There are other teams that we see in action every day, even if we don't recognize them as teams. Firefighters, emergency medical technicians, airline pilots, TV news anchors, teachers and many others work in teams. Successful teams have several things in common. Each member of the team has unique skills and responsibilities that are necessary for the team to function successfully. Skills and responsibilities are complementary among team members, but there's sufficient cross-training so that one team member can substitute for another if necessary.
Teams communicate regularly and effectively.
For example, a skilled surgical transplant team develops a procedure through collective discussion and planning, then it practices together to perfect the procedure and then functions as a well-trained unit when a transplant surgery is performed. Team members must trust each other and have confidence in each other's ability to perform an assignment. And each team member must recognize the roles of other members of the team and understand that the team will normally be successful, if and only if, each person fulfills his or her role. Teams don't function very well if each member tries to do his or her own thing without regard to its impact on the team. For several years, I worked as a member of large research teams at two land-grant universities.