Time Magazine has an interesting article this week about a new book out called “X-Teams” by a professor at MIT Sloan School and one at INSEAD. The thesis is that in corporate management theory, we have become overly obsessed with the internal dynamics of teams as a way of improving productivity and happiness in our companies, while, in fact, the relationships and communications employees have with people external to the company are equally important to productivity, happiness, and ultimately to success. The authors show decades of research proving this is the case.

The article doesn’t mention online services, but it got me thinking that this is yet another reason companies should actively embrace work-oriented social networking services like LinkedIn and Xing even though those services are hosted outside the company firewall, and even though those tools open up their employees to being poached.  For anyone reading this blog, I’m not saying anything new.  But the “X-Teams” research at least provides a credible and logical counterpoint to the fears of corporate managers who have blocked these services or purchased social software tools that are hosted inside the company firewall (company directories, blogs, etc).

The turning of companies inside out is good for them, ultimately. My bet is that tools like LinkedIn and Xing are in their infancy as to what can be done for making work much more fun and much more productive. Those companies will keep pushing the boundaries, or other companies will come along that do even more to connect people inside their company, turn that network outside to great benefit, and make it all more fun, fast, and productive. Regardless of who does it, we will continue to need arguements such as that of “X-Teams” to help managers get over their fears so they can let these services turn their companies inside out to great benefit.