Never has the level of performance expected of the small group of managers at the top of large organizations been higher. Today’s challenges demand not only great personal effort, but also first-class collective leadership. Never, therefore, has the reality at most companies, including yours, been more troubling. Very few so-called "teams at the top" really work. Even fewer are real teams.

Elsewhere in these organizations, as you well know, plenty of teams do work. Self-managing—that is, boss-less, not leaderless—teams are enabling companies of all sizes to increase productivity, quality, and bottom-line results. Cross-functional teams are helping them to remove internal structural barriers, break down functional "silos," and ratchet up innovation, speed of response, and service performance. Front-line sales teams are prompting them to combine product/service skills with account development sensitivity in ways that improve both customer loyalty and profit margins.

Why this huge difference in experience? It cannot be simple caution on your part. You have, certainly, seen enough large-scale team efforts fail to be immune to the faddish belief that teams provide a sure-fire panacea for all corporate ills. But you have seen many local—and quite valuable—successes as well. The explanation must lie elsewhere.

All or nothing

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