Why Teams Do Not Perform Successfully
In 1994 Paul Osterman, an economist at MIT, conducted a national survey of innovative work practices. He found that more than half of the companies surveyed were using teams, and that approximately 40 percent of those companies reported having more than half of the organization working in teams. The effect of teaming, if you read the literature aimed at the managerial audience, would indicate that the results are excellent: teams outperform individuals, and self-directed teams perform best of all.
But the results are really not that clear. Research on team performance shows that teams usually do not perform as well as the sum of their members’ individual efforts. It seems that there is really no empirical ...
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