TED Business The surprisingly simple reason teams fail | Tessa West
13 snips
Feb 9, 2026 
Tessa West, a psychology professor who studies team communication and decision-making. She recounts how miscommunication sank a Mars probe and unpacks three common breakdowns that derail teams. She reveals how groups quickly form insider languages and miss unique facts. Practical fixes: level-set, encourage restatements, and normalize asking for clarification.
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Mars Probe Failed Over Units Mix-Up
- Tessa West recounts the 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter failure caused by mismatched units (Newton vs pound).
- The mission exploded because teams never clarified which unit of force they were using.
Good-Feeling Meetings Can Mask Failures
- Hidden communication failures often occur even when teams have all the needed information.
- Teams can feel like they're communicating well while missing fragile, critical details.
Hiring Exercise Shows Missing Unique Info
- She explains the classic hidden-profile hiring experiment where one person's unique info decides the correct hire.
- Most teams still pick the wrong candidate because that unique information isn't shared.