Sharing Isn’t Erring: Embracing Teamwork

Grade school. The time in which we learn some of the most important lessons of our life, including but not limited to: don’t eat paste, don’t spit on your neighbor, don’t let your mother dress you past kindergarten. Included within the elementary curriculum were useful stepping stones for the rest of our academic careers. The powers that be refer to them as the three “R’s”–reading, (w)riting, and (a)rithmetic–whose mnemonic suggests that its creator failed the first two subjects. Regardless. There was a particular tactic that teachers would use to teach us the importance of sharing and cooperation while attempting to learn these three “R’s,” and that was group work. Group work–the two most dreaded words a teacher could ever utter (second only to “no recess”). Somehow, I always ended up doing the most work, and I always suspected that it was a ploy by the teaching staff to grade fewer papers. Seeing as how my sixth grade teacher would invoke “group work” whenever she made calls to her boyfriend in San Diego, I figured it wasn’t far from the truth.

Unlike numerous paste-eating incidents, group work was one thing that failed to stay behind. Junior high group work still afforded us the luxury of wasting class, but the high school teachers must have wised up to the time-suck factor, because we had to find outside time to meet with our groups. “Team meetings” amounted to a fifteen-minute delegation-of-tasks and gossip block, with Dunkaroos if you chose the right house at which to convene. If someone didn’t pull their weight on the project, one of the team members would end up finishing the project themselves. That hypothetical team member usually ended up being me. In my post-pubescent head it was just easier for me to do it all and do it my way than delegate and reconvene. It may have meant more work, but we’d do well. In my many years of fake group work, I never once received a “doesn’t play well with others” on my report card. I sneakily escaped it every go-round; the only inconvenience of group work became figuring out how to get out of it.

This is a mentality that most domineering, results-oriented individuals have toward teamwork. Having faith in your own ability to accomplish tasks without anyone else helping you can be a point of pride for most people, myself included. Past clients for Monar have had trouble giving up ownership of their projects and diffusing responsibility, choosing instead to take on the work independently. If my grades were any indication (I’m currently patting Past Danielle’s back) then my circumventing group work wasn’t actually detrimental to my performance–and that’s a mental disposition that isn’t unique to me. But the elementary school attitude toward group work has remained unflinching, and it continues to affect everyone from the jungle gym to the corporate ladder. Why? What’s the benefit to having six people do in a week what one person can do in two days?

The question is: what’s so great about group work?

The truth of the matter is, one person often can’t do in two days what six people need a week to do. If that were the case, cavemen would have to carry around their children while hunting mastodon, and humans probably would’ve died off a long time ago. So it’s safe to say that group work may be evolution past this cro-magnon way of thought. Differentiation of knowledge and task specialization are two of the best things that group work can provide you. When different team members have expertise in different areas, many parts can be contributed to make a whole. If you have to put together a multimedia presentation, the song and dance portion you’ll inevitably insert is easier to tackle when you can let the creative person take charge of that and let the wordy person write the supplementary paper. There needs to be a healthy medium set between delegation and individualism, and that involves targeting and playing to team members’ strengths. (See Jessica’s blog post, “Weaknesses: Just STOP!” to see the pros and cons of that methodology.)

The other component is the lessening of the workload. Relinquishing responsibility is something that individuals higher up in an organization tend to lose sleep over. When their name is on the line, it becomes harder to trust others with work that they will ultimately be critiqued for. As a default, many leaders may choose instead to take it all on themselves. But diffusion of responsibility also leads to diffusion of stress. Letting others take ownership decreases leaders’ own personal stake, and allows others in the organization to take pride in the company’s projects and successes. It may also increase productivity, allowing individuals to take on smaller roles in many different projects. Trust is integral to teamwork. If people don’t trust that others in an organization will do an effective job, they will be reluctant to hand over responsibility. As the adage goes, however, many hands make light work. Light work, as we all know, is better than heavy work. Giving others a role to play in a particular project can make the project more efficient and perhaps more successful. After all, idle hands are the devil’s playthings. To avoid Satan, it’s best to let your employees get involved.

Switching to group work within an organization will encounter resistance from the independently minded. As with all change, hard headed people like myself will most likely be reluctant to adapt to the team mentality. Simply let the results speak for themselves. With reduced stress, diffused ownership, a collective sense of accomplishment, and utilization of specialization, working within a team may soon become the new pink.

I’d like to hope I’ve evolved a bit past high school, and I’ve come to be a lot better about sharing with others, whether it be work or ideas. But I remain unflinching on snack time. Get your own pack of Dunkaroos.

To our readers: what merits do you see to group work? What obstacles?