A newfound sense of why to be a great team player

Strive Karadzangare | March 9, 2022

Mankind has been involved in some teamwork based activities since time immemorial. Long
back, we read in history books, men used to team up on hunting expeditions. However, the
concept of teamwork is still present in this modern age. In modern-day organizations of formal
employment, professionals continue to rely on teamwork as a strategy for delivering effective
outcomes. It is therefore, very important for almost everyone to understand the dynamics of
teamwork. The power of teamwork is continuously well spoken of by certain authors. For
example, James Surowiecki, in his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, gave a compelling account
that testifies to the power of teamwork and collaboration.

The effectiveness of teamwork

Citing an interesting example, James Surowiecki adeptly articulated, the importance of

teamwork, at a time of crisis. It was in 2003, when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
was first reported in China. After carrying out all the necessary precautionary protocols, the
World Health Organizations immediately started investigating the cause of SARS, reported
Surowiecki. To efficiently and effectively tackle the hefty task, they partnered with eleven
teams of laboratory scientists from different countries who would remotely collaborate on
uncovering the pathogen responsible for SARS.

The different teams of researchers made amazing progress because they collaborated well,
and had regular and fruitful correspondence. Surowiecki also mentioned that the teams that
were stationed in different countries would share critical new findings as well as insightful
ideas by means of daily teleconferences. They even freely exchanged lab samples that each of
them was working on. To that end, they really constituted a dynamic global team united by a
common cause and a mutual understanding, only separated by geographic factors. The
geographic factors, however, did not deter them, for they managed to pinpoint that a coronavirus
was the pathogen responsible for SARS, in just two weeks after commencing their research. Had
it not been for the successful teamwork approach used, it would have likely taken an
individual team of scientists, months or even years to achieve similar progress. Such is a great
testimony to the effectiveness of well executed teamwork.

From that account, we learn about the power of working in numbers. Given that each one of us
has their own peculiarities in thinking stemming from their prior exposures, each one of us is
likely to inject new perspectives during group brainstorming sessions. A team's brainstorming
will likely be richer and feature the kind of horizontal thinking, that culminates into quicker
innovation and problem solving. Still, however, it is not always the case in all team settings.
That very force to reckon with, can be the key catalyst of doom.

Teamwork is not always rosy

Differences in perspectives can work for good if constructively expressed. However, on the
other side of the picture differences in perspectives can lead to a breakdown of the group, if
not productively handled. It is quite sad to note that a group can be thrown in disarray when
others obstinately advocate for their ideas, while failing to acknowledge the ideas that are
offered by other group members. At times this may generally sap the energy of other group
members.

In other cases it is a lack of coherent industriousness displayed by one team member that
frustrates other team members. It can reduce the morale to work on a task.

Lessons from Netflix

Before I got to practically observe how teamwork can be corrupted by a few unwholesome
individuals, I managed to read up on the phenomenon in the book by Reed Hastings and Erin
Meyer entitled, 'No rules rules'. In his book, Hastings related about a time when he was forced
to cut down on his workforce during a crisis in his early days at Netflix. After pondering over a
criterion to use for selecting who to let go, Hastings and his management decided that they
would lay off a few employees who brought "negative energy"(See footnote) to the team. Along
with those they also let go of employees who did not perform any much beyond mediocrity i.e.
the sub-par performers. Reading the account, delivered an instant zap to my nerves. I thought
to myself that if I had been working at Netflix and delivering a sub-par performance in my work,
my career would have been in jeopardy.

Interestingly, the move by Hastings and his management team to lay off, the troublesome and
sub-par performing workforce bore fascinating results. Immediately after the laying off some
of the staff, there was in instant and somewhat magical boost in the morale of the workers
that remained at Netflix. As Hastings claimed, the remaining workforce, generally became
more productive at work and soon enough they managed to seal the void left by workers who
had been laid off.

