1. A robotic system for executing a cooperative work task having multiple independent tasks, comprising: a plurality of robotic joints, wherein each of the robotic joints is independently controllable during execution of the cooperative work task; and a controller in communication with the robotic joints which controls the motion of the robotic joints during the execution of the cooperative work task; wherein the controller is configured to: identify the robotic joints to be used in execution of the cooperative work task; automatically group the identified robotic joints for the cooperative work task into task-specific subsystems, wherein each task-specific subsystem performs at least one of the multiple independent tasks; assign the multiple independent tasks to the task-specific subsystems; create multiple task execution forks for each of the multiple independent subtasks, wherein each of the multiple task execution forks includes a set of multiple independent subtasks cooperatively executed by the identified robotic joints, and also maintains its own state and feedback data to thereby enable its independent execution relative to the other multiple task execution forks; and coordinate the independent execution of the fic multiple independent tasks by the respective task-specific subsystems via the multiple task execution forks.