Book Review: "The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player" by John C. Maxwell

Book Review: The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player by John C. Maxwell

    It is no secret that Mr. John C. Maxwell is one of my favorite leadership authors.  I have previous reviews on other books that I have read that are authored by him.  I intend to read many more and review each.  This time around I chose to read “The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player”.  I began reading this book when I came across a four-part collection by John C. Maxwell and crawled through this one.

    I chose to read “The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player” mainly because I had set out on a journey to learn as much as I could about being a team builder.  One of my earlier mentors took pride in calling himself a team-builder and I intended to follow in his footsteps.  I believe that team building, and leadership go hand and hand.  I recognize John C. Maxwell for recognizing and capitalizing on this, as well as being a great teacher of the inherent connectivity.

The Layout

    John C. Maxwell attacks the layout of this work in a way that makes me happy.  This book is formatted specifically for the reader that wants to complete a book in less than a month while reading a short chapter each day.  The introduction is a few chapters long followed by seventeen straight forward qualities that get right to the point and do not contain much fluff. 

    In the meat of the text, where Mr. Maxwell is visiting and explain each of the qualities of a team player one by one, one per chapter, he sub-formats the book in a very pleasing patterned way.  You will find a brief story that feels like an exciting history lesson (oxymoron?), all of which are well chosen and well explained, followed by a series of formatted writing on the quality following that story.  I am really intrigued by how the pattern respects itself and follows suit in every chapter, which really pleases my inner obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Formatting the Chapters

    The first of the subheadings is “Fleshing it Out”.  During this section John further explains the quality in discussion and then follows that explanation with clear steps on how to progress towards mastery of the quality.  He does a good job at describing what the quality is, what it entails doing, and how to do it.  I am thoroughly impressed with how well he dives into the detail without using a lot of fluff to create long sittings per chapter.  I enjoyed each of the sections the most and found myself walking away from each sitting after having read this section feeling very enlightened with clear direction on what I should be doing to further develop this quality in myself.

    The second section within each chapter is a section for reflection.  It is literally called “Reflecting on It”.  John poses a question and walks through some inner dialogue to drive home understanding of what needs to happen to fertilize the growth of this quality.  This section is followed by “Bringing it Home” where there are more bullet points to further illustrate how to apply the techniques of the quality directly to ourselves.  The layout of the bullet points makes reading immaculately pleasing and tidy.  Due to the organization of this writing, I rarely felt as if I was lost in the text.

    The last section of each chapter is titled “The Daily Take-away”.  Here the author finalizes the ideas that he introduced in the previous areas of the chapter and uses various techniques to tie them together for application.  The way he builds on the idea from start to finish with a minimal amount of content but left me with very full ideas is impressive.

Pro’s and Con’s

    I always have time to point out pro’s to John C. Maxwell’s writing, as I felt I have above.  I will take some time in this section to explore what he could have done to making reading this even a better experience. 

    The volume of the book itself is relatively small.  It concluded at 150 pages in, and the formatting of the pages was in such a way that kind of minimized content on each page.  Lots of spacing and captioning quotes reduced that 150 pages down by about 15 percent.  It was clear that it was intentionally formatted to deliver a lot of information very directly in a little package.  While I liked that, I may have liked it so much that I wanted more.  I found that even though I stretched the book out, like many good books, once I got going, I began binge reading multiple chapters at a time.  I never had to mark the book and take a break outside of the chapters, because they were so short and direct.

    John C. Maxwell can wrap me up in his story telling.  I have listened to some of his audio books that were narrated by him.  Every time I read one of his texts, I can hear him telling that story in my head.  This fellow has a real soothing voice, and just the thought of this gets me hooked every time.  I believe that some of his supportive material outside of the direct tips and strategies sometimes included additional information and fluff to make the strategies stretch throughout the book.  In most occasions I believe authors do this too much in order to stretch books out much further than they should be stretched, however, I wish in this case that he would have included a little more wordage.

