In the tradition of Deborah Tannen, Donnellon analyzes team conversations and their organizational contexts to explain why cross-functional team work is so challenging for professional employees. She introduces tools - including an in-depth Team Talk Audit - that team members can use to make their teams work better, and she provides managers with guidelines for redesigning their organizations to overcome barriers to effective team work. Drawing on interviews and observations of teams in Fortune 200 companies, Donnellon lets us listen in on actual team conversations to explore the inherent paradoxes of team work. She compares how both successful and unsuccessful teams handle conflict, conduct negotiations, achieve alignment, interpret and manage mutual obligation, and maintain commitment to performance. She then shows how team members can diagnose and solve their own problems and reveals specific techniques for using language to exert a positive force on the organization where needed.