Achieving vulnerability-based trust (where team members have overcome their need for invulnerability) is difficult because in the course of career advancement and education, most successful people learn to be competitive with their peers, and protective of their reputations. It is a challenge for them to turn those instincts off for the good of the team, but that is exactly what is required.

If the CEO's behavior is 95 per cent healthy while the rest of the organization is only 50 per cent sound, it is more effective to focus on that crucial and leveraged 5 per cent that makes up the reminder of the CEO's behavior.

Trust is the foundation of real teamwork (there is nothing touchy-feely about this).

It's as simple as this. When people don't unload their opinions and feel like they've been listened to, they won't really get on board.

A functional team must make the collective results of the group more important to each individual than individual members' goals.

Open, frank communication is the lynchpin to teamwork. A fractured team is like a fractured bone; fixing it is always painful and sometimes you have to re-break it to heal it fully - and the re-break always hurts more because it is intentional.

Leaders must display their humanness. Those under their authority must be empowered & have the courage to engage in honest dialogue.