We often lose clarity rather than gain it in an area that enjoys a resurgence of focus and research. Team effectiveness is one of those areas that has gotten a lot of attention recently, and many professionals are still scratching their heads. Regardless of widely varying opinions, surveys, and research findings, one thing we know for sure is that teams are both a success and a catastrophe. That is, their efficacy is polarized; they often lead to greater productivity, and just as often, their efforts seem to be all but wasted, and they diminish into one more empty campaign introduced by a popular leadership guru or author.
According to a psychology professor at Harvard University, work teams cluster at opposite ends of the success continuum. We also have a greater knowledge of what distinguishes the successful teams from the all-out failures. Here are the findings.
