Rating: 
Summary: Best Management Book of 2001 --- Bar None!
Review: High Five! is a short story that teaches the four core principles of successful teams. By using a story, Blanchard and Bowles show how these principles actually work and make a difference in teams. And High Five! makes a solid case as to why organizations who follow a team strategy will beat those which rely on individual high performers who place their own success ahead of the team's success. Wayne Gretzky, the world's best hocky player of all time, holds all kinds of records for goals scored. What made him so exceptional though was his goals assist record: The number of times he set up his team mates to score. If you work for a Neanderthal organization that still values individual success at the expense of team success don't complain that this book isn't realistic and doesn't reflect the real world in corporate America. I've got news for you. The cheese has moved. High Five! is the real world. Winning organizations have moved. Companies that will be around to give you a pay check in the future are those that have high performing people alright, but the definition of high performing won't be the puck hogs. Star performers will be those who, like Gretzky, can score themselves, but whose real genius is lifting the rest of the team to perform better. High Five! shows that people working together as a team create something the book calls team skills and these team skills are more than the sum of all the individual skills. Team skills allow people to accomplish and achieve far more together than they ever could on their own. This is how team based organizations have moved the cheese and why companies who stick with puck hogs will be left behind. Puck hogs are great when they go one on one against the competion. They don't stand a chance when the competition throws a high five team at them. High Five! will scare the daylights out of puck hogs and those who work for organizations that don't yet get that teams are the future and puck hogs don't stand a chance. (You can see that panic in a couple of the reviews already posted here!) But for those who get it the book provides an excellent guide to the four keys to winning teams. Then High Five! shows how you use these keys. How you actually put them to work. I bet if you read this book you'll be pushing to have everyone in your company read it. If you don't it will be because you recognize your company dosen't get it, and isn't going to get it. If that's the case I bet you'll start looking for a job where they do get it, because if they don't get it, they're going to be gone. High Five! is a must read for anyone who wants to be successful in the future, and for any manager who wants to run a winning organization.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Book
Review: High Five! was given to me as a gift. Once again the authors have created a rememberable story line to drive home the basics of teamwork. This is an easy to read book (I read it in 3 evenings). The story is about a 5th grade hockey squade that becomes an "undefeated" team. Easy to relate to the workplace. I strongly recommend this inexpensive book for all team leaders in your organization.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Book
Review: High Five! was given to me as a gift. Once again the authors have created a rememberable story line to drive home the basics of teamwork. This is an easy to read book (I read it in 3 evenings). The story is about a 5th grade hockey squade that becomes an "undefeated" team. Easy to relate to the workplace. I strongly recommend this inexpensive book for all team leaders in your organization.
Rating:
Summary: Great Advice for Adult Coachs of Children's Sports Teams!
Review: I found this book to be totally delightful as a model for how to be a better adult coach of a children's team. For many years, I have recommended that all those who want to learn how to be better leaders and managers begin by taking on these coaching chores. This is the first book I have ever seen that successfully captures the important principles of coaching these teams. This book deserves many more than five stars for that accomplishment! The benefits of that are many. First, the players will get a role model of how to cooperate in order to be more effective. Second, the coaches will learn how to be better leaders, and will be able to use that skill in other areas of their lives. Third, the parents will learn what to encourage their children to do in order to get the most from the team experience, and this will bring parents and their children closer together. The book's fable boils down to four key principles: (1) The team needs a shared purpose, values and goals. (2) Skills need to be developed individually that enhance the team's effectiveness. (3) Enhance team effectiveness by integrating the individual skills properly. (4) Repeatedly reward and recognize individuals for taking actions that enhance team effectiveness. A weakness of the fable is that it doesn't give enough attention to how to achieve the first principle for the typical team. My suggestion is that you poll your players before the first practice to find out what their purposes, goals, and values are. Then hold a meeting to discuss what you learned, and build a consensus from there. My experience has been that 99 percent of the players want to have fun, want to improve, and win at least a few games. Be sure to find out what they think is "fun" because it's often different from what the coaches would assume. Fun usually turns out to be loosely supervised scrimmaging time. When that was the case, I ran a brief such scrimmage at the end of every practice until the last player was picked up by her or his parents. The other place where I would like to make a suggestion is about recognition. I was a coach for 14 years, and I found that giving individual awards to every player for every game worked very well. Everybody does something right at least once in a game. I would make a note of it, describe the reasons for each award, and hand out a little token at the end of each game for each such award. At the end of the season, the player could turn in these tokens for other forms of recognition. I also shouted out the person's name and award when they won one. That way, each child could be a winner every time