Have companies gone “team wild”? Is the trend toward team building and collaborative decision-making too much of a good thing? In the process of making every person in an organization feel valued, are corporations eroding their leadership?

I believe the answer to each of these questions is yes. The solution lies in reexamining the purpose of teams.

In an environment where staying ahead requires continual evolution, corporations need to shed the belief that teams rule at all costs. The new mandate for companies is to harness the talents of their strongest entrepreneurs, even within a team-oriented culture.

TexasBank is a full service community bank with over 20 retail banking centers in North Central Texas, and employing over 560 people. Chartered as Merchants and Farmers National Bank in 1889, the bank grew steadily within Parker County, Texas. It was not until almost a century later that the bank saw dramatic branch growth and expansion of its geographic coverage.

Teamwork is an essential part of any company. Getting people to work well together requires team members to communicate well, to trust each other, and to understand and respect the differences between them. Leveraging those differences, and enabling this collaboration, is the mandate of the manager. Click here for an Ask Dan column about facilitating that teamwork.

Organizations throughout the world have increasingly adopted team-based work structures. Those who create, lead and evaluate work teams in organizations should appropriately focus their efforts on factors that support effective team performance.

Leaders and managers often achieve corporate goals through effective teamwork. As part of the PI-based Predictive Leadership Series, PI Worldwide offers a “Building Teams” workshop to help team members work more effectively together.

In our last issue, we asked our readers whether a one day refresher course in the Predictive Index would be helpful. Over 300 people responded. 91% thought a refresher course would be beneficial to adding additional insight to their PI knowledge. PI Worldwide values your opinions and is using this information in developing future programs.