Are your marketing teams producing tired and noncreative work?

Perhaps they work too well together.

An in-depth study I recently conducted concludes that the better project team-members work together, the less innovative they become. The reason: as comfort between team members increases, the less likely are they to share disparate points of view, and therefore, discover or pursue novel ideas.

Innovation does increase as team members claim increasing ownership of a project over allegiance to their individual departments or area of expertise. But over time, the team's cohesiveness rots into "groupthink." In this environment, members stop challenging each other's assumptions and cease to weigh alternatives - all in an effort to preserve the harmony of the group.

The results are counterintuitive, for sure. We've all been taught to believe that integrated and well-oiled teams share different points of view to develop the next unique product. Managers typically want to assemble project groups who feel free, within the team dynamic, to express opinions, perspectives, and beliefs that differ from those held by others in the team.

The assumption is that the higher the degree of comfort and interpersonal compatibility the greater their inventiveness. But after questioning 141 project managers over two years, I found that the opposite was true.

The next important question, then, is how can a team stay creative? Our research yielded certain answers.

First, the team must be explicitly encouraged to take risks. Indeed, simply being made aware of the "groupthink" risk may inspire team members to think independently when they otherwise would not have done so.

Second, representatives from functional areas that have been skipped can be appointed as part-time consultants to the team so their input and feedback are still available to the project.

Third, active monitoring of the project by senior management also contributes to team innovation.

In short, make sure you do these things and you will improve your chances of coming up with creative innovations, marketing plans, and everything else that requires teamwork.