Book excerpt: Building Smart Teams is an essential guide to creating a smart team fast. Based on research results from close to 2,000 individuals organized in more than 250 teams, Building Smart Teams identifies the three critical skill sets that teams need and shows how to transfer these skills to a group. The authors' research and experience shows that, by concentrating on these three critical skills sets, a group is almost certain to quickly become a high performing team. High-functioning teams are increasingly important to organizational success, but just throwing a team together will not give the desired results. Building Smart Teams gives you the theory and rationale behind high performance teams, but, in addition, it is packed with exercises, diagnostic tools, tips, and techniques to use with groups. The exercises are time-tested with the more than 100 groups trained by the authors. The approach is not to dictate the one best way for teams to behave, but, rather, to help team members build skills and implement processes to increase success. Within this model, there is ample room for teams to discover their own unique culture, performance strategies, and paths to success.