The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization
Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith
McKinsey & Company, 1993
ISBN 0-87584-367-0

(p. 216)  Why teams are tougher to form at the top

Five popular yet misguided beliefs

1.  The purpose of the team at the top is identical to the purpose of
the company.

2.  Membership in the team is automatic.

3.  The role and contribution of team members, including the leader, are
defined by their heirarchical and functional position.

    "as a result, many leaders are cautious about giving up 'solution
space,' even to individual executives, let alone a team; and they
instinctively rely on their own wisdom and control rather than on team
approaches to management.  They are not expected to express uncertainty,
depend on others for help, and display attitudes of not knowing the
answers.  Hence, it is difficult for them to be team leaders, which in
turn discourages the shared 'purposing' required to develop common
directions and mutual accountability.  Meanwhile, the leader's
colleagues find it more comfortable to hang back a little and play it
safe rather than aggressively challenge the leader and themselves to
establish a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach built
upon the ethic of 'only the team can fail.'

4.  Spending extra team time is inefficient.

5.  Team effectiveness depends only on communications and openness.

Building a team at the top...

1.  Carve out team assignments that tackle specific issues
2.  Assign work to subsets of the team (not delegated, but done by a
    subset)
3.  Determine team membership based on skill, not position
4.  Require all members to do equivalent amounts of real work
5.  Break down hierarchical patterns of interaction (work assignments
    and contributions should be unrelated to position)
6.  Setting and following rules of behavior similar to those used by
    other teams.