Creating Effective Teams Book Review

4-MAT book review of:
Creating effective teams: a guide for members and leaders by Susan A. Wheelan
Brittani Lewis-Clarkson
Lead 610
ABSTRACT
Susan Wheelan, author of Creating Effective Teams: A Guide for Members and Leaders, wrote her book to share information about effective teams, members, and leaders. Wheelan bases her book on the premise that, “from the beginning of human history, people have utilized work groups to generate new ideas, get things done, and nurture individuals”1. Groups always have been and always will be an important and unavoidable aspect of society. This book dives into the process of developing a group into a high functioning team. Wheelan begins by spending time comparing group development to human development.
I found myself categorizing these past team efforts into the group development stages described by Wheelan. As I reflected, I realized that no team I have ever been a member of has advanced beyond stage two, except for one. I believe I have been part of a team that had reached stage four of group development. Shortly after I had graduated from college, I was hired as a fellow for a county health department in Southeast Texas. I was assigned to a team that had been together since 2008, with the newest member being on the team for two years. This team worked incredibly well together. The team leader, who is also the department director, was a very strong, knowledgeable leader who allowed different team members to lead projects if it fell into their area of expertise. It may sound cliché but I viewed this team as a family. When not in team meetings, they had nick names for each other, knew one another’s family members, and supported one another in times of personal events such as deaths or hospitalizations. When our team met, goals, timelines, and tasks were clearly laid out. The team would strategize on the most effective and efficient ways to meet a goal and would then return to their offices to get working. Meetings were always light hearted, yet fast paced and informative. As a fellow, I rarely knew what was being discussed but team members were more than willing to explain things during the meeting. This did not interfere with the meeting’s progress because it validated everyone’s knowledge of the team’s processes and procedures. One member of this team, who I still consider to be my mentor, is a man named Nathan. Nathan is the team’s planner and radio expert. Before working with this team, I had never touched a radio. Nathan took the time to explain to me the basic functioning principals of radios. He did not have to do that, but he realized that by exposing