Book Club

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

You can read this book solo and work to influence your team. If you lead a team, you can get some ideas on how to help your team become more productive. But the most effective use of this book is if the team works on the Faster Together program, well, together.

First, your team should appoint someone to lead your efforts as you work through this book together; however, that person doesn’t have to be the formal leader. It can be the formal leader if you choose, but some teams are fairly self-managed, so this will vary. The leader of this program will be called the team “Car Chief.”

In a NASCAR pit crew, the Car Chief performs a majority of the scheduling and day-to-day preparations at the shop prior to the race weekend. According to Wikipedia, this person is “responsible for managing the crew throughout the weekend, ensuring that the car meets all of NASCAR’s inspection requirements, and overseeing changes to the car requested by the crew chief or the team engineer.”

Who should be your Car Chief? In general, the Car Chief can be anyone who’s a go-getter, a self-starter, and ready to engage. That should be easy to figure out-who is your resident speed demon? Merriam-Webster defines “speed demon” as “someone or something that moves or works very fast.” In my mind, the term conjures up an image of the Tasmanian Devil or the Road Runner from the Looney Tunes cartoons. Usually he or she is apparent to everyone. It’s the person who would be most excited about the team becoming Faster Together, and who constantly makes suggestions about how things can be better. You should all nominate this person.

The Car Chief will facilitate the Faster Together program using a special manual (use the download link below). You may also choose to purchase workbooks to accompany the book for each team member, which should be completed as you read this book. As you implement the program within your work teams and informal teams, this book and workbook will provide a blueprint on how to accelerate your collective productivity.

Download Car Chief Materials >