In the Essential Guide to Group Communication, Chapter 1, "Foundations of Communicating in Small Groups and Teams," it states that working together in teams is encouraged because you are able to obtain more information from a variety of people versus receiving information from one source alone. Working together in teams increases ideas and brings issues to quick resolutions when involving experts to resolve those issues.
Also, ideas can vary because everyone's life experience is different and therefore, their perspective on things can be different. We can all learn new ideas from one another. If we only depended on our own opinions and life experiences, than we would be, essentially, shutting out the rest of the world. We cannot shut other people out when making important decisions that can affect everyone. Otherwise, our decisions may very well be inaccurate or incorrect, and this could be very detrimental.
In order to make decisions, critical or otherwise, we must look at everything that will be effected by that decision. Having the advise of professionals and experts in their field can avoid issues down the road, and many times can quickly resolve an issue. After reviewing all of the input, then we make an intelligent decision.
The lovely thing about teamwork is that it can simplify an extremely difficult task into small parts. I liked how you talked about each member having a different background can lead to different ideas which I believe is very true. We all learn and think differently and by working in a group we can learn new ways to do things we already know for better or worst. Also, working in groups can make a project much more entertaining than handling a project by yourself. Thus, like you mention it is important not to shut down people from our lives and try to work with them even if they don't see things the way you do.
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