ABSTRACT
Teams are a superior performance arrangement for handling complex, adaptive challenges in part because they can draw upon their collective resources to achieve process gains. Synergies occur when team performance is greater than the sum of the performance of its members. For example, TACA International Airlines Flight No. 110 from Belize City suffered the loss of the first, then the final engine en route to its destination New Orleans, Louisiana. The crew was aware that under such duress, an emergency landing in the intercoastal waterway was imminent. As the pilot struggled to stop the plane from diving towards certain disaster, the copilot’s situational assessment revealed a grass landing strip on a nearby levee. The pilot expeditiously accepted and enacted the copilot’s feedback and in turn saved the lives of all 45 passengers on board.