"Negative energy" is contagious even if it comes from one person

I am tempted to exclaim that, "Negative energy" and poor performance are contagious!!! It
was only after the contaminating elements were removed that the rest of the employees at
Netflix started to perform a little bit better. Feels magical, doesn't it?

Although the outcomes seems purely magical, they are less ominous than they can be explained
using basic scientific evidence. Well, as explained in the book, Professor Will Felps, of the
University of New South Wales in
Australia, once conducted a fascinating study shedding light on that sort of contagious
behaviour. He formed several teams of four college students and asked each team to
complete a management task in 40 minutes. He promised some incentives for best
performing teams. He observed how the teams were doing on their task. However, he went a
step further to test the teams.

Unbeknownst to all other team members, Professor Felps had included an actor in each of the
teams, who would deliberately do different things to disrupt the smooth flow of team activity.
The actor would for example, slacken off and disengage from the group, by prioritising
personal tasks such as sending messages while totally ignoring the group. In some cases the
actor would utter unthoughtful and insulting statements to other group members. In some cases
the actor would vent out pessimistic utterances and complain that the shared task was
impossible.

Professor Felps keenly observed how at first all the groups looked and felt energetic until the
malicious actor started to infuse some "negative energy" into the groups, which ultimately led
to the breakdown of the groups or the mimicking of the jerky actor by group members who
reflexively began insulting and speaking abrasively of each other. Clearly, from the experiment,
the bad behaviour of only one was significant enough to spoil the whole group.

One person can make or break the team

That evidence, even though it was based on a partly synthetic experience, clearly altered my
thinking. My team contributions have greater significance than, I ever realised before. If I infuse
"negative energy" sufficient enough to irritate the team, the instinctive pathway that most groups
take is breaking down. However, that may hinder the teams progress and ruin the team's
reputation when they finally fail to deliver their mandate. The new perspective got me thinking
about my previous contributions in team settings.

I realised that my previous contributions in team settings, featured a mix of excellent, not so
excellent and terrible offerings. In the accounts in which I performed in a suboptimal way, I can
implicate a failure to attune to the common vision of the team as the chief contributor. In some
of those cases there wasn't a clearly stated common framework or vision among the group
members such as when we were working to solve an unfamiliar problem or when were
 undertaking a task that none of us had done before. So the atmosphere would be filled with a
lot of disconnected ideas offered by everyone.

In situations like these, that is when you get to identify true leaders. Leaders, who rise to the
occasion to medicate the potentially divisive differences. They are usually people who see
beyond the warring perspective and is able to merge the perspectives into a beautiful collage
in an ideal case or at least filter out the least feasible ideas, by way of elegant explanation and
persuasion. When successfully done, the roles of these leaders will likely restore the morale of
everyone in the team. Before you know it, the team will be back on track again. But again, it is not
all rosy. Some team members may, at worst, object efforts by the team leaders, ad hoc or
otherwise. They may continue to obstinately refuse to conform to the trajectory of the team.

That, no doubt, brings "negative energy" to the team. Circumstances like that are inevitable. From
our previous experiences we may know of people like that. They can be quite an inconvenience.
However, I don't intend on inciting you to start identifying people who exhibited these trait before.
You too may have exhibited similar traits before. Worse yet you may exhibit them in the future.

Remembering that fact, may justifiably cripple some of us with anxiety. Such is life, these
things happen. Instead of narrow-mindedly shuddering of the likelihood of it occurring a better
thing to do would be to learn to avoid it, by becoming more self-aware and working on your
mindset. By adopting the right attitude and remembering the perspectives from Reed Hastings
book, you may reduce the odds of exhibiting retrogressive behaviour in teams settings. Myself, I
am not exempted from such. Even as I write, I hope to engrave the lessons on my mind for future
use.

NOTE: The term "negative energy" is used in this article to denote bad attitudes, behaviours
and personality traits that may be exhibited by team members that may be at worst retrogressive
to the whole group, and may negatively influence every other team member.

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