Books
X-teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate and Succeed
Second Edition, 2023
by Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman
Why do good teams fail? Often because they focus primarily on their internal processes and neglect the external work required for innovation and performance.
X-Teams presents a model of team effectiveness that integrates strong internal management—clear goals and roles, psychological safety, and a learning mindset—with disciplined external engagement. Effective teams engage in sensemaking with stakeholders, build support through ambassadorship, and coordinate work across boundaries. Innovation emerges from the combination of these internal and external activities.
Family Ghosts at Work
by Deborah Ancona
Family Ghosts at Work examines the unconscious patterns that shape how leaders think, relate, and exercise authority. Drawing on research and practice, the book explores how beliefs and behaviors learned early in life continue to influence leadership long after we leave home.
The book unfolds in three parts. The first helps readers identify the family ghosts that influence their leadership. The second focuses on how to retain the strengths those ghosts provide while changing the patterns that constrain growth. The third examines how ghosts play out in organizations, shaping leadership dynamics, culture, and collective behavior.
Greater self-knowledge, combined with deliberate work to change thoughts and actions, can shift everyday leadership practice—not only in moments of crisis or change, but in the ongoing work of leading and working with others.
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Coming soon.