Kim Kanaga & Sonya Prestridge 
How to Launch a Team [PDF ebook] 
Start Right for Success

When an organization sponsors a team, it’s usually to address a challenge deemed essential to organizational success. Meeting that challenge might mean implementing new ways of working, entering new markets, or developing a new product. Teams can produce innovative solutions, but leading them toward that goal can be difficult. Getting the team off on the right foot is critical to its success. To launch a team in a way that increases its chance of success, managers and team leaders should pay attention to four critical points: setting purpose and direction, defining roles and responsibilities, designing procedures and practices, and building cooperation and relationships. Understanding and implementing these elements is key to a successful launch and, in the end, essential to a team’s achieving the organization’s goals.

Table of Content

7 The Right Start Is Critical to Success

8 Launching a Successful Team

Setting Purpose and Direction

Defining Roles and Responsibilities

Designing Procedures and Practices

Building Cooperation and Relationships

27 Countdown to Team Success

28 Suggested Readings

29 Background

30 Key Point Summary

About the author

This series of guidebooks draws on the practical knowledge that the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has generated, sinceits inception in 1970, through its research and educationalactivity conducted in partnership with hundreds of thousands ofmanagers and executives. Much of this knowledge is shared-in a waythat is distinct from the typical university department, professional association, or consultancy. CCL is not simply acollection of individual experts, although the individualcredentials of its staff are impressive; rather it is a community, with its members holding certain principles in common and workingtogether to understand and generate practical responses to today’sleadership and organizational challenges.
The purpose of the series is to provide managers with specificadvice on how to complete a developmental task or solve aleadership challenge. In doing that, the series carries out CCL’smission to advance the understanding, practice, and development ofleadership for the benefit of society worldwide.

Kim Kanaga is the director of CCL’s Greensboro Campus, overseeing all campus site resources and day-to-dayactivities in support of CCL’s strategic direction. He has anextensive background in team-building initiatives, which he hasused to customize team effectiveness programs for many CCL clients.Kim holds a Ph.D. in communication from Michigan State University.

Sonya Prestridge is a senior program associate in thecustom solutions group at CCL. She has been an instructor in The Women’s Leadership Program and a researcher investigatinggeographically dispersed teams. She holds a Ph.D. in adulteducation from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.