旧金山巨人队（San Francisco Giant）3年内两夺世界职业棒球大赛（World Series）冠军，一时之间，棒球界惊呼新的霸主或已诞生。且慢——今年巨人队的首发队员中只有接球手巴斯特•波西是两年前的首发队员。一个团队如果年年都在变，这样的团队怎么能持续称霸？

    有一句话可以回答这个问题，对于很多努力想提高自身团队表现的公司而言，下面这个道理很重要、但同时也最容易被很多公司忽视：天下没有不散的宴席。即便是再了不起的团队也会散伙，团队成员会在其他地方发现更好的机会。而且，这一点在那些优秀的团队身上尤其明显。但仍有一些团队能在不断变换的过程中，一如既往地实现良好的团队合作。我们都喜欢挑选最好的人组成团队，但正如管理学权威拉姆•查兰所述：“靠选不能打造出团队。”如果我们忽视打造团队持久优势这个更深层次的问题，不能超越成员层面，就难以收到好的效果。

    从那些勇于抛开通行模式的非传统机构身上，可以找到一些启迪。我们可以向消防员、急救室工作人员等非商业团队学到很多，也可以向戈尔公司（W.L. Gore）、巴西的Semco、钢铁制造商Worthington Industries和世界最大的番茄加工商Morning Star等公司学习。这些高效率团队最突出的特点是：它们完全实施自我管理。例如，在上面提到的这几家公司中，几乎没什么人有职位头衔：员工有权做出决定，无需咨询（或者讨好）老板。

    传统的管理学认为，这根本不可能，但这些公司几十年来一直在发展壮大。它们是怎么做的？个体情况可能差异很大，但它们都形成了自己的方式来坚持同一关键原则。

（通常是非正式的）等级架构完全基于竞争

    没有职位头衔，但有领袖，而且每个人都知道他们是谁。他们就是为同事提供了最出色的服务、提供了最有用的点子、为团队的成功工作最卖力、最有效的那些人。在戈尔公司，他们说，只要召集一次会议，看看是否有人来，就能知道自己是不是领导。

    就算是明确的领导位置，也完全是根据竞争力确定。比如，急救室团队就严格遵守基于职务的等级制度：主治医师居首，随后是专科医生，之后是实习医生。但没有人质疑这些职务反映了医术水平。

目标明确

    大多数企业团队对于要实现的目标只有一个模糊的概念。而最高效的团队总是明确知道目标。对于棒球场上的球队或火灾现场的消防队员，目标是什么简单明确，但企业团队也可以这样明确。在晨星公司（Morning Star），正如策略泰斗加里•哈默尔解释的那样，每位员工都会与受其工作影响最大的同事协商签署“谅解协议”。内容非常具体，详细列明将如何在多达30个领域中衡量这名员工的表现。如果每位成员完成这个步骤，整个团队就会清楚地知道要实现什么目标。

    Talk of a dynasty swept the baseball world recently when the San Francisco Giants won their second World Series in three years. But hold on -- only one of this year's starting players, catcher Buster Posey, was a starter on the team that won two years ago. How can any team be a dynasty when it isn't even the same team from year to year?

    That question has an answer, and getting to it reveals one of the most important and most overlooked issues for companies struggling to get their own teams performing better: Teams don't last. Even great ones -- especially great ones -- break up as members spy opportunity elsewhere. Yet some organizations still manage to get long-term great teamwork from ever-shifting teams. We all rightly obsess over choosing the best members, but as management authority Ram Charan says, "Choosing does not build a team." We won't achieve much if we scant the far deeper issue of how our teams can build lasting strengths that transcend who's onboard.

    Enlightenment resides in unconventional organizations with the courage to ignore the usual models. We can learn much from nonbusiness squads such as firefighters and emergency-room crews, as well as from companies such as W.L. Gore, Brazil's Semco, steelmaker Worthington Industries, and Morning Star, the world's largest tomato processor. The most striking trait of these highly effective teams: They're radically self-managing. At all the companies mentioned above, for example, hardly anyone has a title; workers are empowered to make decisions without consulting (or courting) a boss.

    Orthodox management says it's all impossible, yet these companies have grown and prospered for decades. How do they do it? In widely different circumstances, they've all found their way to the same key principles.

Hierarchy, often informal, is based entirely on competence

    There are no job titles, but there are leaders, and everyone knows who they are. They're the ones who have served their colleagues best, have offered the most useful ideas, and have worked hardest and most effectively for the team's success. At W.L. Gore, they say you find out if you're a leader by calling a meeting and seeing if anyone comes.

    Even in cases where leadership positions are explicit, they're still transparently competence-based. Emergency-room teams, for example, observe a strict hierarchy based on position: attending surgeons at the top, then fellows, then residents. But no one disputes that the positions reflect skill levels.

Goals are clear

    Most corporate teams have only a hazy notion of what they're trying to achieve. The most effective ones always know exactly. That's easy for teams on a baseball field or at a burning house, but corporate teams can be just as clear. At Morning Star, as strategy guru Gary Hamel explains, every employee negotiates a "letter of understanding" with the colleagues who are most affected by his or her work. It's highly specific, detailing how the employee's performance will be measured in up to 30 activity areas. When every member finishes the exercise, that team knows precisely what it's on the hook to accomplish.