Teamwork book

IFYOUAREreading this foreword in a book store,

pausing for a moment after having browsed through the busi

ness management section, you are probably wondering what

makesTeamwork Is an Individual Skilldifferent from the other

books on teamwork. Good question! The answer is that this

book blends solid theory with real-world experience to create a

“how-to” book from which you can start getting value imme

diately. That’s what makes Teamwork Is an Individual Skilldif

ferent. But there is more to the story than this . . . .

In my current role as manager of the 3M Meeting Network,

I’ve collected a lot of data about teams and teamwork.

Everything I see indicates that more and more people are doing

more and more of their work as part of a team. In a 1998

survey initiated by 3M, we asked 2,800 people to profile their

team-related work over the last ten years. The respondents told

us that ten years ago, about 21 percent of their work was done

as part of a team. When asked the same question today, those

same people told us that close to 50 percent of their work is

done in a team. That’s a 250-percent increase over the last

decade—an unprecedented change in work style.

Not only is more work being done in teams today, but

there are more teams themselves. This is being driven by busi

ness trends that are happening both within and between com

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