Applying Ideas in Real World
Published on : Saturday 15-02-2020
Abhijit Keskar reviews ‘Air Team Theory: Understanding 10 Types of Team Mates and Best Practices to Succeed.
Shekhar Pawar's ‘Air Team Theory’ is an easy read. Shekhar's ability to express the idea in such a simple way highlights the clarity of his thoughts and expression. While he has vast experience in leading and dealing with diverse people, his keen observation of human behaviour stands out. His experience in leading large teams has provided him a much diverse exposure to various types of people. He seems to have a good grasp of nuances of human behaviour especially around stimulus-response. He has given an interesting analogy of air to describe the different types of personalities typically found in a team.
This book can serve as a good reference book for first time managers while dealing with people. This may improve their chance to succeed in achieving the desired outcome while dealing with people.
This book related more to the software services kind of environment, hence readers from that field would find it easy to relate to examples. In the subsequent edition, Shekhar can add some more examples from more diverse fields like hospitals, banks, etc.
His tips for applying the ideas in real world seem very practical and highlight his maturity. His emphasis on in-person interaction over an email interaction is very often missed by the individuals due to easy access to email. His tips around 'Learn-Unlearn-Relearn', 'managing healthy politics' seems quite unique. To spread the idea further, he may want to conduct workshops with role plays. Companies would get immensely benefitted through such soft skill
workshops.
Also, it would be interesting to see if an individual having one type of behavioural trait can be transformed into another type. I look forward to his next book on transformational leadership! I wish him all the best!
More about the book
Every team consists of KEY performers, who bring glory, as well as negative VIRUSES, who contribute to the poisonous pollution at the workplace. Just like dry air has ten types of gas components, each with distinctive characteristics, every team has different types of teammates with unique characteristics. Want to identify the Nitrogen (N 2 ), Oxygen (O 2 ), Argon (Ar),
Hydrogen (H 2 ), Methane (CH 4 ), Krypton (Kr), Helium (He), Neon (Ne), Xenon (Xe) and Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ) within your team? Check out the Air Team Theory!
The Air Team Theory compares the characteristics of each teammate type to the characteristics of each gas. It shares scenarios, conversations and behaviour patterns of different teammate types. This book also shares the best practices and experiences to effectively lead all the ten types of teammates as one team.
This book is for you if you are either a team member or a manager or a director or from top management or an entrepreneur or a leader working with any type or size of team.
Most of you will see yourself and even your teammates in at least one of the teammate types explained in this book. The book will make you smile and even bring different emotions to your face as you recall bitter and sweet instances that have happened at your office. It provides useful recommendations and proven solutions for any leader to increase the productivity of any team using simple tips and techniques.
Abhijit Keskar is joint Managing Director at Innoplexus, India. Prior to joining Innoplexus, Abhijit held senior leadership positions in companies like Majesco, GoldenSource and Symphony Services, before serving as the co-founder and CTO for R4ride Solutions. The views expressed here are personal.
