Friday Reading Report: Intangibles

It has been a while since I read a book that was even tangentially fitness-related.  But at last, the incomparable Joan Ryan has a newish book out, Intangibles:  Unlocking the Science and Soul of Team Chemistry. 

 

I have been reading and enjoying Ryan’s work from the time she used to write for the San Francisco Chronicle sports page.  Her book Little Girls in Pretty Boxes about the participants in women’s gymnastics and figure skating sounded an early (ignored) alarm about the abuses that those athletes were subject to in pursuit of some societal ideal of what gymnasts and figure skaters should be.  Her other books are also entirely worth reading for the grace of her prose and the depth of her insight and knowledge.  So now you know:  I’m a fan.

 

All the things I like about her work are present in this current book.  She brings her inquisitive mind and deep experience to bear on what team chemistry is (or isn’t).  She does not shy away from the people who flat out deny that it exists.  It is a useful reminder to all the data nuts out there that just because something can’t be quantified does not mean that it doesn’t exist.

 

Defining team chemistry turns out to be a difficult question in and of itself.  She writes, “I had experienced it myself in my first job out of college, in the Orlando Sentinel’s sports department.  We were a tight-knit staff of a few rookies like me and a slate of veterans who deleted our adverbs and introduced us to scotch.” (p. 7)  Ultimately, she ends up defining it as a complex of factors that improve performance.

 

She does research with psychiatrists and coaches and members of teams that had notoriously good chemistry.  She develops a series of archetypes that teams need to have good chemistry.  It’s all useful and fascinating, full of great stories and memorable characters.

 

My caveat:  the book has a bit of an identity problem.  It’s mostly a sports book, but it is also trying to be a business book.  From time to time, Ryan tries to make the point that business teams need the same kind of performance-enhancing chemistry as well.  Maybe so.  Managers have been using sports analogies roughly forever, so a more direct application of sports science might make sense.  Also, professional sports are, in fact, businesses.

 

I’m still a fan.  I hope lots of people go out and buy her book because more people need a little Joan Ryan in their lives.  She tells a great story and she finds great stories to tell.