The effects of teams upon the organization utilizing them are many, some of them good others not so good. While teams are a distinctly American phenomena in the organization, their existence is a relatively new development on the corporate landscape in the sense that teams have been formalized. There have been many reasons for the development of teams in the continuously changing environment that is modern corporate America. Stronger competition (on a global level), stalled and eroding profit margins, more demanding consumers, and shorter product development cycles have all impacted the need for the team approach. Adding to these are the vertical structure of the traditional corporation becoming more horizontal, greater complexity mainly from technology in all aspects of the corporation, a greater need for effective communication, and an effort to exploit greater productivity from human resources through empowerment, “The big difference is that teamwork now has become formalized. The chief driving force is competition to get new [products] on the market faster and at lower costs. By pulling together all of the necessary experts into a single group and freeing them to make decisions together, the idea is to knock down time and money wasting barriers. It’s called ‘empowerment,’ and it quickly has become the industry’s favorite buzzword” (McCann 1). Technology has even eliminated the time and space barriers formerly a costly consideration of pulling a group of experts together on one project.
Yet, there are many disadvantages as well as advantages that can ensue from the use of teams, particularly when they are not properly designed, implemented and maintained. Most of the disadvantages with teams comes from an obtuse perspective of what they require for success. The degree to which teams are beneficial or injurious to corporate objectives is largely relevant to the quality with which they are constructed and...