 

    Finally, I would have liked to read about more direct applications of these qualities that do not involve a grand history story.  For many of the chapters John uses a famous piece of history to illustrate the importance of why a certain quality is included in his list of seventeen.  I wished that there were less fame involved in the stories and more personal application.

My Rating

    As far as business and leadership texts are concerned, I would give this a 4.5 out of 5.  It is pleasing to read, especially if you love organization.  The information is rather direct, the bits of history augment the writing, and it is true.  It is clear when you read this that this isn’t some sales pitch or phony claim.  Every quality you review and study in detail rings that eureka bell in your head and it becomes easy to tie it into the big picture of leadership.

"The Myths of Innovation" by Scott Berkun Book Review

“The Myths of Innovation” by Scott Berkun

Acquiring the Book

    “The Myths of Innovation” by Scott Berkun was a book that I happened to stumble across while trying to return another book to a mentor.  We will call my mentor Mr. C for referencing purposes.  He had this book and another sitting on his desk.  He had admitted that he hadn’t read it yet and was interested in its contents but offered me the first go.  I took the opportunity of being the first human to read this copy of the book and quickly grabbed it up and made my way back to my office with it.

    You can easily purchase this book from outlets such as Ebay.com, Amazon.com, and Walmart.com for prices ranging between ten and twenty dollars.  I have a few relationships in my workplace where we actively trade books for a prolonged period of time because we spend so much of our time at work that it makes reading and digesting books a costly pastime.

Overview

    Like the book’s title infers, it is written around the subject of innovation.  This writing delivers a lot of facts about historical innovators and the challenges that they faced long before they were known as innovators, inventors, or even successful persons.  The flow of this book started out pretty exciting for me.  I felt its invitational pull that drew me back strongly in the beginning.  This leveled off through the middle portion of the book but then returned as strong as ever towards the end.

    I often found that the book would influence me to want to pursue my dreams as an entrepreneur and inventor.  It had me comparing some of my travels and journeys with those of historically famous innovators that were the subject of the read.  I spent quite a few hours lying on my back on my living room floor looking up at the pages and thinking of how I would apply the knowledge contained in the book to my own life.

     In tandem to reading this, I was also studying business law.  My studies and the contents of the book fit together perfectly.  I have this knack for tying various things going on in my life simultaneously together to provide a good jolt of purpose and drive to whatever it is that I am trying to accomplish.  I will forever remember this book for this chunk of time of my life.

Annotated Bibliography

    The first thing that really surprised me and sold me about this book was that it contained a complete annotated bibliography that covered the entire span of the book.  Literally every page donned reference material to whatever it was that author Scott Berkun was writing about.  This was impressive as I am weak for scholarly articles and citations.   Seeing them at the bottom of every page just made me happy inside.

    Being surrounded by all the reference material gave way to the feeling that what I was reading was true.  I knew with a little bit of further research that I could confirm what it was that the author was saying and follow up on what I was reading.  I embarrassingly admit that I did not do this much, rather, I took the book for face value and absorbed the content within it without using the referencing material more than two or three times.  Upon finishing the book, it had a larger complication of the bibliography’s references.  I didn’t take too much time to look through these as I had already had the book an unwelcome length of time, however, it still made me feel good that the author had taken so much time to provide sources for what he was writing about.

    This was especially helpful in the subject matter.  The author used references to point to the validity of his claims as they pertained to historical innovators, their innovations, and their life stories.  I do wish that it contained more faction research on the process of innovation and invention and followed up by pointing to journals and articles that he based his information on, but nonetheless, any reference is better than no reference at all.  The biggest benefit of the annotated bibliography is the feel of what you were reading.  It did not feel like you were reading some quickly scribbled and pushed self help book, however, it really felt like you were holding a tome of knowledge.

Towards the End

    Things really turned up towards the end of the book.  The author skillfully twists historical inventors, inventions, their strategies, and their stories together for you and allows you to look through their eyes and think how they think for a good bit before giving you some real gems.  Towards the end of the book Scott Berkun delves into very applicable tactics and methods that the modern person can use towards improving their skills as an innovator and as a person.

