Groups and teams are not the same thing. A work group is a group that interacts primarily to share information, make decisions, and help each group member perform within their area of responsibility. Work groups have no need or opportunity to engage in collective work with joint effort, so the group’s performance is merely the summation of each member’s individual contribution. A work group is a collection of individuals doing their work, albeit with interaction and/or dependency.

A work team, on the other hand, generates positive synergy through coordination. The individual efforts result in a level of performance greater than the sum of the individual inputs. In both work groups and work teams, there are often behavioral expectations of members, active group dynamics, and some level of decision making. The extensive use of teams creates the potential for an organization to generate greater outputs with no increase in employee head count. However, merely calling a group a team doesn’t automatically improve its performance.