Not all dysfunction is equally fatal. A company in a low-margin, highly competitive, shrinking market will be destroyed by dysfunction quickly. A company in blue ocean space with high margins and a growing addressable market can be dysfunctional and still succeed — at least for a while.
Momentum also provides forgiveness: a Fortune 500 company can be deeply dysfunctional for years before it shows in business results, and even then years more before consequences arrive. Companies also survive dysfunction through patents, trade secrets, distribution monopolies, or other competitive moats.
Innovation-dependent companies are the most vulnerable — dysfunction kills creativity quickly, which is why few big companies innovate effectively (they do it through acquisition instead). But for any company, team functionality is always beneficial — like marketing, some businesses need it more than others, but it always helps. Teams are “the soil in which everything grows.”