure that the goal is clear to everyone and attainable in small steps.
· Make sure the team knows who their customer is.
· Make sure the roles of different team members are clear, and everyone knows who is responsible who which decisions.
· Listen to the concerns and conflicts of all team members. Take action to address their concerns.

Read Chapter 5 on "misplaced goals, confused objectives," and you'll start getting a good handle on where most team problems lie. How many of us really understand what Demming meant when he stated that a good goal is not a number? The authors do. They know that a good goal is something that brings out passion. A good goal gives people something to respond to, buy into, claim ownership over. This is not a happy talk book about teams. With all the things that can go wrong with teams, and do, it's surprising they work at all. "Teams are trouble." Having this book available on your reference shelf will help you handle and minimize the inevitable missteps the next time you're asked to serve on a team, or lead it.

I have reviewed all 31 chapters of psycho-babble in the book (and the epilogue too).

A very "nice" read. Indeed entertaining and yes, funny in many ways. They also use doubtfull suggestions - like bringing "doughnuts" because people like them !?

They also "demystify" some "myths" about teamwork. (I do not know where they got those Myths from) - another fragment of their imagination, I suppose.

This "business" book is more of a "romantic novel" about something relating to "teams", full of anecdotal references (very life-like) - but totally unsubstantiated, wanting us to "believe" that indeed, "teams things" are like they describe it.

From an entertaining point of view - very. From an academic point of view - null. For a business person - if you have time to waist, have fun.

It is interesting to note that they got a UK award for their book. (for entertaining I suppose). I guess this is a way of promoting the book. Good marketing technique.

Say the boss drops dead and suddenly you're the acting boss. Or the company reorganizes, everyone above you is fired and guess who's in charge. Imagine that your career suddenly becomes one of those movies where the plane starts to go down and some poor, benighted sap finds himself in the pilot's chair trying to land a 747 on a stormy night on what is either a landing strip or just a long, broad swath of plankton in the water. Can you land it? What do you do? You're responsible. Suddenly people look at you in a different way. Your friends no longer completely trust you, your enemies are working actively to undercut you and your ability to come to terms with accidental leadership will make or break your career. It is full of little motivational tips, kind words and straight talk covering everything from managing complex and difficult teams to firing people (tip: avoid Christmas Eve). The book is thin, a quick read and a good one.

I received an advance copy of The Accidental Leader because I review business books for a big-city newspaper. I put it at the top of my pile because I have always liked what Finley and Robbins do. I now recommend it enthusiastically, not only for the suddenly-empowered people the title addresses, but for anyone with leadership responsibilities.

In my view, the business books that are truly useful for real-world managers have two qualities. First, they don't pretend that managerial life is anything less than unbelievably complex and unbearably demanding. Second, they provide straightforward, relatively simple tools, methods, and strategies for dealing with all that complexity and pressure. Tools that actually work.

The greatest business writers, geniuses like Jim Collins and Gary Hamel, can embrace huge amounts of complexity and then provide advice that's somehow whittled down into manageable prescriptions that still have world-changing impact.

This book isn't as great as those, because its topic is more limited, but it still has those great-book qualities. There's a whole lot of reality encompassed here - organizational realities, performance-related realities, and personal ones, too - yet the highly distilled, non-nonsense advice still imparts ways of wrestling with those realities and coming out on top.

There's also a lot to like about the way Finley and Robbins write. They're direct and pungent, funny and witty, and completely readable. They earned some deserved recognition a few years back when their book Why Teams Don't Work was named "Best Business Book in the Americas" by Financial Times and Booz Allen & Hamilton, but they still haven't gained the wide readership and top-of-the-charts sales they deserve. The next step for them is to sell a whole bunch of books. So, if you buy this book and like it, why not check out their other entries here at amazon.com -- it's all good, and good for you, too.

"Why Teams Don't Work" is a book that actually promotes using teams (to my disappointed) and explains common failure points when implementing teams in organizations. That was my first disappointed... I was looking forward to reading a truly anti-team book, but no, it's in fact just a popular and simplistic team book.

