The Firefly Effect: Build Teams That Capture Creativity and Catapult Results

by Kimberly Douglas

Book Overview

How can you tap into your team's creativity to tackle today's toughest business challenges?

In The Firefly Effect, Kimberly Douglas presents inspiring yet pragmatic insights into getting your entire team firing on all cylinders and aiming in the right direction. Comparing the difficult act of harnessing and capturing creativity to the act of catching fireflies on a summer night, she will explain:

What to do when the fireflies don't...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470438320
• ISBN13: 9780470438329
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Building Teams that Capitalize on the Innate Creativity of Everyone on the Team

* Do you think there is untapped talent and unspoken knowledge on your team? * How much of your team's energy is wasted with irrelevant, personality-based infighting? * Do your team members hold themselves accountable for living up to their commitments? * Which department does your team have the greatest conflict with? * Do you see the spark of creativity going on around you, perhaps that others aren't seeing . . . yet? Everyone has the ability to be original--to do something no one else would think of--to be creative. Many of us downplay our creative ability or find ourselves in an environment where our contribution isn't valued as it should be. "A lone firefly--like the lone genius--does not ignite the imagination of others," writes Kimberly Douglas in The Firefly Effect. "It takes the brilliant light of many, and the creative effort of the entire team, to truly spark innovation with impact." The job of the leader is to "create a safe environment in which every member of the team can knowingly and proudly claim those differences, and apply them in an optimal way to achieve the goals of the team." The leader must provide the processes that will allow every other member of the team to see each other in this new light. These differences can create heat. "Fireflies know how to shine without creating heat--without wasting energy on unnecessary conflict." Differences should compel us to look at individual differences more creatively. The team's focus is key. "One of the most important things that a leader can do is keep the team focused on the real competition; those who exist outside the walls of the organization.... Making this the focus keeps people from clashing within the group. When this focus is lost, infighting and bickering among the team members thrives." This means learning to communicate more and better. It means learning to view conflict in a new way; not as a destructive, inevitable evil, but rather as a constructive source of creative abrasion. The Firefly Effect is about releasing that spark of creativity that exists inside all of us and channeling it in a productive way. Douglas provides down-to-earth, tested and practical methods for inspiring your team and leveraging their innate abilities. She shows how you and your team can capitalize on what is right about the people on the team. The Firefly Effect is a changed mindset about working with others. It is a dynamic that is on display anytime you see children chase fireflies. * Few children chase fireflies alone. The excitement come from the sharing of effort and results with others. * Everyone is clear on what the goal is--to catch fireflies--and enthusiasm remains high, because their target is so well understood and so simple. * Each individual knows his or her task. No one needs--or wants--a dictating leader. (See chapter 13: What to Do if the Leader is Keeping Too Tight a Lid on the Jar?) * Children do not criticize one another on a good firefly hunt. Everyone is clearly

Author Shares Her Secrets - Well Worth The Read!

The Firefly Effect is a one stop resource for consulting advice, psychological insights and action planning to help individual leaders and teams improve effectiveness and productivity. Any reader will be impressed with the wealth of knowledge and practical application that the author shares throughout the book. I recommend reading the final chapter first. It will ground your perspective for all that is offered in this inspiring analogy of Fireflies and how leaders can capture "jars of energy" for self and the teams they lead!

Ideas that make sense

I was amazed when I first heard about the fireflies of Thailand and Malaysia, where remote riverbanks are lit at night by tens of thousands of insects blinking in unison. Back in the 1960s, a researcher traveled up one of those rivers, captured several hundred fireflies, went back to the city and turned them loose in his hotel room. Over several hours, the insects' random blinking gradually transformed into the same sort of simultaneous flashes that the researcher had witnessed in the wild. Kimberly Douglas links this extraordinary natural phenomenon with the day-to-day challenges of getting teams of people to focus their creativity on a common goal. At its core, her "Firefly Effect" is a guidebook. She interweaves original ideas with real-life anecdotes from the business world, ultimately demonstrating how teams of people can transform chaos into synchronicity and confusion into synergy. Keep your highlighter handy because you'll use it often.

A Master of What It Takes to Build a Team!

Kimberly Douglas is a master facilitator who has captured her intellectual capital in her new book. Having worked with Kimberly on many occasions and seen her in action, I was amazed at her ability to put on paper the secrets of her success in facilitating teams to achieve great results! Using the metaphor of a firefly throughout each chapter, Kimberly outlines the role of the leader, the rationale for her approach, tools, techniques and tips to create an environment where teams can overcome silos, build trust, handle conflict, and achieve a new level of creativity and results. If you are someone who wants a bird's eye view of each chapter to determine if you'll read the rest of the book, go to Chapter 21 - The End of the Day. As a leader of a team, you need to be asking yourself these questions and if you don't know the answers, then this book is for you! This is the one reference book you need to keep handy. I've seen it work - Kimberly has revealed all her secrets to improve the effectiveness of any team.

Practical, Actionable, Infinitely Readable!

Some authors come up with a clever title and then write the book to make the content support the moniker. Not Kimberly Douglas. She has been "the firefly lady" for as long as I've known her, several years at least. Now, she has finally put into book form the great information and guidance she has been successfully sharing with clients for decades. If you've ever been on a project team that just "clicked" perfectly, that was creative, fun to participate in and productive, you've probably wondered to yourself, "Why can't they all be like this?" In this book, Kimberly argues that they can. She has created a step-by-step guide to harnessing the unique talents of each individual on a team in a way that honors their need to contribute in a meaningful way while ensuring egos don't clash. She teaches how everyone can benefit from one another, and how to get the project done on time, within budget and in an exceptional way. Using the firefly as a clever metaphor, Kimberly takes into account just about every problem that arises on a team and offers solutions through real-life case studies and anecdotes. Can't think of anything creative? Wish you had been put on a different team? Think a team mate isn't pulling his or her weight? Maybe it's the boss who is the problem Or perhaps the team is dysfunctional because people on it don't believe in the mission of the work they're suppose to be doing together. This book addresses all that and more with actionable advice you can put to work immediately. The Firefly Effect is the kind of book managers will want to give their staffs and staffs will want to give their managers. I hope they do, too, because, as Kimberly points out, successful teams are never one-sided. I usually do my reading a Kindle 2, but this is one book I keep close at hand and refer to the many highlighted passages as I go about my workweek.