Includes bibliographical references and index.

Breakthrough teams -- The common cause -- Competence : back to the basics (+ recognition) -- The rule of 3 : cultivating a team -- Wow : six secret ingredients to world-class results -- No surprises : mastering orange communication -- Cheer : up -- 101 ways to bring your team together -- The company is a team : creating a revolutionary corporate culture -- An orange life : a how-to guide for living -- The orange formation. The authors shows that breakthrough success is guided by a particular breed of high-performing team that generates its own momentum, an engaged group of colleagues in the trenches, working passionately together to pursue a shared vision. They have determined a key set of characteristics displayed by members of breakthrough teams, and have identified a set of rules great teams live by, which generate a culture of positive teamwork and lead to extraordinary results. Using a wealth of specific stories from the breakthrough teams they studied, they reveal in detail how these teams operate and how managers can transform their own teams into such high performers.--[book jacket].