Teams Need A Swift Kick In The...

Someone started a discussion on "Joel On Software" about teamwork in distributed work environments based on my post a few days ago about the psychology experiment on group conflict.

One person wrote this:

I believe the success of such an undertaking is a function of management's skill and their own ability to define the parameters of the teamwork. I also believe that most managements are not clueful enough to work out such problems. They tend to believe that cooperation will happen organically when in fact one or both sides should get a swift kick in the ass in order to make the partnership a success.

I think that brings up a good point about how most managers just assume that the teamwork will happen automatically. In fact we know that the opposite is the case.