Fall off the authority balance beam. A careful balance between managerial and team authority is needed. Managers need to exercise their authority about direction (where the team is aiming) and about outer-limit constraints on the team's behaviour (things the team must never do).

But the team itself should have full authority for the means by which it accomplishes its tasks.

Assemble a large group of people, tell them in general terms what needs to be accomplished, and let them work out the details. Groups need to have an enabling structure. They cannot be abandoned and left to develop healthy internal processes. Specifically, an enabling structure has three elements:

1. a well-defined team task that engages and sustains team members' motivation

2. a well-composed group that is as small as possible, with clear team boundaries, including members with adequate technical and interpersonal skills, with a good mix of types of people

3. clear and specific expectations of the extents and limits of the team's accountability and authority limits.

Specify challenging team objectives, but skimp on organisational supports. This mistake is about having reward, training and information systems that don't align with teamworking and about failing to ensure teams have the resources they need (e.g. equipment, tools, space, money, staff).