Learn · TED

Talk16 min

The surprisingly simple reason teams fail

Tessa West · TED

Watch At TED

About

In 1999, a NASA mission to Mars failed ... not from a technical glitch, but because people weren't talking to each other. Psychology professor Tessa West explores how assumptions, overlooked details and "hidden languages" can quietly sabotage even the smartest teams — and explores the small shifts in communication that can make a big difference in how information lands.

The talk

  1. The surprisingly simple reason teams fail 16 min · TED's player

Credits and licence

Institution
TED
Department
TEDxCatawba
Speaker
Tessa West
Year
2025
Level
For everyone
Language
English
Subjects
Business and management, Society and politics
Source
TED
Licence
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, as TED states it. Non-commercial use only, and no changed versions. TED's terms
Attribution
TED Talks are licensed by TED under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International and are shown here in TED's own player, as TED's usage policy asks.
Who can watch
TED gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from what the source says about it. How courses are placed