The Power of Teamwork: How We Can All Work Better Together

by Brian Goldman

The national bestseller from the host of CBC Radio’s White Coat, Black Art—now in paperback!

In the high-pressure and complex setting of health care, a new approach to teamwork is leading to healthier patients, happier staff and more efficient operations. Doctors are learning art appreciation to improve diagnostic skills. Hospitals are adopting airplane-style “black boxes” in operating rooms to reduce errors and create better teams. And lessons from the medical world are helping to build better teamwork outside hospitals. Through board games like Friday Night at the ER, Fortune 500 companies and other organizations are learning that running a busy emergency room provides valuable insight that can help anyone who is part of a team, or leads one, to be more effective.

Although a group is not a team, any group can become a team. Drawing on groundbreaking research, including how to leverage the science of team building, Brian Goldman offers teachable strategies and examples from around the world that can make us all work better together.

Genres: Nonfiction, Leadership, Audiobook

334 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 26, 2022

About the author

Brian Goldman, MD, is one of those rare individuals with great success in not one but several adrenaline-pumping careers. Goldman is a highly regarded emergency physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. He is also the host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s award-winning radio show “White Coat, Black Art”, where he takes listeners behind the scenes of hospitals and doctor’s offices. Goldman unpacks and demystifies what goes on inside medicine’s sliding doors – with edgy topics that include the whistle blowing in health care, burnout among health professionals, racism in health care and how to getting to the head of the line in health care.

Goldman is on a lifelong campaign to confront medical errors and create a culture of safety for patients. He has proven unafraid of using his own medical mistakes for examples on how doctors can improve. His TEDtalk – “Doctors Make Mistakes. Can We Talk About That?” has been watched by close to a million viewers, and has been featured in The Huffington Post and NPRs TED Radio Hour.

Dr. Goldman has worked as a health reporter for The National, CBC Television’s flagship news program, for CBC-TV’s The Health Show, and served as senior production executive during the launch year of Discovery Health Channel, Canada’s only 24-hour channel devoted to health programming.

He is the author of the bestselling book The Night Shift: Real Life in the ER, which takes readers through giddying heights and crashing lows as Goldman works through a typical night shift in one of Canada’s busiest ERs. His book The Secret Language of Doctors – published by Harper Collins in 2014 – is a biting look at medical slang. The book cracks the coded words doctors use in hospital elevators and hallways that reveal what the doctor really thinks about your mother’s obesity, your grandfather’s dementia or her colleague’s competence. Often funny and always revealing, The Secret Language of Doctors reveals deep flaws in modern medical culture, and how to fix them.

Reviews

[Luke Spooner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thought it may be more universal, but it was pretty specific to medicine and a little boring imo

[Janet Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough review of teamwork in the medical field, through the integration of other fields, including art, aeronautics and board games. While the use of art interpretation in medicine seems “out there” the simple act of observing and then asking three questions leads to better diagnosis and understanding of the patient. Building teams, and leading them are powerful tools to better medicine. Goldman shows that horizontal integration works better than the usual hierarchy that exists in medical settings, and leads to better decisions , and better care.

[Enid Wray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. Speaks to a lot of what I intuitively believed about leadership in my work life as a teacher… and confirms the approach that is taken where I work now, part-time, in my post-retirement career.

Important reading for anyone who appreciates the inherent weaknesses of a rigidly hierarchical organisational structure in any and all aspects of life.

Read this, and pass it along to the next person. Start a revolution.

[Jessica Tiberio · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Power of Teamwork is a non-fiction collection of short stories, where each chapter focuses on demonstrating the power teamwork in real life situations. Considering the author is an ER physician, the book does have a heavy influence from teamwork in medical industry. Some topics within the chapters can be heavy and difficult to read, spanning distressing situations from plane crashes and concert shootings to dementia and medical assistance in dying.
To my disappointment, this book is more anecdotal than detailing actionable steps a leader or team member can do to improve team cohesion or convert a group of individuals into a team. Sometimes the point of teamwork is lost or understated in a chapter, buried by details of the surrounding narrative. Other times ideas about teamwork are repetitively and nauseatingly spelled out. Many chapters feel like the power of teamwork is overshadowed by the individual stories.
The repetition within and between chapters of anecdotal details quickly becomes frustrating, and oftentimes the storytelling within a chapter jumps all over the place, often creating confusing timelines within the reader’s mind.
Additionally the reader is introduced to many different characters each chapter, often resulting in more time spent on individual stories than the teamwork aspect. Furthermore, the inconsistencies with naming whereby some individuals are referred to by their first name and others are referred to by their last name adds to the confusion and difficulty of recalling who is being referred to.
Overall, the stories within this book are impactful and the power of teamwork is not completely lost in these extenuating circumstances, however I believe the concept of this book and the stories told within it would convey the message more powerfully as a documentary than in written form. Especially considering that the book is interview driven and tells individual’s real stories, I can’t help but feel that this book was always meant to be a documentary instead.

