I posted a review of Creating Intelligent Teams by Anne Rod on Amazon and also wanted to share it here. Please note that leadership is an inner role of the team… A crazy important concept when markets are rapidly changing.
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Management gurus tell companies to create self-organizing teams and let teams decide how to develop products. So if you’ve ever wondered how to lead a self-organizing team, you’ll want to read Creating Intelligent Teams.
The book focuses on creating high-performing teams and introduces the five principles of relationship systems intelligence (RSI). In a minute I’ll share my favorite RSI principle… before I do let’s discuss the book.
What’s the first RSI principle: Each relationship system (team) has its own unique entity.
When a team comes together a resilient, energetic force is created that the team taps into. So when you read and believe in the five RSI principles you raise your awareness to the point you can develop skills to reveal the system to itself and take advantage of the system’s generative properties.
In addition, the five RSI principles equip leaders with a mental model to access, align and lead to higher performance. Leaders are encouraged to let go of ego and trust the collective “we."
To access a team system, the authors provide practical exercises at the end of chapters. For example, they teach you how to use constellations to reveal the system to the team. Simply ask yourself, What would an experiment look like? Then try one of the exercises and see what happens.
What’s my favorite RSI principle? The team has the answers. See RSI principle 3: Relationship systems are naturally intelligent, generative, and creative. When people believe in this principle, it allows teams and leaders to trust the team system to find the answer.
I know of no other book that focuses on how to lead intelligent teams. If you want teams that innovate and respond to changing markets, this book hands you the keys to the system.