X-Teams, Revised and Updated - How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and Succeed

An essential work on teams-now updated with new research and tools and a new preface-X-Teams shows how an externally focused team model is the key to fueling innovation and your organization's success.

You build a team around top-notch talent. The team members work well together; they're committed to the mission and are highly motivated to perform. Yet the results are disappointing. You're not seeing creativity and flexibility. You're not getting breakthrough ideas.

"Good" teams build camaraderie, confidence in their abilities, and a solid process for working together. But these internal dynamics-while positive in themselves-can create a wall between the team and the outside world. And that wall can prevent the team from adapting to change and delivering value to the organization.

In this updated, streamlined edition, with a new preface and practical tools, Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman describe an externally focused team model-the x-team-that is even more relevant today than when it was first introduced. With their distinctively flexible membership and leadership structure, x-teams continuously reach outward to fuel the innovation process.

With new examples and research from organizations such as Microsoft, Takeda, and the Museum of Modern Art, Ancona and Bresman show you how to build x-teams that:
Keep pace with shifts in markets, technologies, cultures, and your competitionInnovate by moving quickly from generating ideas to executing and diffusing them throughout your organizationEmploy "distributed leadership" to unlock crucial information, expertise, and new ways of working together-wherever these qualities reside, whether within or outside your company


In an increasingly complex and ever-changing world, where adaptability and creativity are paramount to an enterprise's success-and even its survival-X-Teams is your handbook for winning.

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Advance Praise for the Updated Edition of X-Teams:

"The authors succeed in conveying the importance of wide-ranging exploration and teamwork as essential for innovation." - Financial Times

"The authors dive into the nitty-gritty details of engineering a better team." - Time.com

"X-teams are the answer to performing in today's turbulent world. They enable organizations to move from strategy to implementation and from bureaucracy to innovation, creating value and profitable growth. The key is to combine external outreach to all stakeholders with an internal focus on creating a safe, disciplined, and learning culture." - Alan Mulally, former CEO, Boeing Commercial Airplanes; former CEO, Ford Motor Company

"When X-Teams was first written, Ancona and Bresman were prescient, well ahead of their time. They understood the changing landscape of teamwork and what it meant long before it was clear. Now, this terrific book is even better: well-researched, packe d with engaging stories, and immensely practical." - Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School; author, Right Kind of Wrong

"A game-changing book. X-Teams provides a compelling case for the importance of combining a sharp external focus with robust internal processes to overcome inertia and unlock transformational outcomes. The authors' practical framework is both insightful and actionable, and their real-world examples demonstrate the power of this approach." - Elcin Barker Ergun, CEO, Menarini Group

"While strong internal cohesion and alignment are key to team success, it's crucial for team leaders at every level to have the humility and vigilance to look outward. X-teams spread leadership across the organization and facilitate learning and coordination within and across boundaries. This is a must-read for anyone trying to accelerate innovation." - Jerry Ng, founder and Chairman, Bank Jago

"There are teams and there are x-teams. X-teams combat our inward-facing tendencies, opening our minds to the diversity and power of the world around us. They have helped us at Takeda R&D to increase our external learning and partnering. Use them as a tool to transform your organization." - Andrew Plump, MD, President, Research & Development, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company