A team finally clicks. People trust each other. Communication flows. Performance increases.
So why can that same team eventually start getting worse?
In this episode of Management Muse, Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin unpack the surprising downside of team stability. One mechanism behind this is group polarization: the tendency for a group’s distinctive characteristics and beliefs to become more extreme over time. What begins as a constructive team identity can eventually become an “us versus them” worldview that makes newcomers harder to integrate, collaboration harder to sustain, and contrary information easier to dismiss.
Drawing on examples from fire departments, elite military units, office design, and consulting engagements, Cindi and Geoff illustrate why longevity doesn’t automatically produce better teamwork. Tune in to learn how organizational silos form, and what leaders should do to stop separate teams from becoming separate realities.
Episode Highlights:
- The surprising point where team stability can stop helping performance and start working against it
- The high-performing “go-to” team that became so protective of its reputation that its members stopped catching each other’s mistakes
- Why the characteristics that make a team distinctive can become more extreme over time
- The overlooked role of office layout and proximity in creating organizational silos
- What elite military units and fire departments reveal about organizational tribalism
- The question leaders need to ask themselves to stop the “us vs. them” mindset in its tracks
Watch This Episode on YouTube:
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Want to Go Deeper? Check Out Our Recommended Reading:
- General Stanley McChrystal et al. Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, Portfolio, May 2015, https://a.co/d/0fJrwKxG
- Wise, Sean. “Can a team have too much cohesion? The dark side to network density,” European Management Journal, 32 (5), Oct. 2014, pp. 703-711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2013.12.005
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