A team is a group of individuals, each with an assigned role, who interact dynamically, interdependently and adaptively towards a common goal. There are many kinds of teams—married couples, business units, sports teams, military squads and so on. Models for teams— how they organize, how they function and what makes them effective are the subject of many a book and research. The center of gravity for studying teamwork resides in a field called organizational behavior, often abbreviated as OB. Graduate level programs in organizational studies are offered in business schools and in applied psychology classes. OB experts define two types of teams that are relevant to medical domains such as critical care— one loosely called as a ‘work group’ and the other an ‘action team.’ Excellent teamwork in medical crises is something we have come to expect. In spite of such expectations, teamwork is something that is often not practiced, evaluated or even discussed in health care. Creating high-performance teams requires attitudinal adjustment and behavioral change among team members. There is robust scientific evidence to support the view that this can be achieved with training and time. However, nothing can be achieved without additional resources or organizational commitment to the task. The most difficult aspect to improve seems to be leadership and communication skills among individuals. Current notions of team building that advocate increasing flexibility in team structure, abolishing hierarchies and cultivating shared decision-making, reflect a naïve sense of a team as a unified entity rather than as a collection of individuals with distinct personalities, varying technical skills, economic background and political agendas.