Great Teams

16 Things High Performing Organizations Do Differently

By: Don Yaeger

Narrated by: Steven Roy Grimsley

What makes a team great? Not just good and not just functional—but great?

Over six years, long-time Sports Illustrated editor Don Yaeger was invited by some of the greatest companies in the world to speak about the habits of high-performing individuals. From Microsoft and Starbucks to the New England Patriots and San Antonio Spurs, what do some organizations do seemingly better than most of their opponents?

Don took the challenge. He began building into his travel schedule opportunities to interview our generation’s greatest team builders from the sports and business worlds. During this process, he conducted more than 100 interviews with some of the most successful teams and organizations in the country. From those interviews, Don identified 16 habits that drive these high-performing teams.

Building on the stories, examples, and first-hand accounts, each chapter in Great Teams comes with applicable examples on how to apply these characteristics in any organization. Great Teams includes:

• Life lessons from some of the most notable names in sports and business applied to team-making in any situation
• Interviews from well-known players from Peyton and Eli Manning to Kevin Durant
• Skills to allow culture to shape who you recruit, manage dysfunction, friction, and strong personalities
• Advice on how to win in critical situations, embrace change, build a mentoring culture, and see value others miss

Great Teams is the ultimate intersection of the sports and business worlds and a powerful companion for thought leaders, teams, managers, and organizations that seek to perform similarly. The insight shared in this book is sure to enhance any team in its pursuit of excellence.

©2016 Don Yaeger (P)2016 Thomas Nelson Publishers

Critic reviews

"There is nothing more magical than watching a team come together, to manage adversity as a group, selflessly give to others, to find common purpose. Inspiring that to happen year-in and year-out is what keeps us in leadership. Don Yaeger has studied the best of the best. Now it is our turn to study this book." (Mike Krzyzewski, five-time NCAA Tournament Champion, two-time Olympic gold medal-winning basketball coach, Duke University men's basketball)

"It takes a special formula to construct championship quality teams and in this book by Don Yaeger you will be able to see how great teams are formulated. Don Yaeger is awesome, baby, with a capital 'A'!" (Dick Vitale, hall of fame broadcaster, ESPN)

"Everyone wants to work on or play on a Great Team. The differentiator I've noticed is that the best teams pay close attention to and protect their culture and their people. Don Yaeger shows in this book that the same lessons are true on the sporting fields. There's much to be learned within these pages and I know you'll enjoy." (Gary Kelly, CEO and chairman of Southwest Airlines)

A must read for any leader.

If you are a leader this is a must read for you. Don speaks to some of the most successful organizations on the planet and gives us an insight into what they are doing correctly. This is a great starting place for anyone starting off as a leader or trying to refresh themselves on what leadership is all about.

a must for everyone on a team or leading one

what an amazing set of insights from the most amazing coaches, we'll written and insightful

Excellent book with practical takeaways & examples

This was an easy listen and had many great points I've been sharing with my team. If you want to increase your leadership lid, listen to this book... preferably more than once!

Go Buy The Book

There was so much great information in this book; I now need to go get the book so i can underline and journal the key points.

Okay read

Great book I sometimes got lost in the American sports analysis however the business narrative makes up for it

Absolutely Fantastic

This is one of the best books Ive listened to in the last 200 years. The analogies the speak to business and sports are exquisite.

Eh.

Not a lot of new thought here, mostly repetition of previously published material by other authors, but from a team perspective.

Sorry, I was disappointed-

What disappointed you about Great Teams?

He is a good author and motivational team building coach, but in this book, it's filled with too many comparisons of Sports teams etc. It seems that he is trying to impress everyone of his knowledge of sports history instead of talking or instructing about how to build teams from the ground up and strengthening them. Just too many continuous references to sports for me. I was looking for the meat of Teams, not to learn about sports history.

What was most disappointing about Don Yaeger’s story?

sports references..........

Would you be willing to try another one of Steven Roy Grimsley’s performances?

sure

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Great Teams?

almost everything related to sports

Big disappointment

The book was academic and obvious in its deduction. The "great takeaways" were anything but that.

Waste of time!!

A dumbed down collection of sport statistics

This must be THE least creative of leadership books. A boring run down of stories from the sports world, as though sports and the “real” world are the same. Disappointing.