August Book Club

 

We are excited to announce the ProjectManagement.com August book club!  The book club provides an opportunity to participate in webinars and discussions around selected books relevant to the overall practice of project management.  The book club occurs in three parts:

1. Opening pre-recorded webinar which will be used to introduce the book. During this 30 minute pre-recorded webinar, the author will provide a high level overview of the concepts in his/her book, familiarizing participants with the information.
2. Discussion thread on ProjectManagement.com with input from the book club host and author.  During the last week of the discussion, questions will be collected to present to the author in the closing webinar.
3. **PMI-member exclusive** Closing Q&A live webinar with the author responding to questions submitted both through the online book club discussion thread and during the webinar.  The webinar will be a panel style discussion with open dialogue between the moderator and the author.

The first 25 PMI Members registered for the closing book club webinar will receive a complimentary copy of the book and will be notified via email.  Additional participants will have the opportunity to purchase a copy of the book at their own expense.  All community members will be able to view the book club opening webinar and participate in the discussion forum.  PMI members will be able to participate in the book club closing webinar.  We will evaluate the content of each opening and closing book club webinar to determine the eligibility and breakdown for PDUs.   

Our book club book for August is A Team of Leaders; Empowering Every Member to Take Ownership, Demonstrate Initiative, and Deliver Results by Paul Gustavson, Stewart Liff. 

Paul W. Gustavson is an author, board member and consultant specializing in strategy and the design of high performance teams and organizations. In 2012, he co-authored a popular book “Running into the Wind, Bronco Mendenhall, Five Strategies for Building Successful Teams”. He has served on the Marriott School of Management’s OB/HR Advisory Board for over 20 years.  He has over 40 years of consulting, research and hands on experience working on global projects, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions and startups.  Paul’s work has been featured in over 50 books, company magazines and periodicals.  Stewart Liff is the President and CEO of Stewart Liff & Associates, Inc., a California-based consulting and training company. Prior to that he worked for the Federal government for 32 years and led several impressive transformation efforts. One of them resulted in Vice President Al Gore’s first Hammer Award for reinventing government while the other led to his office receiving the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s prestigious PILLAR (Performance Incentives Leadership Linked to Achieving Results) Award.  A classically trained artist, he has written seven books, five on Human Resources, one on visual management and his most recent one, A Team of Leaders, co-authored with Paul Gustavson, was named one of the 30 best business books of 2014 by Soundview Executive Book Summaries and the Leadership Book of the Week by the Washington Post.

About the book:

Workplace teams are supposed to harness employees' talents to tackle challenges. But the reality often falls short...

Now imagine having a team where everyone steps up and performs all of the leadership tasks. Imagine a team that is constantly sharing knowledge and pushing the envelope--one that does long term planning and produces outstanding performance.

A Team of Leaders shows readers how to design systems that nurture the leadership potential of every employee--the key to creating high-performance teams. The book's proven principles and techniques include:

• The Five-Stage Team Development Model that maps the transition from traditional to self-directed teams
• Best practices in team process design
• A Team Value Creation Tool that allows members to appreciate the significance of what they contribute each day
• Visual Management
• And more

Filled with real-world examples, this fresh approach transforms passive groups of disparate people into effective teams of leaders--workplace teams that work!

Our 2016 book club host is Tolitha Lewis, PMP.  Tolitha has been a PMI Volunteer Leader since 2008.  She was elected as a Director to the PMI Information Systems Specific Interest Group (PMI-ISSIG) in 2008 and served until the completion of the transition to a Community of Practice (CoP) in 2011. In 2012, Tolitha was appointed to the Leadership Team of the Consulting CoP, now referred to as the Consulting practice area, and has been a leader in the webinar program ever since.   Based in Indianapolis, Indiana, Tolitha is a Sr. Project Manager.

To register for the closing live book club webinar, please visit the webinar page on ProjectManagement.com, find the book club closing webinar and click on the “Register for this webinar” link.

Please visit the book club information and discussion on the Project Management.com books page. 

For additional questions, please visit the ProjectManagement.com Book Club FAQ page.