That's not what we mean by team work, but sometimes that's the way that the groups are used. There are a number of challenges, and let's keep in mind that, when you go to teams, it's a major change and typically things get worse before they get better. It's not so much the conflict's reduced, in fact, in some ways it actually increases, but it's a more constructive conflict. Instead of personalizing the differences of opinion, team members work together and eventually get to the point where they can challenge each other's ideas and come up with better solutions. Innovation tends to increase, as does creativity and organizational adaptability.
People are able to come together, combine their ideas, and adapt to changing conditions.
This is a fairly rosy picture, and it can and has occurred in a number of organizations, but not always immediately, and there are many team failures. We need to look at some of the challenges to teams, and look more specifically at some of the things that can go wrong, as well. I started studying work teams in the late 1970s, and at that time this was a good question. They are in manufacturing and service industries, and, somewhat surprisingly, recently a growing area where I'm asked to come in and do consulting and speaking is in the health-care industry. That's been an explosion over the past four or five years.