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Egoism is a major cause of poor team performance, reports Forbes.com based on the results of a recent study of teams released by Egon Zehnder International. In the survey of almost 850 executives from all over the world, 59 percent declared that egoism and hidden agendas on the part of team members were responsible for poor team work. An excessive focus on internal processes instead of results and a poor definition of responsibilities were respectively cited as the second and third biggest barriers to team effectiveness. "Our findings confirm what many of us experience in different ways every day," notes Greig Schneider, a consultant at Egon Zehnder International, Boston. "Creating a high performance team is much more complicated than assembling a group of excellent individuals," he concludes.