Think One Team. Winter Graham

p>Graham Winter

      Thinkoneteam

      THINKONETEAM

      SECOND EDITION

      THE REVOLUTIONARY 90-DAY PLAN THAT ENGAGES EMPLOYEES, CONNECTS SILOS AND TRANSFORMS ORGANISATIONS

      GRAHAM WINTER

To Carol, Mark and Ben

      First published in 2016 by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

      42 McDougall St, Milton Qld 4064

      Office also in Melbourne

      © Graham Winter 2016

      The moral rights of the author have been asserted

      National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

      All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.

      Cover design by Wiley

      Cover image: © Snowshill /iStockphoto.com

      Internal images designed by Claire Magarey from Somersault design

      Frog illustration on page 185 by Emma Stuart © Think One Team International

      The story featured in this book is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      Disclaimer

      The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.

      about the author

      Graham Winter is a best-selling author and adviser on leadership, teamwork and performance to leading Australian and international organisations.

      He is the founder and Executive Director of Think One Team International and his background includes three-times Chief Psychologist to the Australian Olympic Team (including Sydney 2000) and six years as exclusive designer of High Performance Leadership programs for PwC Consulting in the Asia–Pacific.

      As a Consultant and Performance Psychologist Graham has worked with thousands of leaders and teams across Australia and internationally.

      His books include the bestseller think one team, the man who cured the performance review and his most recent book, first be nimble, which is becoming a must-read for leaders and professionals addressing the challenge to adapt and innovate in a volatile business world.

      He is married with two sons and lives in Adelaide, from where he travels regularly to consult and advise clients.

      Graham can be contacted through www.thinkoneteam.com.

      acknowledgements

      Special thanks to my family, friends and colleagues who helped to bring think one team to life as a book and as a successful development and organisation change method for so many enterprises:

      • Carol Winter for your love, support, tolerance, pragmatism and willingness to always put yourself second to create the environment in which your boys have flourished.

      • Kathy O'Donnell for your passion and attention to every detail that has made 'think one team' so successful. You even gave your name to a jelly-bean company!

      • Paul Lloyd for your persistence and support, and in particular for sharing the rollercoaster and never threatening to jump.

      • Mark Winter for your challenging and innovative ideas, your commercial nous and for being a wonderful son.

      • Ben Winter for the thousands of little ways you have supported me and brought joy to my life.

      • Anne Carman for being a great colleague and source of common sense when it's needed most.

      • Ron Steiner for your friendship, honest feedback, support and sense of humour.

      • Gavan Wills for your integrity at every step of a difficult journey.

      • Robyn Tillett for being our unflappable trouble-shooter in the office.

      • Claire Magarey from Somersault Design for bringing our brand to life and being so delightfully patient when faced with our crazy ideas.

      • Scott Eathorne for your great work in creating the publicity for think one teamTM that keeps us front of mind in the business community.

      • Nick Wallwork for seeing the potential in this book.

      • Frank Prez for professional advice and assistance over many years.

      • Duncan Rumbold for being such a wonderful collaborator on our journey to creating the online toolbox.

      • Googe Farrugia and the team at Bravo! for partnering with us to build the Think One Team Collaboration Space.

      • Sandra Balonyi for yet another great effort in editing the manuscript.

      • The team at John Wiley & Sons Australia for your vision, guidance and support in bringing all of my books to the market.

      • All our staff, facilitators, clients, partners and colleagues for your enthusiasm and willingness to make 'think one team' a way of doing business.

      introduction

      When the first edition of think one team posed the intriguing proposition, ‘Imagine the possibilities when everyone in your organisation thinks and acts as one big team’, both the publisher and author hoped this would spark interest among business leaders and teams.

      History now tells us that the book, with its combination of engaging story and easy-to-implement model, created more than just a little attention and quickly became and remained a bestseller in Australia.

      The first positive signals came from team leaders who bought the book because those three words – ‘think one team’ – resonated as a solution to the silo mentality that causes so many of the frustrations of working in medium-to-large organisations. I've lost count of the number of emails and conversations in which people have told me that the story could have been written about their organisation!

      Those team leaders believed that their teams would enjoy and benefit from reading the story so they bought a copy for each person. This created a shared language and a way of opening up conversations about how they could work better together within and between teams. Many organisations in government and industry built on this by providing the book to all their employees to reinforce the work they were doing on organisational values, and leadership and team development.

      As organisations became familiar with the ‘think one team’ method, many approached our consulting firm with requests for more tools and coaching to help leaders and teams to continue the journey of working as one instead of in silos. Our facilitators worked closely with many of these organisations across Australia and internationally and, not surprisingly, the methodology continued to evolve from experience and changes in business conditions.

      Three specific developments have now all but transformed the way the ‘think one team’ method is implemented in organisations