Drawing on marriage and family therapy (MFT), this paper introduces the concept of we‐ness to new product development (NPD). We‐ness is the shared sense of togetherness family members feel toward each other. We apply we‐ness to NPD as the construct through which people share knowledge at the team, between‐team, and between‐organization levels. The results support the hypotheses that we‐ness increases knowledge sharing and that knowledge sharing increases product performance. In this study, we used regressions to analyze the hypotheses. We found that the greater in‐team we‐ness (H1, t = 3.786, p = .000), between‐team we‐ness (H2, t = 5.411, p = .000), and between‐organization we‐ness (H3, t = 2.940, p = .004) activities there were, the more knowledge sharing in NPD. Results also indicate that knowledge sharing is related to better NPD performance.

This paper contrasts team and family as the foundation metaphor to organize people engaged in product development. We argue the team metaphor can be counterproductive in settings where difficult decisions must be made. Teams can lead to individual members suppressing their opinions to “help” the team achieve its goal. Members are expected to sacrifice for the good of the team. That can be adaptive when the task is straightforward.

The family metaphor suggests that the group sacrifices for the individual. In a family environment, members protect minority opinions, and in cases where complex, ambiguous decisions must be made individual expertise and insight may come from one person. High‐trust family‐like settings can facilitate sharing sensitive information and norms that can be challenged. The family metaphor suggests a more flexible and tolerant approach to new ideas. At the same time, it is recognized that families can have dysfunctions that can detract from performance. Therefore, managers must carefully apply the use of family‐like settings.

The importance for family‐like approaches across organizations seems to be more important as technology complexity increases. Between‐team we‐ness was revealed significantly higher in goods manufacturers than service firms in this study. Small companies need to make extra effort to increase between‐team we‐ness.

The idea of approaching product development from a family relations perspective opens up new alternatives for managing people in teams, between teams, and even between organizations. MFT tools to address behaviors and individual performance issues increase the number and nature of managerial tools to increase product performance.