[Slayermel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book that showed how teamwork especially in career fields that are generally dominated by hierarchy, can transform stressful environments into more efficient places of work.
The author really focused on how these methods when applied to a medical environment such as a hospital can result in better medical care as well. Especially when we learn to take our egos out of the mix and rely on each other's strengths. Think of Doctors and Nurses working in harmony each relying on each other's strengths.
A lot of the time the issues we face come back to competition. Everyone is vying to make an impression for job security and raises. However if we can find a way to take all of this out of the mix we can have much more productive and successful places of work.
I found the principles that were taught very interesting and see how they could be applied to just about any career field.
I loved the stories and examples that were shared in the book. This has been tried with Hospitals and Military who all operate on a Hierarchy.

Would definitely recommend to anyone looking to self reflect on team work and their place of employment.

[Pouria Torabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goldman definitely included a few good nuggets in there. Things like CMS, VTS, or the Renfrew paramedicine program were especially impactful for me.

But the ultimate I felt that Goldman spent more time highlighting individuals and systems that improve group performance rather than giving us any original insight on teamwork or specific team dynamics. While some of the examples provided were certainly on theme and provided us with an template for an effective team, there were chapters where the central thesis is non-existent until the concluding paragraph and focus is on individual exceptionalism and leadership.

Each chapter was hit or miss for me, but if looked at holistically it’s a valuable read… even if teamwork is not as central a character as one would hope.

[Justin Sullivan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book in hopes it would help me become a better team leader at work. There are some amazing ideas expressed in the first 1/4th of the book that I actually plan on using as team-building exercises, but the other 3/4 are just stories of how good teamwork was used in different situations.
Don't get me wrong, each story by itself is very compelling, it just wasn't what I was looking for.
I wish this book was on 'Blinkist' which is a (subscription) app that takes these 10+ hour self-help books and compacts them to 20 minutes of just the info you need to know.

[Kbeckermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there is nothing new here, I appreciated this and it is an important read. Goldman presents case studies/examples of the power of teamwork in healthcare. They are diverse, and demonstrate how necessary it is to be open to unusual players in addressing problems, breakdown hierarchies, and acknowledge the importance of everybody on the team.
As a bonus, I have another way to look at art when I'm at the Gallery.

[Wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr Brian Goldman of the podcast White Coat, Black Art gives some excellent real life descriptions of when team dynamics goes well, when it does not and how it can be improved. Most examples are from the medical field. I especially liked the example from the Swiss Air disaster response for the victims of the passenger jet that crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia.

[Rob Dekker · Rating 4 out of 5]

When our healthcare is stressed and fragile, it is good to read about improvements in how our healthcare can be approached. Dr. Brian Goldman brings more than 2 dozen examples how improved teamwork and teamwork tools can provide improved care through team work. The Power of Teamwork" provides a glimmer of hope for the future of care for us all.

[Xerxia · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, there was a lot to like here, a lot of interesting stories and interesting people. But the framework tying it into a teamwork hypothesis was weak, a jacket it was shoved into that didn’t really fit. And truthfully, it was long-winded in places, to the point of boring (as evidenced by how long it took me to slog through it).

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. Each chapter outlines a teamwork strategy through a story-scenario. It reads like a series of short stories, but the message is suitable for the type of 'required reading' for office management personal development. Easy to read, with straightforward serious lessons.

[h. duxbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but the book focuses heavily on teamwork and innovations in the medical field rather than teamwork as a broad concept. Still, I enjoyed the stories and anecdotes, and it was an interesting and engaging book.

[Jaclyn]

Not bad. And I like the bit about Visual Thinking Strategies. But it's just a bit too disjointed / anecdotal in style for me. DNF and returned to the library.

[Carolyn Gleeson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some interesting anecdotes and stories about how teams function well or don’t in a hospital, emergency, transportation and other industries.

[Hyacinthe Fallu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good thesis and concepts that ought to be utilized on a macro scale. I would have liked more varied examples and elaborated on the concepts in the examples but it was a nice read nonetheless.

[Siobhan Harrop-McDiarmid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the concepts around teamwork and how to build it.

[L.C. Tang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thirteen chapters written by a Canadian ER Doctor at Mount Sinai Hospital about teamwork. I skimmed pretty quickly through this book, as most of the points about teamwork are common sense unless one has absolutely no idea that teamwork is essential in order for a group of people to reach an end goal. Includes lots of woke policies throughout the book and an index at the back along with his short bio. Written by a reputable Doctor, author and an easy read. For more information about this author and doctor, check out his website at www.drbriangoldman.com and cpso.on.ca

[Jeremy Porter · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wasn’t expecting a 95% story with medical examples / applications. Sure, I should have expected it - but I chose this book as podcasts and recommendations said it wasn’t solely to medical minded persons.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely a good read to understand the workings of healthcare. Lots of good lessons of teamwork for those in healthcare and outside of healthcare.

[Suraj Kumar]

Surajkumar