Teams

For companies to be competitive, decisions have to be made faster than ever before, and expenses have to be lower. The hierarchical environment did not support fast decision making. Decisions flowed through a chain of command. If a decision was beyond your authority, you would have to refer it to your supervisor, who would then refer it to their manager, who would then refer it to ... and so on. The point is that decisions took too long. Further, considering the time required by the people involved in the process, it was also very costly.

In a team based environment, the boundaries for making decisions and the necessary authority have been expanded tremendously. Now, in many environments, the person doing the job makes the decision. This change in the decision making process has resulted in faster, less costly decisions which, in turn, helps keeps a product or service priced competitively.