In Search of a Perfect Team at Work

In 2013, Alistair Shepherd asked everyone in a business-school pitch competition to complete a survey with questions inspired by online-dating sites. It asked things like "Do you like horror movies?" and "Do spelling mistakes annoy you?" Shepherd predicted how well the eight teams would collaborate internally and how they would ultimately fare. He ended up ranking all eight correctly. What made for a great team? Those in which people had the most tolerance for their teammates' perspectives--and those in which people had the greatest diversity in personalities. Mr. Shepherd's experiment represents an attempt to get beyond the usual approach to workplace chemistry.