Wake Up and Smell the Coffee: The Imperative of Teams

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee is a practical guide to anyone who works or is planning to work on a team in a workplace environment. Author Simon Mac Rory uses a coffee-themed approach to debunking myths that people often have about creating, leading, and working on a successful team. Mac Rory changes the reader’s current view of successful teams and teamwork by comparing what it is and what it is not. He explains that a workplace team is very different from a sports team. He also concludes that offsite team building, which so many companies think will bring their teams closer together on a personal level, is really inefficient to creating better working teams because after the “fun” event occurs, nothing actually changes in the workplace. Everyone goes back to his or her desks and resumes business as usual. Instead, Mac Rory suggests doing activities that relate to the ones that the employees are currently doing in the workplace to create efficiency.

The book stays on task with what the purpose of a team is and delivers spot-on advice in all areas of teams building. The book touches upon topics such as conflict, communication, the role of leaders versus employees, and how large a team should be for maximum efficiency. One of my favorite parts of the book was the description of how Amazon founder Jeff Bezos determines if a team is too large or not. He uses the “two-pizza rule” that states that two pizzas should be able to feed the whole team. Useful tools, such as tables, are also included for the reader to use. Included are a reflexivity schedule based on team type, suggested measurements for a CTS, and areas of focus for morale and motivation.

Mac Rory describes the four basic team types: traditional, project, virtual, and teaming workgroup. He gives strengths, challenges, and imperatives for each type of team. The author also gives helpful tips for analyzing a team. Once the type of team is established, the leaders and employees must work to evaluate where the team is and where it should be and how to get it to where it should be. The book includes rules for leaders to guide their team to success. Mac Rory gives suggested approaches for everything from goal and role clarity to team communication and composition which must be analyzed and evaluated. This book is a must-read for all who might even think about working with or on a team and covers everything from A-Z.