When I wrote Making the Team in 2000, my intent was to introduce leaders, managers, and executives to practical research on groups and teams. This enterprise required an integration of theory, research, and application. Five professors—Jeanne Brett, Tanya Menon, Keith Murnighan, Mark Rittenberg, and I—offer a 3-day course for executives in team leadership at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Moreover, Kellogg offers a full-term course on teamwork to our MBA students. This book is dedicated to the students of Kellogg’s executive program and MBA program.

Making the Team has two audiences: leaders and team members. For the leader, the book directs itself toward how teams can be designed to function optimally; for the team members, the book focuses on the skills necessary to be a productive team member.

Since the publication of the first four editions, many advances have occurred in team and group research. Every chapter has new information, new research, updated examples, and more. Specifically, I have made the following major changes to the fifth edition of Making the Team:

1. Important topics and theories: The majority of chapters contain new theories, research, and topics, such as intergenerational team issues (in Chapter 1), decision fatigue (in Chapter 7), work–family conflict (in Chapter 8), incremental versus entity theory of leadership (in Chapter 11), moral decision making (Chapter 7), and an expanded discussion of virtual teams (in Chapter 13).

2. New, updated research: True to the book’s defining characteristic—providing managers with the most up-to-date research in a digestible fashion—I have included the latest research on teamwork and group behavior, thus keeping the book up-to-date and true to its strong research focus and theory-driven approach.

3. Surveys of managers and executives: The updated research also reports on the survey of executives that we have conducted at Kellogg for the past 17 years. The survey in the first edition reported the responses of 149 managers and executives; the fifth edition has a database of more than 1,200 team managers.

4. New research studies: More than 180 new research studies have been cited.

5. More case studies: I have included more examples and illustrations of effective (as well as ineffective) teamwork. More than 150 new case studies and examples of actual company teams have been added. And, each chapter has a new, updated opening example.

6. Illustrations and examples: Many of the concepts and techniques in the chapters are supplemented with illustrations and examples from real teams, both contemporary and historical. I do not use these examples to prove a theory; rather, I use them to illustrate how many of the concepts in the book are borne out in real-world situations.

New exercises, cases, and supplemental material: The supplemental material and teaching support materials have been greatly improved so as to complement the text. This allows students to have a more integrated experience inside and outside of the classroom. The book strongly advocates experientially based teaching, and the instructor now has even more options for making the concepts come alive in the classroom. All of the supplements are available on Pearson’s Instructor’s Resource Center, contact your Pearson Sales Representative to be assigned your user name and password.

In addition to the changes discussed, which affect all chapters and sections of the book, several chapters have undergone updates as new theory and research have broken ground and as our world has been shaped by events such as the fiscal cliff negotiations on the eve of 2013, the capture of Bin Laden, Superstorm Sandy, the reelection of President Obama, and the tsunami and earthquake in Japan. The revision was sparked not only by advances—as well as calamities—in the corporate world but also, even more so, by the great scientific research on teamwork that my colleagues have relentlessly contributed to the field of management science in the years since the first edition was published.

One of the reasons why I love this field is that there are so many wonderful people with whom to collaborate. The following people have had a major impact on my thinking and have brought joy and meaning to the word collaboration: Cameron Anderson, Linda Babcock, Max Bazerman, Terry Boles, Jeanne Brett, Susan Brodt, John Carroll, Hoon-Seok Choi, Taya Cohen, Jennifer Crocker, Susan Crotty, Hal Ersner-Hershfield, Gary Fine, Craig Fox, Adam Galinsky, Wendi Gardner, Dedre Gentner, Robert Gibbons, Kevin Gibson, James Gillespie, Rich Gonzalez, Deborah Gruenfeld, Brian Gunia, Erika Hall, Reid Hastie, Andy Hoffman, Elizabeth Seeley Howard, Molly Kern, Peter Kim, Shirli Kopelman, Rod Kramer, Laura Kray, Terri Kurtzburg, Sujin Lee, Geoffrey Leonardelli, John Levine, Allan Lind, George Loewenstein, Jeff Loewenstein, Bob Lount, Denise Lewin Loyd, Brian Lucas, Beta Mannix, Kathleen McGinn, Vicki Medvec, Tanya Menon, Dave Messick, Terry Mitchell, Don Moore, Michael Morris, Keith Murnighan, Janice Nadler, Maggie Neale, Erika Petersen, Kathy Phillips, Jason Pierce, Robin Pinkley, Jo-Ellen Pozner, Mark Rittenberg, Ashleigh Rosette, Ken Savitsky, Vanessa Seiden, Marwan Sinaceur, Ned Smith, Harris Sondak, Tom Tyler, Leaf Van Boven, Kimberly Wade-Benzoni, Cindy Wang, Juinwen Wang, Laurie Weingart, Judith White, and Elizabeth Ruth Wilson.

The revision of this book would not have been possible without the dedication, organization, and creativity of Joel Erickson, Larissa Tripp, and most especially Ellen Hampton, who created the layout, organized the information, edited the hundreds of drafts, mastered the figures, organized the permissions for the exhibits in each chapter, and researched many of the case studies for this book.

In the book, I talk quite a bit about the “power of the situation” and how strongly the environment shapes behavior. The Kellogg School of Management is one of the most supportive, dynamic environments that I have ever had the pleasure to be a part of. My colleagues across the Kellogg School are uniquely warm, constructive, and generous. Directing the KTAG (Kellogg Team and Group) Center has been a pleasure beyond compare. I am very grateful for the generous grants I have received through the years from the National Science Foundation’s Decision, Risk and Management Program, the Kellogg Team and Group Center, and its sister, the Dispute Resolution Research Center.

This book is very much a team effort of the people I have mentioned here; their talents are diverse, broad, and extraordinarily impressive. I am deeply indebted to my colleagues and students, and I feel very grateful that they have touched my life. I would like to thank Elizabeth Carothers for the photograph of the New Trier Varsity rowing team: Cox: Chris Carothers, 8: Andrew Thompson, 7: Jacob Nye, 6: Kamin Vassilos, 5: Sam Weeks, 4: Jake O’Donnell, 3: Connelly Denton, 2: Matt Mayer, Bow: James Rabjohns. I would also like to thank the reviewers of the fifth edition: Claus Langfred, George Mason University, School of Management; Elaine Hollensbe, University of Cincinnati; Patricia Galdeen; Lourdes University, MI and Roger W. Hutt, Arizona State University, College of Technology and Innovation. The valuable feedback they provided is greatly appreciated.