Thinking together: four essential team roles
Stumble It!In his unique book Dialogue and the art of thinking together William Issacs introduces the Four-Player System originally developed by David Kantor. This is a very important technique for supporting real collaborative thinking in teams.
In any productive group thinking dialogue all four of the following roles should be in play:
- Mover
Without Movers there is no direction - Opposer
Without Opposers there is no correction - Follower
Without Followers there is no completion - Bystander
Without Bystanders there is no perspective
The roles do not all need to be in play at the same time but need to have been played before the thinking concludes
Digg | 
del.icio.us | 
Reddit | 
Yahoo! | 
Add to my favourites
Bioteams Books Reviews
When not to collaborate
A team of one is sometimes best. It might sound like heresy but sometimes the most effective way to produce something is not through collaboration. Collaboration is best for tasks which cannot be fully achieved by a single person – if a job can be completed best by one person then to collaborate to do it will only make it worse.
Buy it now from:
Amazon.Com
Amazon.Co.UK
Related Online Collaboration Techniques Articles
Emergence in Organisational Teams
Creating the conditions for team development
Central to the living systems view of teams, networks and organisations, is the recognition and acceptance that their behaviour 'emerges' rather than appears in a controllable, predictable way.
Team culture: the 3-colour technique
The cultures of organisations and teams can be colour coded according to Jerry Connor and Lee Sears authors of “Why Work is Weird”. Red is achievement oriented, Yellow is people focused and Blue values Professional Expertise.
Profiling a Virtual Team
How to avoid nasty surprises in supporting virtual teams
From my experience of working with teams, often due to business deadline pressures, we do not spend enough time at the start taking a quick look or Profile of the overall shape of the team.
Leave a comment