Hackman (social and organizational psychology, Harvard U.) identifies the factors of being a team leader that will enable a team to work together efficiently to achieve organizational goals. He suggests that five conditions are necessary: having a real team, a compelling direction, an enabling team structure, a supportive organizational context, and expert team coaching. He integrates insights from interviews with team leaders with concepts from the social sciences. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Why do some teams thrive, while others struggle? In the modern workplace, employees collaborate. Managers are expected to be effective team leaders and employees are expected to be valued teammates. But many teams struggle. Being part of a struggling team can be unpleasant, but it can also hurt your career and waste company resources. In Teams That Work, Scott Tannenbaum and Eduardo Salas present the seven drivers of team effectiveness and the clearest recommendations on what really makes teams great. Applying the lessons they've learned from working with high-stakes, high-risk team situations to any kind of organization, they will dispel some of the most enduring myths (e.g., can you be both a star and a great team player?), feature the most useful psychological research, and share real-world illustrations of effective teams in action. Readers will find actionable, evidence-based tips for being an effective team leader, a great team member, a supportive senior leader, or an impactful consultant.

This book is about how to play bridge in a tournament. Unlike club play, the hands are typically prearranged to test your skills. This book gives a comprehensive view of the various types of hands a beginning player might expect to encounter. The various categories of hands presented will teach you how to play the first card, how to ruff, how to set up a long suit, how to play for the drop, how to get a count on the hand, and how to handle special combinations, such as the split A-Q or K-Q. In addition, you will learn about finessing up to a lone honor, the ruffing finesse, the backward finesse, and other finessing techniques. You will also learn how to read inferences from the opponents bids, opening leads, play, and discards.

This multivolume set is much more than a collection of essays on sports and sporting cultures from around the world: it also details how and why sports are played wherever they exist, and examines key charismatic athletes from around the world who have transcended their sports. Sports Around the World: History, Culture, and Practice provides a unique, global overview of sports and sports cultures. Unlike most works of this type, this book provides both essays that examine general topics, such as globalization and sport, international relations and sport, and tourism and sport, as well as essays on sports history, culture, and practice in world regions—for example, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and Oceania—in order to provide a more global perspective. These essays are followed by entries on specific sports, world athletes, stadiums and arenas, famous games and matches, and major controversies. Spanning topics as varied as modern professional cycling to the fictional movie Rocky to the deadly ball game of the ancient Mayans, the first three volumes contain overview essays and entries for specific sports that have been and are currently practiced around the world. The fourth volume provides a compendium of information on the winners of major sporting competitions from around the world. Readers will gain invaluable insights into how sports have been enjoyed throughout all of human culture, and more fully comprehend their cultural contexts. The entries provide suggestions for further reading on each topic—helpful to general readers, students with school projects, university students and academics alike. Additionally, the four-volume Sports Around the World spotlights key charismatic athletes who have changed a sport or become more than just an outstanding player.