You Already Know Which Team Will Struggle

Most team failures don't come as surprises. Not really. When you look back, you can usually trace the collapse to something visible from the start. A mismatch that seemed minor. A dynamic that felt slightly off. A signal you noticed but didn't act on.

This happens in classrooms. It happens in companies. And it happens not because people are careless, but because the information needed to see it was never made legible.

The signals are already there

When a team struggles, the early signs are rarely hidden. They're present in the room, in hallway conversations, in the quiet hesitations before someone agrees to a plan they don't believe in.

Professors see it when they assign groups and notice two people avoiding eye contact. Managers see it when a team lead mentions, in passing, that "the dynamic is a bit tricky." Executives see it when collaboration across functions requires an unusual number of check-ins.

But seeing is not knowing. And knowing is not acting.

The problem isn't that these signals are subtle. It's that there's no formal moment where they are allowed to matter. Without structure, intuition stays private and risk remains unspoken.

Random is still a decision

In many settings, teams are formed without explicit input. People are grouped by availability, by last name, by project need. This feels neutral. It feels like no decision was made.

But random is still a decision. It's a choice to not use information that was available. A choice to let misalignment compound before surfacing. Choosing not to ask is still choosing. It just pushes the cost onto the team later.

The question isn't whether you're forming teams. It's whether you're doing it with the right inputs.

Failure isn't mysterious. It's late.

When a team fails, the postmortem often reveals a prehistory. Something went wrong before the crisis. The conflict started before the complaint. The disengagement began before the missed deadline.

The insight wasn't unavailable. It was simply invisible at the moment it mattered.

That's the cost of forming teams without structure. You pay for it later, in time, in conflict, in work that has to be redone.

You're already deciding

Whether you use a structured intake or not, you're already making this decision. You're already shaping teams. Already accepting risks. Already building toward outcomes you can't fully see.

The question isn't whether to decide. It's whether to decide with the information you need.

You probably already know which team will struggle. You just don't have a way to see it yet.