A high-performing team can be compared to a delicious cake. When the ingredients mix well together and are then put to work in the oven, the result is a fulfilling treat. But as Shane Snow tells The Workback, the cake must have the right mix of ingredients. At work, that can translate to people who take different approaches to solving a problem.

“If you have people who think differently, they can combine their different ways of thinking and see things that no individual could see,” says Snow, author of Dream Teams: Working Together Without Falling Apart. “There have to be debates, discourse, interaction, and respect for viewpoints that aren’t common.”

You might think of it as a corporate “team of rivals,” to borrow a phrase from author Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book about the cabinet of American President Abraham Lincoln, but the outcomes can be similar. Trust and mutual respect are the most critical factors in building a team like this. Trust like this is fostered with technology that creates transparency and unites groups with different goals to the overarching company mission.