Why teams don't work?

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Why Teams Don’t Work
J. Richard Hackman
A few years ago, Paul Osterman, an economist at MIT, did a careful national survey of innovative work practices in U.S. manufacturing firms. He found that more than half the companies surveyed were using teams—and that some 40% of these companies reported having more than half the organization working in teams (Osterman, 1994).
How well do all these teams perform? To judge from books and articles written for a managerial audience, the answer is clear: Teams markedly outperform individuals, and self-managing (or self-regulating, or self-directed, or empowered) teams do best of all.
Here are some reports from the field, cited by Osburn, Moran, Musselwhite, and
Zenger (1990) in Self-Directed Work Teams: The New American Challenge. At
Xerox, the authors report,
Plants using work teams are 30 percent more productive than conventionally organized plants. Procter & Gamble gets 30 to 40 percent higher productivity at its
18 team-based plants.. . . Tektronix Inc. reports that one self-directed work team now turns out as many products in 3 days as it once took an entire assembly line to produce in 14 days.. . . Federal Express cut service glitches such as incorrect bills and lost packages by 13 percent.. . . Shenandoah Life processes 50 percent more applications and customer service requests using work teams, with 10 percent fewer people. (pp. 5-6)

Heady stuff, that, and it is reinforced by back-cover blurbs. Tom Peters: “Selfdirected work teams are the cornerstone of improved competitiveness . . . ’’ Bob
Waterman: “Self-Directed Work Teams seems too good to be true: dramatic improvement in productivity and a happier, more committed, more flexible work force. Yet . . . they do just what they promise for the likes of P&G, GE, and Ford.”
It makes sense. Teams bring more resources, and more diverse resources, to bear
J. Richard Hackman • Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

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