Teach Your Team to Fish: Using Ancient Wisdom for Inspired Teamwork
Laurie Beth Jones, Kenneth H. Blanchard, Ken BlanchardBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Laurie Beth Jones has given hundreds of thousands of business readers insight into how the ideas of Jesus can be used to enhance performance. One of the most critical work areas for anyone, whether a manager or a CEO, a teacher or a pastor, is cooperative teamwork. Leaders today face their greatest challenges not only in defining strategies and getting updated information but also in getting diverse human beings to pull together without falling apart.Jesus can be a role model for team leaders everywhere. When Jesus called out to his future disciples, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” he transformed them from people who worked for themselves to people who were part of a larger team. Jesus was constantly exhorting his people to “gather in my name” and “go out two by two” and always think and pray “as one.” Jesus’ final prayer was “that they might be one, Father, even as you and I are one,” which is ultimately about union and communion, common values and purpose—all of which form the bedrock of an inspired team.
Teach Your Team to Fish offers dozens of stories from the Bible showing how Jesus managed his team of disciples and other followers, with suggestions for how to apply these lessons to real-world teambuilding and management problems. It offers guidance and inspiration on:
* how to excite your team in order to motivate them;
* how to ground them so they’ll be realistic about what can be achieved;
* how to transform them into a truly well-functioning team;
* and how to release them into the world to improve other teams elsewhere.
Along theway, the book gives examples of companies in which teams work well together and offers lessons that can help team leaders everywhere sustain themselves and achieve their common goals.
Synopsis
Jesus Built an Inspired Team. You Can, Too.
Laurie Beth Jones has given hundreds of thousands of business readers insight into how the ideas of Jesus can be used to enhance performance. In Teach Your Team to Fish, Jones focuses on one of the most critical areas for anyone in business: teamwork. Leaders today face their greatest challenges not only in defining strategies and getting updated information but also in getting diverse human beings to pull together without falling apart.
Jesus is a role model for team leaders everywhere. Teach Your Team to Fish offers dozens of stories from the Bible, showing how Jesus managed his team of disciples and other followers, with suggestions for how to apply these lessons to real-world teambuilding and management problems. It offers guidance and inspiration on:
• How to excite your team members in order to motivate them
• How to ground them so they’ll be realistic about what can be achieved
• How to transform them into a truly well-functioning team
• How to release them into the world to improve teams elsewhere
Laurie Beth Jones provides many examples of companies in which teams work well together and offers lessons that can help team leaders everywhere sustain themselves and achieve their common goals.
Publishers Weekly
Jones (Jesus, CEO) has established something of a cottage industry by using Jesus and his teachings as models for creating successful ways of doing business in contemporary society. In this latest effort, she draws once again from Jesus' teachings to his disciples, asserting that he successfully taught people how to work in teams to accomplish their goals. Jesus, she writes, did not simply gather a group of rag-tag followers; he "excited them," "grounded them," "transformed them" and "released them." For example, Jones contends that Jesus taught his team the SQM method: simplify, quantify, multiply. This method allowed the disciples to get to the core of what they were called to do, to determine ways to measure the progress they made toward these goals and to ensure that each one had the ability to multiply the good of the team in every contact they made. Each meditation is brief, and questions accompany each reflection so that groups can use the book to improve teamwork. Jones closes each meditation with a prayer. Overall, her conclusions can be simplistic and her readings of Scripture questionable, particularly since the biblical disciples were most noted for their repeated failures to understand Jesus' mission. Her assertions that "Scriptures are designed to help prevent failure" and that "those who listen to God's words, and heed them, are promised prosperity and abundance..." transmit a possibly misguided and self-centered understanding of Scripture. However, Jones's following is huge, and her fans will devour this new book. (May) Forecast: The success of Jesus, CEO has made Jones a staple in business-and-spirituality publishing, but her most recent book, Jesus, Inc., didn't have as much staying power. This new title will compete directly with John Maxwell's The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork and other strong sellers about teamwork, so it remains to be seen whether Jones can keep up with the Joneses and with her own track record. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.