    The author wrote two excellent chapters on motivation and pitching ideas.  I previously hadn’t realized how important pitching an idea was for an innovator.  I hadn’t tied innovation to salesmanship.  I also hadn’t realized all the little things to keep in mind when bringing an idea to someone else.  I am truly enlightened for having read these two chapters alone.  I admit that I wish that the book was packed full of these gyms, and I imagine how exciting it would be to read had I felt the excitement of reading the entire book as I had felt during reading and digesting these two chapters.

    The author breaks down the sales pitch of an idea in one of the later chapters into various components.  He then explains that anyone delivering a sales pitch needs to have the same pitch in various time-length formats.  What I took from this is that anyone pitching an idea needs to have a ten second pitch, a one-minute pitch, and a ten-minute pitch for the same idea.  He then gives strategies for applying each and going from the first to the last in a progressive fashion.

Humor

    I think that it is worth it to mention that a lot of the fluidity and ease of reading this book comes from the passive humor that the author possesses.  He’s able to weave a very natural feeling humor in his writing that leaves you smiling when you come across it.  This is not a forced humor or a book so injected with humor that you have to look for the content, rather, it is genuine and imaginable that this is how you would experience communicating with the author in real life.

    A lot of whether I mesh with these types of non-fiction writings depends on if I find that through reading the book that the author’s personality is compatible with mine.  In this case, it very much was.

Overall Rating

    I feel like a pretty hard critic in giving book a 3.5 out of 5.  This writing really explored historical innovators and their challenges.  I feel like it spent a lot of time pounding on history and not enough time delivering unique technique to overcome.  I do like the level of encouragement to be an inventor, but a lot of it came from pointing to the persistence of other inventors who struggled a lot instead of pointing to ways to overcome these struggles.  Overall, I really enjoyed the book and would recommend others read it if they are interested in business, inventing, innovation, and changing the world.

My Headspace at the Time

    During this time, I had been doing a lot of dreaming in my spare and not-so-spare time.  I had crafted an idea of a licensing business based on research and innovation.  This is a hard sell in real life, because of the inherent risk in hoping that research transforms into profitable substance.  Nevertheless, the book had me thinking and dreaming in ways that I hadn’t thought or dreamt of before.  I think it is these influences in our emotions and thoughts that really make books hang with us over the course of our lifetimes.  I only hope that my next series of reads provides me with the same type of interface to my life as I am currently experiencing it.

"Leading Groups to Solutions" Book Review

Facilitation in Leadership: Leading Groups to Solutions, a book review

Introduction

    I was given this book to read by a mentor shortly after he discovered that I actually like reading and further my wisdom and understanding of leadership principles.  One day he tossed me this book as well as a couple of loose pages that he printed out on various topics related to leadership.  He instructed me to share the pages but return the book.  He challenged me to return the book sooner than two months, jokingly.  Unfortunately, it took me about one of those two months to get through it, and as it concluded this morning, I felt that the appropriate time to review it would be right away.

    “Leading Groups to Solutions”, is a book generally about leadership as it relates to team building.  I immediately liked this notion because it is right up my alley.  It is easy to read with relatively large print for non-fiction and has a relatively short length at 169 pages.  It is written in a way that is easily understood with many take-away portions and wrap ups with bullet points to outline the primary material.

Recommendation

    I am an affiliate marketer of audible and audible products.  I do receive a small commission on sales and accounts generated through audible if you access the website through one of my links.  It seems that this book is not on audible, however, another great book from this author is.  Steven J. Stowell, PH.D. is also the author of a book titled "The Art of Strategic Leadership".  I do a lot of travelling and I don't always like to listen to music or talk on the phone during my commutes.  I love the fact that a good book can pack decades of learning and experience into just a few hours of reading and I recommend using audible to help.  Not only do I really believe in this product, it has had a profoundly positive impact on my life and others.

