(Jossey-Bass: Cross Point, IN) -- At the top of every organization chart lies a myth: that a senior management team makes a company’s critical decisions. The reality is that critical decisions are typically made by the boss and a small group of confidants, a “team with no name,” outside of formal processes.

Meanwhile, other members of the management team wonder why they weren’t in the room or even consulted ahead of time. The dysfunction that results from this gap between myth and reality has led to years of unproductive team-building exercises. The problems, Frisch shows, are ones of process and structure, not psychology.

Who's In the Room: How Great Leaders Structure and Manage the Teams Around Them, by Bob Frisch (Jossey-Bass, 2012), is based on interviews with CEOs at organizations ranging from MasterCard to Ticketmaster to The Red Cross.
• Understand and embrace the way decision making actually happens in your organization
• Use your “teams with no names” to best advantage
• Engage the senior management team in the three critical tasks for which it is ideally suited

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