My second disappointment came when they started define what a team is. Team literature is full of definitions of teams. Commonly they include having shared accountability or have a performance goal. What do the authors of teams don't work say: "A group of people working together." I found this definition simplistic. Then, the authors links the usage of teams directly to the quality revolution from Japan and calls that the origin of teams. They seem to have done absolutely no research on the use of teams before they wrote this book and are missing the socialtechnical systems and the use of teams in P&G, which all happened before people were worried about competing with Japan.

The whole book basically continues like this. It's written extremely popularistic . It's badly researched and the points it makes are trivial. I do not think this book provided anything new over other team material. If you are interested in why teams are a fad... don't read this book. I would not know what book to read, but this book simply promoted teams. If, on the other hand, you are interested in a good book on teams. I'd recommend to look at "Wisdom of Teams" from Katzenbach or, probably even better, "Leading teams" by Richard Hackman.

Leave this book where you found it... in the book store.

If you're going to read this book, be prepared. This is not a book of sports metaphors. This is not a ritualistic hosanna to the glory of teams. This is not "rah, rah, sis-boom-boaster, teams are the best thing since the wide-slot toaster."

In fact, Why Teams Don't Work is that rarest of beasts: a book of truths. Using language that is remarkably entertaining, honest, and brief, Robbins and Finley dissect the hackneyed assumptions about teams to explain why so many companies that switched to teams "have not been experiencing the organizational bliss they counted on." A simple matrix of fourteen team problems, symptoms, and solutions - one of the blessedly few diagrams in the book - sets the tone. Teams don't work because they're made up of people: people who don't communicate, people who are uncertain, people who lack feedback and tools, people who are (surprise!) reluctant to jump on a live grenade to save the team.

A recipe for pessimism? Not at all. The authors' antidote to "happy talk" team books emphasizes common sense recommendations.

* "Form teams only when they make sense."

* "Adapt your style to suit the needs of whoever you're communicating with."

* Since there are at least six ways to make a team decision, "the important thing is that the team decide, in advance, what decision making method will be used."

* "The more goals and objectives a team is handed, the worse their performance will be. If a task doesn't appear on the high priority, short-term goals/objectives list, the hell with it."

These may not sound like epiphanies, but they are ultimately more practical than rhapsodic cheerleading or abstruse four-box models. Robbins and Finley believe in teams because they do produce results - if you can avoid the pitfalls.

Why Teams Don't Work can be inconsistent. In their rejection of algorithms and hard-and-fast rules, the authors sometimes substitute pithy ideas and aphorisms for diagnostic tools or practical solutions. Nor do they offer revolutionary research that sets aside past thinkers; the book is peppered with quotations from the likes of Peter Senge, Wm. Edwards Deming, and B. W. "Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing" Tuckman. Nonetheless, Why Teams Don't Work makes for terrific reading: clear, realistic, and genuinely amusing. If you believe in magic and mantras and the panacea of teams, read something else. If you want to find the truth and enjoy yourself at the same time, read Why Teams Don't Work.

Not worth the five dollars. The whole "book" is only a handful of pages that doesn't give any real insight into the matter it discusses. Plus, you can find it all online if you look.

2033 words categorize "difficult people" as JERKS, BLOWHARDS, BRATS, and DARK ANGELS. Each has a few paragraphs describing the type, not much is said that can help you deal better with anyone.

It apparently is a page out of the authors new book "The New Why Teams Don't Work". Expecting more of the same, I would presume the book tells you all kinds of things that can be wrong with a team, but no help for your pain.

And you know what you get for your $5.95? The right to read it online. You can't even download it to your computer for future reference! (Well, you can if you are a techie, but frankly, it's not worth my effort.

This "book" is a total of 5 pages. (One page being the title page and one being information about Michael Finley.) I would consider it more of an article, and not a very helpful one at that. It gives some very general advice that you could also find by reading the back cover or introduction of any book on organization skills. I have purchased downloads before and was very satisfied. But this time I feel I wasted my money and I am disappointed. Next time I'll read the fine print!!