During the past number of decades, team structures have produced significant results for organizations (Kirkman & Rosen, 2000). Even since the 1980s, organizations have significantly increased and improved group and team structure use. By 1997, Cohen and Bailey found that organizations with greater than 100 employees utilized team structures 82 percent of the time. They also found that 68 percent of the Fortune 1000 utilized team structures of some sort, while Shulman (1996) found that 47 percent of these companies utilized teams. This increase in teams has since made major contributions by helping organizations increase efficiency, flexibility, and performance. Therefore, more organizations are beginning to utilized work groups and teams as a part of doing business (Jehns & Mannix, 2001). While there are any number of differences between teams (e.g., composition, motivation, and leadership), there appear to be differences between high performing teams and teams that are not. In looking at common factors of high performing teams, Shulman (1996) discussed the importance of shared norms, shared visions, shared meanings, shared responsibility, and coordination among group members. In addition, he explained that shared experiences, shared understanding, and shared ideas may also lead to high performance as well. However, while there are a few examples of common themes that may pertain to most teams, there are numerous factors that every team needs to have to be successful. According to Kirkman and Rosen (2000), these include a clear purpose, focused goals and objectives, feedback and measurement mechanisms, entrance criteria, effective communication practices, the right types of conflict, rewards and recognition, opportunities for member growth, external support, ample resources, and other crucial components that lead to team effectiveness. Overall, while there is ample evidence to suggest that no team is alike, there is also evidence to suggest that most high performing teams have certain things in common—things which help produce synergy. While no paper can address every performance issue, it is our goal to place attention on the some of the major components of high performing teams. It is important to note, however, that we must discuss only surface structures and principles without comment on the numerous subtleties that must be sifted through to apply each component to any given team or team structure.