Yesterday, I had a diner with a fairly young entrepreneur, involved with some high-tech firm in the US. Among other things, we discussed a little bit about team-working. For me, after so many years in business, team working is the only solution to move ahead and progress.
I've had the chance to learn it at the very beginning of my career, at my first position with the French Railways, back in the early 80's. We were a team of *only* three people in a Division of hundred, but we were the most productive ones. The reason : the three of us were like the pieces of a puzzle, fitting perfectly well together whilst featuring some overlap in our personalities, making our team strong and indefeasible (almost like the Fantastic Four, although we didn't have a The Thing with us). There was the Rational Thinker (my friend Bernard M., now a masterpiece at french ISP NeufCegetel), the Hands-On Expert (my friend Christian B., still doing fiber optics for the sake of the French Railways), and the Creative Builder (myself). Discussing a new idea or working on a project was always the same story : controversial yet productive, friendly & fun, which might be a dream for many people those days... Think about it this way : the Rational Thinker is the Finances guy, the Hands-On is the Manufacturing buddy, and the Creative Builder is the Marketing & Sales fellow (what else ? ;-). The perfect set-up for success.
Later, I've experimented the same situation with the Musketeers at Agilent Technologies. We were a bigger team of course, yet working together as one. The outcomes were absolutely stunning.
On the reverse side, I also learned the hard way how the lack of team work (not mentioning the lack of a team per se ;-) can blow your dedication away. When you have nobody to confront your thoughts with all day long even when sitting in the office, better be a freelancer : at least, your clients will listen to you, just because they're paying you for it (well, depends). 
The best example of efficient teamwork is the famous medical drama television series Dr House. Says Wikipedia : "The team arrives at diagnoses using the Socratic method and differential diagnosis, with House guiding the deliberations. House often discounts the information and opinions from his underlings, pointing out that their contributions have missed various relevant factors."
In this setup, House is not the one who leads, he's the one who guides the discussion, acting as a facilitator aimed at taking the best out of the brainstorming.
Watching those sessions always reminds the days with Bernard & Christian : tough think tank exercises leading to outstanding results.
Ed. note : I really love the series, for it's really entertaining. My wife says it's because I do pretty much resemble to Gregory House, not because we both have a problem with one leg but because I like to tease people too ;-)
