{"id":7420,"date":"2025-09-10T15:17:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T15:17:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=7420"},"modified":"2025-09-10T15:17:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T15:17:34","slug":"strike-this-tricky-balance-of-contrasting-work-values-to-foster-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/strike-this-tricky-balance-of-contrasting-work-values-to-foster-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Strike This Tricky Balance of Contrasting Work Values to Foster Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nick Keppler<\/a><\/p>\n

As American and multinational corporations faced the competitiveness of a global market, many tossed aside top-down management and began to embrace collaboration.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeamwork and caring can pay healthy dividends in the constrained 1990s and beyond,\u201d stated a 1992 Time<\/em> magazine article<\/a>. The CEO of Ford Motor Company bragged that more than 700 employee suggestions went into the Taurus, the strong-selling car model most responsible for dragging Ford out of the financial junkheap.<\/p>\n

The article continued, \u201cThis apparent New Age emphasis on teamwork and trust is really a homecoming for theories that U.S. companies cold-shouldered\u2014and Japanese managers embraced\u2014when American social scientists first proposed them in the 1950s and \u201960s as a key to creating high-quality products.\u201d<\/p>\n

The value of all-hands meetings, brainstorming sessions, and corporate retreats are rarely questioned by the companies that employ them, and the sanctity of collaboration is deeply engrained in Silicon Valley, with its laidback, campus-quad-style workplace atmospheres.<\/p>\n

Companies should recognize that teamwork can also be a burden, and some situations call for independent, autonomous contemplation, said Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron<\/a> of Georgia State University.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for a long time, teams were seen as this general panacea,\u201d Byron said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWherever the genesis of that idea might have come from, it has entered into the vernacular in a way that just defies what we know about teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, teamwork is difficult,\u201d she added. \u201cIt takes longer. It requires more coordination. There are opportunities for conflict.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

Resolving issues as a team is valuable for big-picture goals that naturally create interdependence of the people working towards them, Byron has found in her research.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are times when you need to structure work into teams,\u201d Byron said. \u201cThere\u2019s no single person who could ever probably develop a new car, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need, for example, safety engineers to say, \u2018What makes a vehicle safer?\u2019 and people in marketing to say, \u2018What do consumers want?\u2019 and others to answer different questions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need all these different people with these different areas of expertise and different knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nick Keppler As American and multinational corporations faced the competitiveness of a global market, many tossed aside top-down management and began to embrace collaboration. \u201cTeamwork and caring can pay healthy dividends in the constrained 1990s and beyond,\u201d stated a 1992 Time magazine article. The CEO of Ford Motor Company bragged that more than 700 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,21,19,79],"tags":[1044,1043,1041,1046,1042,1040,1045],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[840],"class_list":["post-7420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communicating","category-innovation","category-leadership","category-teams","tag-business-growth","tag-creative-workplace","tag-innovation-culture","tag-innovative-thinking","tag-workplace-balance","tag-workplace-innovation","tag-workplace-wellbeing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStrike This Tricky Balance of Contrasting Work Values to Foster Innovation - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/strike-this-tricky-balance-of-contrasting-work-values-to-foster-innovation\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nick Keppler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/strike-this-tricky-balance-of-contrasting-work-values-to-foster-innovation\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/strike-this-tricky-balance-of-contrasting-work-values-to-foster-innovation\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nick Keppler\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/1b8aff6a6e3f22d0d813c97e6aab7149\"},\"headline\":\"Strike This Tricky Balance of Contrasting Work Values to Foster Innovation\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-10T15:17:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/strike-this-tricky-balance-of-contrasting-work-values-to-foster-innovation\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":355,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/strike-this-tricky-balance-of-contrasting-work-values-to-foster-innovation\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/08\\\/Contrasting-Work-img.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"Business Growth\",\"Creative Workplace\",\"Innovation Culture\",\"Innovative Thinking\",\"Workplace Balance\",\"Workplace Innovation\",\"Workplace Wellbeing\"],\"articleSection\":[\"COMMUNICATING\",\"INNOVATION\",\"LEADERSHIP\",\"TEAMS\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/strike-this-tricky-balance-of-contrasting-work-values-to-foster-innovation\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/strike-this-tricky-balance-of-contrasting-work-values-to-foster-innovation\\\/\",\"name\":\"Strike This Tricky Balance of Contrasting Work Values to Foster Innovation - 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