we played, even if the team lost. And we did not lose very often. The players loved to win those awards for passing, defense, and offense. Scoring accounted for well less than 10 percent of the awards in my experience. This book has one of the best exercises I have ever seen for convincing people to work on team skills. You divide the players into the "best" math students and the least good ones. Then you teach the least good ones how to cooperate to win an addition game. You let the "best" math students struggle on their own. The least good ones will win almost every time. That will make quite an impression on the players about the importance of teamwork. The book is probably intended to encourage teamwork on the job, as well. That translation will be harder for most to make. The work environment is mentioned relatively little in the book. Also, how is the sense of shared purpose, values and goals supposed to emerge? You may know how to do that from your own experience and reading other books, but most people reading this book will be at sea. Also, how do you decide which skills the team needs to work on? That is also something you may already know how to do, but most people do not. And the book doesn't explain. I'm sure you see the problem. I do think that the book will be somewhat effective in making those who focus on their individual work performance rather than the company performance think twice. The analogy (not used in the book) that may help is of Michael Jordan. As a young player, he focused on his own statistics and the Bulls did not win championships. Later, he worked on making the other players better, and the Bulls won all the time. Phil Jackson, as coach, played an important role in that transition. That example will be known to most basketball fans. Let me compliment the authors on their fable. I have read their other books, and this one is both more interesting and more heartwarming than the others. After you have finished reading this book and applying its lessons to a coaching situation with youngsters, I suggest that you read "The Goal" and "The Fifth Discipline" to get ideas about how shared purposes, goals, and values can be developed in the workplace. These books will also give you many ideas about the skills that a business team needs in order to be more effective. By the way, if one of your children or grandchildren is about to start a sport where you will not be coaching, I suggest you give a copy of this book to the coach and ask how you can help the team. He or she will undoubtedly get the message. May your life be filled with high fives!
Rating: 
Summary: Easy-to-read primer on teamwork
Review: I have to admit, I'm a bit of a sucker for these "Blanchard/Bowles/Johnson/etc" books. The story lines are hokey and the concepts elementary, however they can usually be read in one sitting and make great airplane books. Besides, I don't think any aspect of management is that complicated. You really just need to (1)understand the basic principles and (2)apply them religiously. And this is where I think Blanchard's formula is successful. The story keeps the book moving along, and at the same time provides a mental "hook" for remembering the priciples taught. I probably won't remember most of the management books I read six months later, but chances are good that I'll remember this dumb story about a grade-five hockey team.
Rating:
Summary: Easy-to-read primer on teamwork
Review: I have to admit, I'm a bit of a sucker for these "Blanchard/Bowles/Johnson/etc" books. The story lines are hokey and the concepts elementary, however they can usually be read in one sitting and make great airplane books. Besides, I don't think any aspect of management is that complicated. You really just need to (1)understand the basic principles and (2)apply them religiously. And this is where I think Blanchard's formula is successful. The story keeps the book moving along, and at the same time provides a mental "hook" for remembering the priciples taught. I probably won't remember most of the management books I read six months later, but chances are good that I'll remember this dumb story about a grade-five hockey team.
Rating:
Summary: Great Message - Easy to read book
Review: I thought this book was very easy to read, and that it had incredible learning lessons throughout the book. One concept that I especially liked was this, "People teach what they most need to learn themselves."
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: I took this book to the beach and got sunburned because I couldn't put it down. I liked the way it guided the protagonist (who was fired for not being a team player) into discovery learning of the main tenents. The authors didn't just say do this, then this, then that. Although I didn't really believe all of the story line, the message was valuable. I especially liked the part about getting key players out for short periods of time so that the other (weaker) players would have a chance to improve their skills without comparison to the star. I have recommended that my company buy copies for our in-house library.
Rating:
Summary: Sounds good in theory
Review: I would love to go to work everyday and work in a real team. The book has good ideas in theory, but probably next to impossible to actually make them work. The real reason behind the book though is the fact that people will get farther when working together. I think that is what all the parable books are trying to tell us, to look at things from a different prospective. Check out the book Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of life also, it will show you how to look at life from a whole new angle.
Rating:
Summary: Sounds Good In Theory
Review: I would love to go to work everyday as a member of a high performing team. The book has good ideas in theory, but it seems next to impossible to actually make them work. The real reason behind the book though is the fact that people will get farther when working together. I think that is what all the parable books are trying to tell us, to look at things from a different perspective. Also check out the book Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey, it will show you how to look at the rat race fom a whole new angle -- what do you want in return for running the race?
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