Books Butterfly Editorial Reviews

Team Amplifiers – 8 Ways Teams Thrive in Rapid Change – Editorial Review

This is an Editorial Review of Team Amplifiers by Eric McDermott

This Review is written by a Company Leader (C-Level Executive) who has 5 years experience in Leadership Roles in Fortune 500 companies and 15 years experience in Startup Founder and Startup CEO roles

Books Butterfly Editorial Review of Team Amplifiers by Eric McDermott

Introduction & Context

At its core, Team Amplifiers by Mr. Eric McDermott is a Business Team Leadership and Business Team Building book focused around 8 Team Amplifiers. These Amplifiers are very powerful levers which will transform your team into a Super Team which can

1. Pivot, Adapt, and Stay Competitive
2. Look for What’s Next
3. Adapt to how things will be in the future
4. Deal quickly with Change
5. Transform your company into a ‘Ready for Whatever the Future Might Bring’ Super Company

Team Amplifiers is, in many ways, the perfect Business Team Building book for the rapidly changing and constantly evolving business world we currently live in

Strengths

Perhaps the biggest strengths of this book are the 8 Team Amplifiers

1. The Four Tiers of Help – This Amplifier deals with team members being able to anticipate what will be required and to get it done proactively
2. The One Question that Defines Success – This Amplifier is all about finding out What Really Matters, and aligning the Team around it
3. The So That Test – This Amplifier is about picking strategic objectives. In particular Shared Strategic Objectives that the team can rally around
4. What by When – This Amplifier helps produce high trust and coordination by specifying exactly What has to be achieved and By When
5. First Touch Expectations & Communications – This Amplifier is about Setting the Right Expectations and then Managing Expectations well
6. Retain Next Steps – This Amplifier is about managing External Dependencies and ensuring they do not derail your Team’s Objectives
7. Fail Smart – This Amplifier is about failing in a smart manner and not treating Failure as Final
8. Better By Next – This Amplifier is about the Team willing to get better and making it a practice to consistently improve

These Team Amplifiers will really expand and evolve the way you think about Teams. A few of these are incredibly powerful and writing one book per Team Amplifier is something the author should seriously consider

The Four Tiers of Help is incredibly strong because it teaches you how to turn your team from reactive instruction-taking robots to proactive go getters

The One Question that Defines Success, especially when combined with The So That Test, helps your Team define Exactly What Success Is and Exactly What the Team’s Strategic Objectives are. Most teams fail because they don’t really understand what ‘success’ is, and they don’t understand the strategic impact of what they are trying to achieve

The first 3 Team Amplifiers in themselves are powerful enough to take your Team and your Company to the next level. I’ve seen trillion dollar companies and early state startups both struggle with challenges which these 3 Team Amplifiers are designed to solve. It’s beautiful how well these 3 Team Amplifiers are explained and the fact that they are listed right at the start

The What by When amplifier was quite similar to setting SMART Goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time Limited). That should not take away from how powerful it is. Having clarity around exactly What to Achieve and By When to Achieve It is absolutely critical for any Team

My two favorite Team Amplifiers were First Touch Expectations and Fail Smart

1. First Touch Expectations because for most companies Setting the Right Expectations and Managing Expectations is the key to success and also the key to customer satisfaction
2. Fail Smart because every company and every team will face failure many times. Being able to deal positively and quickly with failure and power through to success is imperative

Overall, the book is incredibly strong. It’s quite surprising that the book is a quick read given just how powerful these 8 Team Amplifiers are

Weaknesses

Perhaps the biggest weakness is that each Team Amplifier merits a book in itself. While a short book is easier to read and digest, there really should have been a lot more discussion of each Team Amplifier

The idea of introducing new terms (NextPectations, Chief Next Officer, etc) is a very good idea. However, the author goes a little overboard. For Example: ‘Setting Specific Objectives’ would have been a much better name for the 3rd Team Amplifier than ‘The So That Test’. There’s no need to invent a new term for every Amplifier

The author has a really good set of resources (videos, Forbes articles, a course, a website). However, all this additional content is not well integrated with the book

Overall Thoughts

This is a very powerful book. The 8 Team Amplifiers are all impactful and a few of them are transformational in terms of how much they would improve your Team and Company if well implemented

I really enjoyed reading this book and ended up taking notes because of how good the book was. Any business leader will enjoy it and benefit from it

Interestingly, this book becomes more valuable the higher up in the company org chart you are

1. For CEOs and COOs it’s an absolute must read – 100/100
2. For Team Leaders, it’s a must read – 90/100
3. For Team Members, definitely something that will help you become a superstar team contributor – 80/100

The ideas in this book are so powerful that it would also be a good idea to bring in Eric McDermott to do company wide or team specific coaching

Team Amplifiers is likely to be one of the 2 or 3 best business books you read all year

Trigger Warning

No Triggers

Overall Recommendation

Team Amplifiers is an absolutely excellent Business Team Building Book and we recommend it for all levels of your company

1. CEOs/COOs/CFOs/CIOs/Board of Directors – 100/100 and very, very strongly recommended
2. VP/Middle Management – 100/100 and very strongly recommended
3. Team Leaders/Lower Management – 90/100 and very strongly recommended
4. Team Members – 80/100 and strongly recommended

This is a must have Business Book, which is worth reading multiple times

We would also recommend this book for Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors as they would be able to better understand why a startup they have funded is struggling

Curator’s Thoughts (not the reviewer, the curator)

We got a 100/100 recommendation for Team Amplifiers from our C-Level Reviewer and a 80/100 recommendation from our Team Member level reviewer. It’s definitely a very strong Business Team Building and Leadership book

Eric McDermott has managed to create an incredibly powerful book that is also very succinct and easy to read. The cost is that the 8 Team Amplifiers are not discussed in very great detail (something the reader will wish because many of the 8 Amplifiers are game changers)

Over the last 14 years we’ve curated and promoted thousands of Business Books and Business Leadership Books, and Team Amplifiers is in the Top 1%. It’s a real diamond

Where to get Team Amplifiers by Eric McDermott

You can get Team Amplifiers by Eric McDermott –

1. At Amazon Kindle for the eBook -> Team Amplifiers EBook
2. At Amazon.com for the Paperback -> Team Amplifiers Paperback

You can get in touch with the Author at his website -> Nextpectations (Eric McDermott Website)

You can also get in touch with the Author at his LinkedIn Page -> Eric McDermott LinkedIn Page

You can peruse the author’s books at his Amazon Author Page -> Eric McDermott Author Page at Amazon

You can read Eric McDermott’s Forbes Council articles at this page – Eric McDermott at Forbes