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.Current traditional, internally focused models of teams aren't working in an increasingly complex and ever-changing world. We need new structures, a new way of organizing, to operate in that world. The authors introduce the X-team, a new, externally focused team model that enables a team to adapt to external change, coordinate with other groups, link to the strategic direction of the firm, and allocate work and leadership across multiple individuals.Based on 25 years of research examining many different kinds of teams -- consulting teams, product development teams, sales teams, and oil exploration teams -- across many industries, Ancona and Bresman make a powerful argument that traditional team models are falling short, and that what's needed, and what is successful, is a new brand of team that emphasizes external outreach to stakeholders, extensive ties, expandable tiers, and flexible membership.The authors show that X-teams not only are able to adapt in a way 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. The new environment demands what the authors call "distributed leadership," and the book highlights how X-teams actually embody this idea.With examples from Microsoft, HP, BP, Merrill Lynch, and many other companies and contexts, the authors will show that X-teams are the key to operating successfully in a world where adaptability is paramount, and that organizations that use X-teams will be moresuccessful than those who rely on traditional teams.