Diving In

    I took off reading this book relatively fast because of the way it is formatted.  I initially thought it would be a quick and easy read.  I typically stay away from these because I tend to breeze through them and then spend a lot of time recalling what it was that I read a week later.  Despite the ease of the read, I found that I didn’t want to rush it and that I would rather read a small portion before taking a good amount of time to reflect on what it was that I read.  I often found myself taking situations from the book and directly applying them to what I had experienced during group leadership and group meetings within my organization.

    The book is divided into two larger sections.  The first section is directly related to facilitating, in fact, the meat of this book revolves around the facilitator and how to best facilitate.  The last half of the book consists of small chapters that focus on specific techniques and situations that you may use or encounter while being the facilitator of a group.  There are sections at the back of each chapter that outline the material as well as a short summary for content in the chapter that a team-member should take away if they are not able to facilitate.  I found this part exceptionally helpful as while I find myself in the role of facilitator a lot, I also find myself in meetings where I am a team player and not in a facilitator role at all.

Writings on Facilitation

    When I read the title of the book, I had assumed that I would be reading a lot of repetitive team building strategies that most non-fiction group solutions books try to produce.  I was happily surprised when the authors took a direct approach and identified one area to focus on.  I was enlightened by the end of the book at just how much someone in a leadership role encounters situations where they act as a facilitator.  I count it a success when I am reading a book and then during my daily routine, I recall something that I read in that book and then apply it to my life.  This happened countless times during reading “Leading Groups to Solutions”, and I am willing to bet that it will continue to happen for some time.

    The authors take a good portion of the book to write on topics related to facilitation such as engagement, clarification, sustenance, and action.  I was a bit put off by how they seemed to always use a formal meeting setting in which to describe how facilitation takes place.  I don’t believe that we should make the mistake of assuming this book is only for that formal type of professional meeting.  I believe that we can take a lot of lessons out of here for ground level team-based leadership and apply them across the board, regardless of whether or not we are the primary leader or an ordinary team member.

Wrapping Up

    The latter half of the book takes us through various strategies to use when addressing groups, once again, from the leadership position or as a team member.  It does a good job of walking through step by step the process from the beginning to the consensus.  There is a lot of problem solving included during the latter half of the book.  I like this because it provides us with a lot of if, then information that we can add to our list of tools to use in various situations.  Once again I felt that it provided this information on the contextual basis that it is being used in a formal meeting room, however, it is really easy to see how to apply it on a production floor.

    I’m not sure that I liked the idea of gearing the entire book titled “Leading Groups to Solutions” towards delivering the chronological events of a formal meeting and various strategies and problem solving techniques you may use to make sure you reach a productive consensus, however, if that is what you are going for than I highly recommend this book to you.  If you are looking for a book for general team building with no specifics involved, then you may find your time better spent elsewhere.  I don’t believe that I can walk away from this without strongly emphasizing that even though the book seems to be written for that formal meeting situation, that it is clear how it can be practically applied to a variety of situations including production floor, family dinner table, and sports or recreation.

In Conclusion

I believe that a specific quote from this text does a really good job of defining it, “Most of all, our best hope for leaders and facilitators of teams is that you’ll discover in real and specific ways a grand truth: together we are better than the sum of everyone individually.” (Steven J. Stowell, 2002)  I believe this book has a lot of teachable information delivered in very small packages of words.  In spite of some of my dislikes of this book, I did thoroughly enjoy reading it, and I hope to thoroughly enjoy its continuous application in my professional life.

References

Steven J. Stowell, P. S. (2002). Leading Groups to Solutions. In P. Steven J. Stowell, Leading Groups to Solutions (p. 169). Salt Lake City: CMOE Press.

John Maxwell's 5 Levels of Leadership

John Maxwell's 5 Levels of Leadership

    There are a few books and collections of writing that I can admit changed my life.  When I was thinking which of these books most impacted me, the answer was clear.  In this book John outlines the various levels that we may occupy while we are leaders.  He does a great job at starting at the very base level, which is a level where people follow you because they have to, and concludes with the pinnacle of leadership which is a level where you consistently churn out other leaders which is nearly unattainable.  In this book you will find plenty of real-world applications of how to improve your level of leadership, and a good understand of what it means to be a leader and how to improve.  I have included links that would lead you to the location where you could get this book yourself and learn some of the timeless teachings of it.

