What’s the book about?

In our book, we tell you exactly how to create high-performing teams.

85% of job success comes from being able to collaboratively solve problems, resolve conflict and inspire others (really?). Get this right and you’ll have truly high-performing teams. Leave it out, and you get people fighting each other, zoning out of work and ultimately leaving.

We've interviewed 50 experienced Product, Design and Digital Directors to get their warts-and-all stories of what happens when teams work well together… and of course what happens when they don't. Their stories have been a major influence on the book.
We share all our exclusive industry-leading frameworks and show you how to advance your skills in 3 key areas:
1

Inspire everyone around you

Influence, persuade and show true leadership to other stakeholders, regardless of where you sit in the hierarchy

2

Make teammates feel like heroes

Communicate in a way that makes everyone in your team feel unstoppable and enhances their performance

3

Develop a powerful mindset

Feel unstoppable and take responsibility for your job and workplace relationships in a way you’ve never done before

  1. EQ is the new IQ: We explain why people skills are so important, especially when working in cross-functional teams.
  2. PLEASE shut up & listen to resolve conflict: Our PLEASE framework gives you all the practical tools you need to resolve conflict. Achieve win-win outcomes that everyone buys into and make stakeholders feel like heroes.
  3. Become a relationship MASTER: We walk you through each step of our MASTER framework. Build long-lasting relationships and push aside negative behaviour, creating psychological safety for everyone.
  4. Grow your influence with empathetic LEADership: We introduce a new type of leadership based on empathy. Follow our LEAD framework to inspire and persuade everyone around you, regardless of where you sit in the hierarchy.
  5. READY, set, go facilitate: Use our READY framework so people emotionally commit to your meetings/workshops. Lead and drive outcomes that everyone buys into and that actually happen.
  6. Storytelling with DRAMA: Our DRAMA framework shows you how to create stories for every occasion. You’ll tell stories in an engaging way, getting stakeholders to buy-in to your deliverables and suggestions.
  7. Drive the right outcomes with outbound comms: We give the full lowdown on our RRR-SSS presentation and ABC writing frameworks. Use your comms skills to get the outcomes you want with stakeholders at all levels.
  8. Putting it all together: You’ll need to put your new skills into practice over time. We’ll show you how to embed them into day-to-day behaviours so they become second nature.
"Great products are built by great teams and people skills are pivotal to creating success. This book is perfectly timed and is what we need to replicate the success of some of the best teams in the world."
Gavin Edwards
Director of Product Design and Research at Skyscanner
"There are many books, courses and podcasts on the 'product' part of product management. You also need to lead, empathise and galvanise people into action. Trenton's book promises to fill this void."
Neil Roberts
Director of Product at MOO
"In this day and age the missing X-factor is people skills. Product teams need to work at the pace that's demanded across a broad stakeholder base. This book covers that topic head on."
Russ Thornton
Chief Technology Officer at Shawbrook Bank

Get access to exclusive discounts, extras, tools and resources

Visit the book website

Why we’ve written the book

We’ve been doing training and working with teams for almost 20 years, and have created a number of frameworks and best practices (more about Team Sterka).

Team members across almost every business are lacking in leadership, emotional intelligence and resilience. This is having a material impact on team success (and therefore business success).

We’ve seen first-hand the impact our programmes have on teams, so we know we’re onto something really amazing. And we want to spread our knowledge as far as we can.

Get in touch

Get in touch with Trenton, our Head Coach

We’d love to hear from you! Let us know what you need and we’ll get right back to you.

Book updates

Get exclusive updates on our book in the run-up to it being published.

We’ll‌ ‌also‌ ‌send‌ ‌you‌ ‌our‌ ‌5-part‌ ‌email‌ ‌skills‌ ‌programme‌ ‌plus‌ ‌our‌ ‌latest‌ ‌thinking.‌





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      Research‌ ‌carried‌ ‌out‌ ‌by‌ ‌Harvard‌ ‌University,‌ ‌the‌ ‌Carnegie‌ ‌Foundation‌ ‌and‌ Stanford‌ ‌Research‌ ‌Center‌ ‌found‌ ‌that‌ ‌85%‌ ‌of‌ ‌job‌ ‌success‌ ‌comes‌ ‌from‌ ‌having‌ well‐developed‌ ‌people‌ ‌skills.‌