Part One: Overview 1

1. Why Small Groups Are Important Now 3

2. What’s Different About Extraordinary Groups 17

3. What Ordinary Groups Need 33

Part Two: Understanding the Group Needs Model 57

4. Growing Toward Your Potential 59

5. Joining for Purpose 79

6. Creating Change Together 103

7. The Heart of Transformation 123

Part Three: Sharing Leadership 137

8. Embracing Group Differences 139

9. Leading Extraordinary Groups 167

10. Living the Promise of Extraordinary Groups 191

Appendix A Practice Exercises 195

Appendix B An Overview of Extraordinary Groups 207

Appendix C Practicing What We Preach 211

Appendix D More Group Resources 215

Acknowledgments 219

About the Authors 221

Index 225

"An extraordinary book…. To do truly amazing work in groups, this is the place to start."
—JIM KOUZES, award-winning coauthor, The Leadership Challenge

Why are some teams described in such exceptional terms, while most are not?

In this important book, Geoffrey Bellman and Kathleen Ryan reveal that people instinctively sense when a group experience is something special, something different from the ordinary, something that surpasses their expectations in a positive, remarkable, and hard-to-describe way. These are extraordinary groups that achieve outstanding results. Members of extraordinary teams—individually or collectively—experience a profound shift in how they see their world. They are transformed.

However large or small, visible or intangible, such transformations happen because the group experience satisfies core needs that members intuitively bring to any group they join. Based on an extensive field study and filled with illustrative examples, Extraordinary Groups presents Bellman and Ryan's tested Group Needs Model. Seeing the world of groups through this elegant framework allows readers to nurture extraordinary experiences in their teams. Bellman and Ryan's model reveals six core group needs forming three pairs: One pair relates to the individual, one to the group, and the third to the world in which the group exists.

These six elements combine to form the Group Needs Model:

• Acceptance of self while moving toward one's Potential
• A Bond with others that grows while pursuing a common Purpose
• Understanding the Reality of the world while collectively making an Impact

No matter if the group or team gathers at work, at home, or within the community, when a group experience meets two or more of these needs, it will stand out as something special for all the members of the group.

Written for managers and executives, facilitators and trainers, and all others who lead or participate in groups, Extraordinary Groups is an invaluable resource to achieve outstanding team results time and time again.