“So I’m not really a team player, and if there’s one thing I absolutely can’t handle in a work context it’s interacting with people in a team environment”. Said no person in a job interview. Ever. And this is why you need to know how to be a team player when you’re not one.
What if you’re actually not a team player? What if you do your best work alone, and you strongly believe that the more people you throw at a problem, the less likely you are to reach a solution? How do you find your place in a world where teamwork is valued above pretty much everything else?
How to be a Team Player
I started hating group projects sometime in early elementary school, but I casually figured that, at some point, I’d grow out of my hate and start doing amazing work in teams like normal people do. Then that never happened and I found myself working in government. And there’s nothing that governments love more than a good, robust, 40-member stakeholder advisory field reference group committee.
My initial way of dealing with teamwork was to stay silent in meetings, then put my hand up for every piece of work allocated so that I could just go away and do it quietly in a corner somewhere for a few weeks. That worked for a very short period of time, until my workload became unsustainable and I started hating working with myself as well as working in teams (FYI – there are not a lot of jobs out there for people who hate working both alone and in groups).
So, over the course of my career I’ve come up with some ways of making teamwork work for me, which I like to call “three ways to be a team player when you’re not”
Engage in (measured) conflict
Be the person who asks why. A study by Havard Business Review found that conflict and disagreements, when they’re well-managed and related to the work itself, can generate more creative solutions than those from a harmonious and agreeable team. Don’t be afraid to constructively challenge something everyone else agrees with – being the person willing to ask the hard questions helps prevent groupthink and false consensus.
Push for smaller teams
Teamwork legend J.Richard Hackman argues convincingly that no double digits should be a rule of thumb when putting together a team. The idea that more people means more resources and more ideas doesn’t always work in practice, it generally just means more complexity. So speak up and suggest that teams and committees be kept small. You probably won’t ever be able to get it down to a team of one, but I guarantee you’ll enjoy teamwork more when the group is small.
Make sure your team celebrates individualism
Individualism doesn’t have to be the opposite of teamwork. True collaboration happens when individual people put forward ideas that build on one another to create something awesome. But this can’t happen without the individual ideas existing first. Teamwork is undeniably important, but there’s also a lot to be said for the creative potential of individuals, too.