Why Teamwork Is Not For Everyone

Is teamwork a bad idea? It can be if the 20 - 60 - 20 rule applies in organizations, companies and teams. What the 20 - 60 - 20 rule applies to are the percentages comprising most workplaces. The top 20% of employees will be go-getters and high performers. The bottom 20% will be low performers and slow-getters. The remaining 60% in the middle will be the mediocre and average performers.

Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip says, "To mediocre minds, a brilliant idea and a dumb idea sound exactly the same. Every team will vote out the best ideas and the worst."

Forcing a high performer to work with a low performer simply for the optics of teamwork may be counterproductive. For the sake of workplace harmony, well-meaning but ill-informed managers trot out the "we're going to work in teams" philosophy because he or she once read an article touting the benefits of teamwork. But that same manager did not bother to explore other options and opinions.

Forcing your high performers to sit as equals on a team with slow performers is the most expedient way to irritate a high performer. As well, the low performers become increasingly frustrated by how quickly the team is attempting to move forward even though the "slow-getter" isn't up to speed yet. That one person feels rushed on this team. Meanwhile, the collective average in the middle simply sits by and watches as both the high performers and low performers battle for power on the team.

Unfortunately, the most influential people on the team and the most powerful are not necessarily the high performers. Because teams are all-inclusive, a team will not move forward without all of its members. Therefore the person who holds the team hostage becomes the most powerful person in the team. That is usually the person who doesn't get it the most.

Before you go thinking that teamwork is the answer and spend large sums of money on team-building exercises, maybe you should consider whether your place of business needs teams at all. Perhaps more would get done by leaving your people alone to do what they already excel at. Forcing people to join teams simply for the sake of inclusion is a bad idea.
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