Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5 (2012), 56–61. Copyright  2012 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 1754-9426/12 RESPONSE On Teams: Unifying Themes and the Way Ahead SCOTT I. TANNENBAUM Group for Organizational Effectiveness JOHN E. MATHIEU University of Connecticut EDUARDO SALAS University of Central Florida DEBRA COHEN Society for Human Resource Management Abstract The commentaries to our focal article were both interesting and stimulating. As we generally agreed with the major points raised in the commentaries, we use this response to frame an on-going tension point or challenge regarding team definitions, highlight a few unifying themes that weave through our initial article and the commentaries, and discuss the transition from research to informed practice. The past few decades have been exciting times for team researchers and practitioners, and the time is ripe for new energies and approaches. We are pleased that our focal article gen- erated such interesting, diverse, and high- quality commentaries. We are enthusiastic about the level of energy that team topics continue to play in modern-day (and future) industrial – organizational psychology the- ory, research, and practice. Moreover, in general, we do not take issue with the points that were raised in the essays. In fact, this is a welcomed dialogue. And more is needed. Accordingly, we will use this response as an opportunity to (a) frame an on-going tension point or challenge regarding team defini- tions, (b) highlight a few unifying themes that weave through our initial article and the commentaries, and (c) discuss the transition from research to informed practice. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Scott Tannenbaum. E-mail: scott.tannenbaum@groupoe.com Address: Group for Organizational Effectiveness, Inc., 727 Waldens Pond Road, Albany, NY 12203 What Are Teams? In our initial article, we provided two of the common and well-established definitions of teams. Salient features were that team members have common goals, distinguish- able roles, and task interdependencies; they work in an organizational context and evolve and change over time. In their com- mentary, West and Lyubovnikova (2012) emphasized the need for definitional clarity and distinguished between what they refer to as ‘‘real teams’’ and ‘‘pseudo teams.’’ They stressed the importance of maintain- ing the definitional integrity of what teams are—and are not—so as to facilitate the accumulation of knowledge and to better identify important boundary conditions. We could not agree more. Although some of the characteristics they use to distinguish real from pseudo teams may better serve to differentiate effective from ineffective teams (e.g., role clarity) than be a defining 56