The authors report on their research into teamwork, in particular "to discover what differentiates various levels of team performance, where and how teams work best, and what top management can do to enhance their effectiveness." Katzenbach and Smith define "a team as a small number of people, with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable." They discuss all the elements within this definition in detail. The authors then continue to classify teams in three ways: First, teams that recommend things, second, teams that make or do things, and, third, teams that run things. Each type of team face a characteristic set of challenges. The authors also believe that teams will become the primary unit of performance in high-performance organizations and that these teams will enhance existing structures without actually replacing them. The article is complemented with a useful short summary on approaches that are shared by many successful teams.

In this article the authors discuss teams, which they believe is a basic discipline. By discussing all the different elements of this discipline Katzenbach and Smith provide great insights and tools for better teamwork. The authors have written several good books on teamwork. Recommended to leaders, managers, team members, and MBA-students. The authors use simple US-English.