Effective teams can be significant drivers of innovations that enable broader quality improvements and efficiency gains across organizations. But despite the wealth of research and managerial expertise describing characteristics of effective teams, people and organizations still struggle to deploy teams that achieve their potential, regardless of individual effort and good intentions. More puzzling is that teams following the same template of best practices can achieve different results. We studied new team formation to understand why some teams work and others struggle. Our research suggests that transitioning to effective teams depends on mutually reinforcing functional and cultural change processes. The way in which organizations combine these two key change processes is critical for success.
In our study of a dozen primary care clinics trying to establish multidisciplinary health care teams, we identified three prototypical approaches to establishing team-based care: pursuing functional change only, pursuing cultural change only, and pursuing both functional and cultural change processes. While functional and cultural change processes were individually important, they were most effective when mobilized in tandem. This taxonomy of approaches to change can inform how organizations go about forming teams and evaluating progress toward effective teamwork.