Teams in Government: A Handbook for Team-Based Organizations.

• Author: Jackman, Mary Christine

Reviewed by Mary Christine Jackman, assistant director of finance, City of Cleveland, Ohio.

Remember when we were all young and naive? We thought that we could reinvent government by next week at the very latest. We are much older and wiser now and have learned that if any system, including government, is going to work, it requires the collaborative effort of all those involved.

Teams in Government, a how-to guide for governments attempting to implement teams as part of their reengineering effort, describes each step in the process of team development and provides the information that is necessary for team leaders, facilitators, and participants to achieve team effectiveness. It applies the total quality management (TQM) process to the government sector, defining TQM as "the gradual, unending improvement activities that involve every person in the organization, in a totally integrated effort, to improve performance and quality at every level to increase customer satisfaction."

In my experience, team efforts have not always functioned smoothly. Upon further reflection, however, I realized that when a team effort had been unsuccessful, it usually was because one of the steps or suggestions outlined in the book had been missed. The value of the book for those in government then becomes apparent: it gives the basic step-by-step approach, providing an excellent introduction and guide.

The first part of the book focuses on building collaborative teams. Principles, types of teams, characteristics, dynamics, leadership, and team formation are covered in detail. A map depicts the path to take - from the time when it is decided to form a team to the first meeting of the team members. The second part of the book devotes attention to process improvement, or the application of the collaborative efforts of the team whose overall charge is, "How can government serve its customers better?"

Government workers have been maligned for years for being lazy. My experience has proven that government workers are very diligent. Working diligently at the wrong thing, however, is not a virtue. In 1997 and beyond, government work must be intelligent, appropriately targeted, and adapted to the particular circumstances and the needs of the customer. The process improvement section outlines how to analyze government processes and services. Again, the analysis is...