Dear Harold, dear all,

I am happy to see you picked up on our email conversation, Harold. Congratulations on the writing, as always!

I would like to argue, however, to frame the problem somewhat differently, and that teams or teamwork are not the problem at all, but that we should use appropriate terms for more clarity. (In my white paper and book Organize for Complexity, this distinction is included as well, by the way, so for more take a look here: http://www.slideshare.net/npflaeging/special-edition-paper-organize-for-complexity-part-iii)
My suggestion is not to use the term "hierarchical team" to describe the insufficient status quo in most orgs, but the term "group". Group means: working up (for bosses), being governed from above, working in parallel, being functionally differentiated. Team, on the other hand, means: working outwards (for internal or external clients), being self-organized, working for-each-other-with-each-other, being functionally integrated. Team is something totally different than groups, and usually today groups are mistaken for teams. Let´s stop bashing teams, let´s start creating them!
There is more to say about hierarchies and the 1.000 silly things that are being claimed with regards to them or their elimination. Here, it may suffice to say that 99% of those talking about hierarchy mistake it for "power", and then come to nonsensical conclusions. But hierarchy is just one of three foms of power in any organization. For more, let´s open another discussion here... ;-)

I look forward to more dialog on this! Regards, Niels