Who is This Book For?

    This book is for anyone who currently occupies a leadership position that is looking to improve their influence on other people.  This book is also for the amateur leaders that are trying to get a deeper understand of what leadership is and why people lead others.  John does a good job illustrating the various platforms that one can be a leader in, and how his teaching is relatively universal through all platforms.

What I Took from This Book

    While I read the book and watched a live broadcast of him speaking to this book, this is the book that really transformed my leadership.  I am a self-help-book guy, and love to take the opportunity to self-educate when I run into a new task or hobby.  Once I learned that I was the probable candidate to get promoted to a team leader at my place of employment, I began to search out all of the information that I could find on leadership.  After a Youtube search while on my commute to work, I found myself listening to John talk about this book and was immediately entranced.  This was really my introduction to John Maxwell and I have been a huge fan ever since.

    The book itself is easy to read and the concepts are clearly displayed in literary form and fashion.  His teachings are always direct and laced with plenty of anecdotal stories from his life.  I was able to go from a very vague baseline knowledge of leadership to having a clear understanding about the task that I was going to under-take.  Immediately after starting this book I felt enlightened and prepared for my journey.

The Important Concepts

    I still apply some important concepts that I learned from reading “The 5 Levels of Leadership” by John Maxwell.  I especially pay attention to the second level of leadership, where he explains you have arrived at when people follow you because they want to.  This really transformed my view of leadership after my promotion.  I realized that I didn’t want people to listen to me because of some authority or position that I had achieved in my company.  I wanted people to follow me because I wanted to lead them, and I wanted them to want me to lead them.  This allowed me to begin to shift my outlook on leadership and relationships in order to achieve this.  When I realized that this was the case, I was amazed.  I took a lot of time reflecting in real life and thinking about how true some of this is and how easy it is to apply.

What Level am I At?

    Since becoming a leader in my organization, I re-visit some of my thoughts that were originally generated from this book.  I would like to believe I am around the level three to level four leader, as I feel that I have taken a direct role in finding other leaders in my organization.  I understand level five is unattainable, and I would not be so bold to say that I have arrived at the apex of leadership, however, I believe that there is still more to level four that I could accomplish.  I find it fascinating that I so often return to thoughts and concepts from this book, as I have read a lot, but this seems to hold some recurring principles that I visit often.

The John C. Maxwell Collection

A New Collection

    

        I spend a lot of my time in study, more than my wife would like.  I would consider personal growth a hobby that I am very passionate about.  From time to time I would like to dedicate sections of my blog to writing about authors and other writings or blogs that I enjoy and learn from.  I have decided to start with one of my favorite leadership authors.

        John C. Maxwell is a renowned blogger, author, and public speaker on leadership.  His work is second to none in my opinion.  I contribute a lot of my growth to studying his work.  I have listened to a lot of his audio-books, and have recently started collecting his hard-backs.  Studying this man's work has directly and exponentially taken my leadership game to new levels.

        In my collection I have "Good Leaders Ask Great Questions" and "How to Influence People" both available from John C. Maxwell's store. I also have a collection of his called "The Complete 101 Collection".  To my delight today I ran across The Essential Maxwell Library.  Over time I plan on reading and providing reviews and highlights of each of these as well as how I apply them to my life.  The books contained in this library are "The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player", "25 Ways to Win with People", "The Difference Maker", and "Leadership Promises for your Work Week".  

        My first exposure with John C. Maxwell was with his Youtube video regarding "The 5 Levels of Leadership".  My exposure to this created a thirst for his leadership teachings that still has not been quenched.  If you are a leader at any level, in any setting, I believe that you could also learn from his material.  I have included links to his blog, the book I am reading next, and his store below.

store.johnmaxwell.com - Store

johnmaxwell.com - General page

https://store.johnmaxwell.com/Team-player - The book I am currently reading