The matter of fact is that once you have more than one person working towards a shared goal, putting together their compatible interests and their complementary skillsets and knowledge, their success in reaching that goal will depend largely on how quickly and effectively they become and behave like a strong team.
A strong team is a group of people, whom when their behaviour is observed externally, one can strongly sense signs of all of the following:
- high trust amongst team members
- fine-tuned, accurate and quick mind-reading-like communication
- one shared understanding of their mission, broader goals and environment
- always providing support to each other
- autonomous adaptability to unanticipated change in their constraints and surrounding environment
The strongest teams emerge from the experiences of individuals going through complex challenges together.
There is no blueprint or recipe for how to form teams at will. Starting small and organically enabling people to grow and shape up their teams is probably the best strategy.
It is true that it takes time and investment for teams to emerge and even more to preserve them afterwards. But it is certainly way more expensive to have functional teams break apart or never form. Only strong teams can take something from 0 to 1.
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