What does " higher level teams" and " top management teams" mean? Teams differ from groups with respect to the nature of their connections to management. Work groups are typically required to be responsive to demands regularly placed on them by management. By contrast, once management establishes the mission for a team, and sets the challenge for it to achieve, it usually gives the team enough flexibility to do its job without any further interference. In other words, teams are to varying degrees self-managing — that is, they are to some extent free to set their own goals, timing, and the approach that they wish to take, usually without management interference. Thus, many teams are described as being autonomous or semiautonomous in nature. This is not to say that teams are completely independent of corporate management and supervision. They still must be responsive to demands from higher levels (often, higher level teams, known as top management teams).