Collaborative Thinking: 4 supporting 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
This also fits very well with the idea of a personal ecosystem of thinking partners (Kitchen Cabinet, Advisors and Agents) as exemplified by Jim Henson of the Muppets fame and described in How is your personal ecosystem of relationships
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Bioteams Books Reviews
Seven team decision-making methods
The way a team decides to decide is one of the most important decisions it makes. In the excellent book, “Why Teams Don’t Work” the authors, Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley, identify seven key decision-making methods for teams.
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