I am always on the lookout for books that make work better and so was eager to read Supercharged Teams: The 30 Tools of Great Teamwork by Pam Hamilton. Its premise is that in a working world that is faster, leaner and busier than ever we forget that establishing good teamwork itself needs work. It helpfully argues that everything that stands in the way of good teamwork can be overcome. This is particularly useful for those of us leading teams in organisations seeking high impact fast, who want to create the kinds of teams that we all want to work in.

Teamwork is all about a group of people working together effectively to achieve their goal. Successful teams understand the team’s mission, commit to its goals, have clearly defined roles and responsibilities within a team, agree ground-rules, have an established decision-making model and have developed effective ways of working together. Doing all of this overcomes the less than positive ways that people can behave in groups. Supercharged Teams talks about the difference between good teams and high-performing ones, the latter having deliberately and consciously agreed on the right mindset, pace and approach.

The 30 tools presented in the book mean that there is something for everyone here, depending on the specific challenges your team faces. Each tool sets out key take aways at the end. The tools range from helping you decide whether it’s a team you need, or something else, how to make meetings shorter and sharper (surely something we all want in the modern workplace?), defining your team’s purpose, choosing a team’s rules of engagement, dealing with remote teams, to ending meetings constructively.

I have passed this book around at work and it’s definitely recommended reading for anyone seeking to create and lead high-performing teams.