Some time ago, I picked up my daughter from the bus at the end of the school day. It did not take long to realize something was wrong – she was unusually quiet. After a while it came tearfully spilling out. “We did a group project at school and I did most of the work and she [another person working on the project] got a higher mark than me and she didn’t do as much as I did and it’s not fair!”
What could I say? It was bound to happen at some point. My daughter had been introduced to the dark side of teamwork. I do not know how much work was actually done by whom and why the marks were different (even the same mark would have probably felt unfair, but a higher mark? an outrage!). But all of that really did not matter. The point was my daughter felt like she had contributed a great deal more to the team’s success and was rewarded less. Have we all not felt this way at some point?
It is a tough lesson to learn and it is one of the primary reasons many people do not like working in teams. They are risky. There is no guarantee that everyone will pull their own weight or even that each person is capable of contributing the same amount. Nor is there any guarantee that we will actually get along with everyone on our team or enjoy working with them. Because of this, some prefer to be ‘lone contributors’ in the workplace. They do not mind collaborating from time to time, but in reality, they would much rather simply be left alone, responsible for their share and leave it at that. Evaluate them on their own efforts. Reward them for their own contributions. Much simpler and easier; and more fair.
It can be hard to argue against this viewpoint. It can be so easy to see the element of truth it contains – teamwork is hard. There are no guarantees that a team will actually work out and there are definitely no guarantees that it will be ‘fair’. So why try? Why put so much time and effort into something that, well, takes so much time and effort? Let me offer some possible reasons to consider.
First; as the saying goes, ‘many hands make light work’. When teams work well, they can achieve a great deal more with much less effort. Second, as many of you have heard me say before, there is this synergy thing to account for. Sometimes things just form in the collective work of a group of people that just does not when we work on our own. I do not know how it works; I just believe that it does. And third, as talented as we might think we are most tasks in today’s workplace require more than what one person can bring to the table. We may not like to admit it, but often our success relies on the contributions of others – in some way, at some point.
This is not to say that sometimes working on our own would be just so much easier, but I do believe the effort is worth it – most of the time.
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The Dark Side of Teams
What could I say? It was bound to happen at some point. My daughter had been introduced to the dark side of teamwork. I do not know how much work was actually done by whom and why the marks were different (even the same mark would have probably felt unfair, but a higher mark? an outrage!). But all of that really did not matter. The point was my daughter felt like she had contributed a great deal more to the team’s success and was rewarded less. Have we all not felt this way at some point?
It is a tough lesson to learn and it is one of the primary reasons many people do not like working in teams. They are risky. There is no guarantee that everyone will pull their own weight or even that each person is capable of contributing the same amount. Nor is there any guarantee that we will actually get along with everyone on our team or enjoy working with them. Because of this, some prefer to be ‘lone contributors’ in the workplace. They do not mind collaborating from time to time, but in reality, they would much rather simply be left alone, responsible for their share and leave it at that. Evaluate them on their own efforts. Reward them for their own contributions. Much simpler and easier; and more fair.
It can be hard to argue against this viewpoint. It can be so easy to see the element of truth it contains – teamwork is hard. There are no guarantees that a team will actually work out and there are definitely no guarantees that it will be ‘fair’. So why try? Why put so much time and effort into something that, well, takes so much time and effort? Let me offer some possible reasons to consider.
First; as the saying goes, ‘many hands make light work’. When teams work well, they can achieve a great deal more with much less effort. Second, as many of you have heard me say before, there is this synergy thing to account for. Sometimes things just form in the collective work of a group of people that just does not when we work on our own. I do not know how it works; I just believe that it does. And third, as talented as we might think we are most tasks in today’s workplace require more than what one person can bring to the table. We may not like to admit it, but often our success relies on the contributions of others – in some way, at some point.
This is not to say that sometimes working on our own would be just so much easier, but I do believe the effort is worth it – most of the time.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2014 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.