Rewarding Teams is a helpful and practical book that addresses a topic that is very timely in our "virtual" team business world. The case study format from real organizations adds credibility and makes it very user friendly. The failures, successes and lessons learned approach is a great way to find out invaluable information that can be applied to your organization. It has certainly helped me assist my constituents in the mostly uncharted area of team recognition and rewards versus individual.

Much has been written over the past several years about teams and teamwork. For the most part, these books have concentrated on the criteria of effective teams and how to create the high performing team. Of critical concern to many is how to reward the high performing team - - - how to recognize in a meaningfull way the team's outstanding performance. This book - a first - answers that question with examples from a number of companies. If your company is actively involved in teams and teamwork, this is a volume that you need to read. It is a valuable resource.

"Certainly there are good books for compensation professionals on the technical aspects of designing incentive plans for teams, and handbooks that offer creative laundry lists of recognition ideas of individual contributors. But there are few sources for people on the firing line looking for practical advice coupled with real-life examples of how to design reward and recognition systems for teams, not individuals. This book provides practical advice and detailed examples of effective organizational unit (group) incentives, project team incentives, and recognition plans. It is for managers in organizations that have made a commitment to a collaborative culture and who want to create effective reward systems for teams...At the heart of this book are case studies of reward plans in companies large and small, in many industries, and of many cultures...Whenever organizations try to make teamwork the norm, many supporters become frustrated because the usual reward-and-recognition programs don't support it. In this book, the fictional BIZCOM Corporation and its managers show how frustration about teams can turn into success. BIZCOM's trials and tribulations are based on the authors' years of experience working with organizations" (from the Preface).

In this context, Glenn Parker, Jerry McAdams, and David Zielinski:

* describe BIZCOM, a fictitious company that wants to use a team approach to adress a critical business problem, and discuss team and organizational development issues such as vision, sponsorship, membership, stakeholders, launches, training, coaching, management style, and organizational support.

* discuss reward and recognition systems, communications and performance feedback, and training and development tools for creating a team-based organization.

* introduce an organizing model for rewards, and discuss organizational culture. At this point, they argue that "One general description of the whole organization's culture is possible, although organizations are made up of a number of suborganizational units, each with a slightly different culture. Accounting has a different culture than marketing. Manufacturing has a different culture than customer service. Hopefully, they are aligned with the overreaching organizational culture, with the differences simply reflecting the nature of the work they do". And they also argue that "One of the keys to success in improving organizational performance is to ensure that reward plans reinforce the desired culture, or at least attempt to reduce the gap between the existing and desired culture".

* define six types of reward plans: (1) individual base compensation and benefits, (2) individual capability (competency), (3) individual incentives, (4) recognition, (5) project team incentives, (6) organizational unit incentives. (But throughout the book they mainly focus on the last three plans - more detailed examination of these plans in several companies and review of their experiences see Chapters 3-5).

* summarize how you can best utilize project, recognition, and group incentive plans to improve teamwork and organizational performance as lessons from the trenches (more detailed discussion of these trenches see Chapter 6):

(1). Customize the plan.

(2). Align plans with business objectives.

(3). Send the right message.

- create many winners, few losers

- involve employees in the selection process

- trust the folks

(4). Use noncash as well as cash awards.

- noncash awards are not limited to recognition plans

- give a few big awards and lots of small ones

- pay the taxes on noncash awards

(5). Communicate, communicate, communicate.

- never assume people understand

- tell people how they are doing - all the time

- reinforce the messages

- role modeling works

(6). Create a smorgasbord of plans.

(7). Budget for recognition activities.

(8). Keep administration in mind.

(9). Payoffs are in the eye of the beholder.

(10). How plans are introduced and operated is paramount.

Finally, they argue that "There are no silver bullets. There is a good will, faith in the value of employee contributions, good business judgement, and willingness to act on a strategy of teamwork reinforced by rewards and recognition plans. We've learned how to manage financial, fiscal, and customer capital. Leveraging human capital is the challenge for the next century. Reward and recognition plans designed to encourage teams and teamwork is one way to meet that challenge".

I highly recommend this invaluable study to all executives and HR professionals.

Author was reviewed during his college years as an "upcoming Hemmingway". Unfortunate Zielinski has not written any other novels....yet !! A must read for the intellectual reader !!