This is a book about a framework for managing teams. It’s structured in 2 parts: the first part is a story (“fable”) introducing and illustrating the framework and comprises 90% of the content. The second part is a more formal description of the framework.
The fable is about a dysfunctional management team’s efforts to fix itself in order to better manage the company. I found it to be a disappointing read, as it doesn’t do much to illustrate the framework (compared for example to The Phoenix Project, which does a better job making the reader learn concepts from the story directly).
One aspect of the story stuck with me, though: the way Kathryn (the new CEO) often has things to say but won’t say them right now and then because she either wants someone else in the team to get to the insight by themselves, or she thinks it’s not the right moment for it. I though this was a good demonstration of emotional intelligence in a manager.
The model is a pyramid of behaviours to model teamwork. From the bottom, each step is the basis for the next.
This single page contains 90% of the insights from the book, which could have been a blog post. The last couple pages go in depth and give symptoms of each dysfunction as well as ways to solve them.