AS A MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT...

and researcher for over eighteen years, I have worked with many writers to develop speeches, articles and books. To capture my experiences with mature teams, I had the opportunity to work very closely with John Harrison on Keeping Teams on Track and the revised version of Self-Directed Work Teams: The New American Challenge.

To write Keeping Teams on Track, John gathered relevant examples, crafted the structure, and masterfully captured the experiences to write a practical book, This book avoids the jargon, and delicately balances facts with stories so that this business book reads more like a journey with mature teams instead of just another dull management book.

What sets my working experience with John Harrison apart from other experiences is the degree of professionalism that John demonstrated. My co-authors and I were highly scattered in our approach to the book, lacked the understanding of how to codify our experiences and didn't have sufficient time to provide John with the information. We didn't even have a draft of a book, just some ideas in our head.

In writing this book, John collected research on teams, interviewed other subject matter experts and me and made coherent our rambling ideas, When we working on one section, a case study, John and I traveled to a work team site. There he conducted interviews with senior executives, team members and key administrators. I didn't know how to conduct these interviews, nor did I have an understanding of what information to collect.

John planned and conducted the interviews, with the client. They also benefited from the interview time since it was an Opportunity for reflection, and a time to acknowledge the progress they had made. The result was a powerful chapter in the book and a second chapter in a collection of Best Practices for Teams. Feedback on this chapter is that John captured the range of emotions that the plant experienced on their transition. Feedback on the entire book has been very positive, as well,

When I was ready to update Self-Directed Work Teams: The New American Challenge, I again called John. In addition to the same limitations that I imposed on John, lack of time nor a clear plan on how to update a ten-year-old book, there was an unanticipated challenge. The additional complication was my co-author and I had long stopped agreeing on most points. Here John had to navigate through a mind field of two stubborn researchers not willing to compromise with each other.

Several times in the project, I thought my co-author and I had reached an impasse, which would preclude us from finishing the revision. Yet, John worked with us individually to understand our biases and effectively reach a collective understanding so that we were both comfortable moving ahead with the book. The book again exceeded my expectations.

In summary, these were two complex projects that John completed with skill, dedication and good humor. Regardless of how tight the time frames were, John met them. He accommodated the crazy schedules we were working and delighted our publishers with a manuscript that was powerful and captured our voices.

Each time I worked with John he brought expertise about the subject, skill and speed to the writing projects and commitment and energy to working through the land mines that is unique to writing books with multiple authors living across the country.

Linda Moran
Senior Consulting Partner
AchieveGlobal