An essential work on teams—now updated with new research and tools and a new preface—X-Teams shows how an externally focused team model is the key to fueling innovation and your organization's success. You build a team around top-notch talent. The team members work well together; they're committed to the mission and are highly motivated to perform. Yet the results are disappointing. You're not seeing creativity and flexibility. You're not getting breakthrough ideas. "Good" teams build camaraderie, confidence in their abilities, and a solid process for working together. But these internal dynamics—while positive in themselves—can create a wall between the team and the outside world. And that wall can prevent the team from adapting to change and delivering value to the organization. In this updated, streamlined edition, with a new preface and practical tools, Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman describe an externally focused team model—the x-team—that is even more relevant today than when it was first introduced. With their distinctively flexible membership and leadership structure, x-teams continuously reach outward to fuel the innovation process. With new examples and research from organizations such as Microsoft, Takeda, and the Museum of Modern Art, Ancona and Bresman show you how to build x-teams that: Keep pace with shifts in markets, technologies, cultures, and your competition Innovate by moving quickly from generating ideas to executing and diffusing them throughout your organization Employ "distributed leadership" to unlock crucial information, expertise, and new ways of working together—wherever these qualities reside, whether within or outside your company In an increasingly complex and ever-changing world, where adaptability and creativity are paramount to an enterprise's success—and even its survival—X-Teams is your handbook for winning.

Why do good teams fail? Very often, argue Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman, it is because they are looking inward instead of outward. Based on years of research examining teams across many industries, Ancona and Bresman show that traditional team models are falling short, and that what’s needed--and what works--is a new brand of team that emphasizes external outreach to stakeholders, extensive ties, expandable tiers, and flexible membership. The authors highlight that X-teams not only are able to adapt in ways that traditional teams aren’t, but that they actually improve an organization’s ability to produce creative ideas and execute them—increasing the entrepreneurial and innovative capacity within the firm. What’s more, the new environment demands what the authors call “distributed leadership,” and the book highlights how X-teams powerfully embody this idea.

Why do good teams fail? Often, it's because they are looking inward instead of outward. This book argues that traditional team models are falling short, and what's needed - and what works - is an approach that emphasizes external outreach to stakeholders, extensive ties, expandable tiers, and flexible membership. These new X-teams not only more adaptable, but can also improve an organization's ability to produce creative ideas and execute them-increasing the entrepreneurial and innovative capacity.

How to invent the future of business organization.

As a young reader, the author found Marvel Comics (circa 1977) to be examples of popular myths that were just as educational as our commonly accepted institutional myths, but even more compelling. As examples of stories that inform every facet of our lives, comics can equal these other stories. In 1977, the author was reading comics, but also surrounded by myths of religion, history, culture, and neighborhood.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Tbilisi Symposium on Logic, Language and Computation, TbiLLC 2013, held in Gudauri, Georgia, in September 2013. The conference series is centered around the interaction between logic, language and computation. The contributions represent these three fields and the symposia aim to foster interaction between them. The book consists of 16 papers that were carefully reviewed and selected from 26 submissions. Each paper has passed through a rigorous peer-review process before being accepted for publication. The volume also contains two summaries of the tutorials that took place at the symposium: the one on admissible rules and the one on the formal semantics of aspectual meaning from a cross-linguistic perspective.