This chapter examines the following topics: key challenges facing the organization and management of global teams; managing teams and team processes; creating global team synergy; special management challenges of dispersed global teams; and leadership and global team-building

As centrally important as the role of the leader is in establishing and sustaining teamwork, the team members themselves obviously play critical roles as well. Certainly, beyond initial team formation (“forming”) most of the work of the team is coordinated by the team members themselves, without close moment-by-moment supervision by the team leader. Especially with teams that have been well led to the point of “norming” and “performing,” the work of their members is highly interdependent and largely self-managed. They must collaborate, and to do so effectively, they must communicate. Increasingly, the principles of effective teamwork have been embraced in healthcare. Data show clearly that effective teams in healthcare are associated with better patient outcomes and with greatly reduced risk of burnout for the providers. Effective teamwork requires a number of well-researched intra-team processes, which are overviewed in this chapter.