Alan N. Wright, The Spiritual Dimensions of Team (TCP Leadership Series). Chalice Press, 2010.
Referenced in: Ministry Staff and Leadership Teams
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This is titled well in that its focus in not so much on improving the productivity of teams toward challenging objectives and goals (though this receives attention in chapters such as “Achieving Results in Teams”). Instead, Wright focuses on the softer dimensions of team functioning such as team spirituality, emotional climate, and energy. It provides an important balance for teams that lack the esprit de corp they need to fuel their work.
As a book on spirituality, one would expect observations on reflection, stories and metaphors, life challenge, and mystical experiences. But in addition to this, Wright offers an interesting insight called “Gapology.” This suggests that spirituality, through whatever means, helps teams bridge the gaps to translate fresh insights into behaviors, then integrate them into current practice to create new realities. These are issues of behavioral congruence that are best addressed spiritually rather than strategically or structurally. This is a valuable text.
From the Publisher
Spiritual Dimensions of Team is the primary tool that will help churches become effective team-based organizations. Teams as dynamic units are important to organizations, and this book offers a new and unique approach to creating effective teams.
By using parables and giving ways to put the insights to work, Wright gives you a toolbox of information that can change your church. This book brings together in one message a behavioral understanding of team effectiveness, specific biblical principles combined with those practices, and powerful learning exercises which will move teams from theory to life practice.
About the Author
Alan N. Wright has more than twenty years of experience in developing teams in corporate, public, and non-profit organizations. His clients have included corporations, universities, public-school systems, churches, and nonprofit agencies. Wright has presented more than a hundred workshops on teams, leadership development, and other topics. He currently serves as a full-time professor at California State University in Northridge.
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