I think one of the mistakes we make when we think about team-working is that we think the most important thing is the people; actually the most important thing is the task. The beginning point of the team is the task that the team needs to perform. The only reason we have a team is because we've got a task that we want to be performed effectively - putting out a housefire for a fire engine team or whatever. Then when we know what the task is we want to do then we have to decide who are the people that we want to do it. Who've got the skills so who can we bring in to perform the teams task. If we focus on the people first we may get it completely the wrong way round.

The research from Aston Business School is showing that this need to build diverse teams is essential to our modern way of life. If we can create teams that are diverse, and learn the skills of good team-working - setting clear objectives, communicating, supporting ideas for innovation - then these teams can, and will, be very effective.

Team working is the way human beings have always worked. We've created huge new organisations and we haven't yet adapted teamworking to this new situation. Organisations are lazy about the concept of teamworking and we need to work hard to build effective teamworking into organisations so that they can be effective. Our evidence is that when they do that they easily outperform other organisations; whether it's health care organisations concerned with mortality, manufacturing organisations convcerned with profitability or Universities concerned with advancing understanding.

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