Build an A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve

by Whitney Johnson

Overview

Lead each person on your team up the learning curve.

What's the secret to having an engaged and productive team? It's having a plan for developing all employees—no matter where they are on their personal learning curves.

Better morale and higher performance happen through learning, argues Whitney Johnson. In over twenty years of coaching, investing, and consulting, Johnson has seen that employees need continuous learning and fresh challenges to stay motivated.

The best bosses know this, and they know how to make it happen by thoughtfully designing people’s jobs around the skills they have today as well as the skills they'll need to be even more valuable tomorrow. That's how entire organizations stay competitive in an unpredictable, rapidly changing business environment.

In this book, Johnson explains how to become one of those bosses and how to build your A-team by:

• Identifying what your employees already know and what they need to learn
• Designing their jobs to maximize engagement and learning
• Applying a seven-step process for leading each person up their learning curve

We all want opportunities to learn, experiment, and grow in our jobs. When our bosses work with us to help us leap to new challenges, the result is a team that knows how to thrive, no matter what the future holds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633693647
Publisher:	Harvard Business Review Press
Publication date:	05/01/2018
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	624,907
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Whitney Johnson is the CEO of Disruption Advisors, a tech-enabled talent development company, and an expert on smart growth leadership: growing your people to grow your company. Thinkers50 ranked her among the top ten management thinkers in the world in 2021, and in 2020 she was a Top Voice on LinkedIn, where she has 1.8 million followers. Johnson is an award-winning author, world-class keynote speaker, frequent lecturer for Harvard Business Publishing's Corporate Learning division, and an award-winning executive coach and adviser to CEOs. She is the author of several bestselling books, including Disrupt Yourself and Build an A-Team, and hosts the weekly Disrupt Yourself podcast. You can reach her at [e-mail].

Table of Contents

Introduction: Being the Kind of Boss People love to Work For 1

1 The S Curve of Learning 13

2 The Seven Accelerants of Learning and Growth 31

3 Recruiting and Hiring 57

4 Managing the Hungry New Hire 87

5 Playing to Their Strengths 109

6 Managing Masters 129

7 Helping People Leap to New Learning Curves 147

Conclusion: Betting Started 167

Notes 173

Index 183

Acknowledgments 191

About the Author 193

Editorial Reviews

Advance Praise for Build an A-Team:

Marshall Goldsmith, executive coach; New York Times–bestselling author, Triggers and What Got You Here Won't Get You There—
"If you want to be a leader who gets hired, and a boss people love to work for, Build an A-Team is a must-read."

Clayton Christensen, Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; New York Times–bestselling author, The Innovator's Dilemma—
"Management, when practiced well, is a noble profession. Build an A-Team is an important book for managers who desire to help their team members learn, grow, and realize their potential."

Aicha Evans, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Intel—
"Build an A-Team drives the point home that success is rooted in spending the time to build and nurture learning teams. That's the role of the best leaders today."

Raju Narisetti, CEO, Gizmodo Media Group—
"Illustrated by dozens of real-life examples, Build an A-Team is an essential guide for managers."

Maureen Chiquet, former Global CEO, Chanel; author, Beyond the Label—
"Whitney's keen observations and case studies make a thoughtful and timely guide to help both managers and employees contribute to a thriving and innovative culture."

Alissa Johnson, Chief Information Security Officer, Xerox—
"In a time when the skills gaps are rising and technology is always changing, read Johnson's Build an A-Team to learn how to build a highly productive team and keep it."

Alan Mulally, former President and CEO, Ford Motor Company; former CEO, Boeing Commercial Airplanes; and Director, Google and Carbon 3D—
"Whitney Johnson delivers an insightful book, providing strategies every leader can use to build high-performing teams."

From the Publisher