To Team or Not to Team

Some people say that collaboration is the key to success. Others believe working alone is more efficient. This past week, I have read articles and participated in activities to reach the decision of working alone or with a group of people on the magazine. This decision is extremely important and can determine whether my magazine is successful.  

My initial plan was to work alone on the project, but I was genuinely surprised at what I found in the articles regarding teamwork, especially regarding what really makes a team successful. In one article, Team Building and Group Dynamics: Creating and Fostering a Culture of Teamwork Requires Trust, Collaboration, and Accountability, a team of forty skilled individuals were put together to work for Microsoft for a six-month period (Becker, 2015). The team’s leader utilized the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team to “match up each teammate’s personalities and encourage healthy conflict”. The result: each teammate felt respected and heard and worked harder than they normally would. While personality matching was something I already found to be important, I did not realize healthy conflicts allow teams to grow. I tend to avoid conflicts as I fear most are negative and they tend to be a hassle, but realizing they can make teams stronger and make people feel heard made me have a slightly more positive perspective on working with others. 

In another article, The Effect of Personality Type on Team Performance, the effect of differing personalities in a team is also demonstrated (Bradley, 1997). Two teams were given a specific information system (IS) software to make. One team consisted of “complimenting, balanced MTBI personality types”, and the other consisted of clashing, unbalanced personalities. The second team took “twice as long to complete the software” and it was only of average quality. This demonstrates the risk of forming a team that does not have good chemistry in terms of personality; the team becomes dysfunctional and takes longer to complete tasks, and fails to produce quality results. This deterred me from choosing to work with others; I worry that if I am not as compatible with them as I originally thought, our work will not be of the quality we need and we will not be as efficient as we would be working alone. Although I am a very extroverted person, others may take advantage of this and not work, or be too overwhelmed and our efficiency could decrease. This anxiety is not a burden I wish to carry when working on such an important project. 

Working with and learning about others in the class also helped inform my decisions. In a social media analysis activity, I analyzed the Instagram accounts of the two people I would consider working with. I am close to both, so their accounts did not surprise me. Both accounts showed that my peers were both friendly and open to being with others, as their feeds had many pictures featuring friends and loved ones. They also appeared to be innovative and somewhat creative, as both are in some form of the arts. These are all traits I value highly in potential partners. However, considering I am already good friends with each, I am not sure I want to risk clashing on the project and damaging our friendships, or appearing to be too controlling to them. Even though I am flexible, I have specific ways of doing certain things, and usually have a specific vision for what I want my work to look like. This could cause issues if one of them comes up with an idea I find to be too unsatisfactory to work around. 

In another activity where we were asked to rank items we would use if lost at sea, I scored significantly lower (better) alone than in a group. I noticed that, while my team did bring up many interesting points and perspectives, trusting my knowledge and instinct was what ultimately produced better results. I also noticed that it took much longer to work together and reach a consensus than it did when I worked by myself. Usually, my time management is easier when I work alone, as it gives me room to think clearly and reach decisions. This is another advantage of being on my own. 

Practicality is also a huge issue when working with a group. Considering the current pandemic, if one student is absent or must switch to online learning, communication becomes harder. Additionally, there may be days where it is much easier to work with each other in person due to the nature of the work. Generally, sharing files, expressing ideas, and splitting work tends to be stressful, time-consuming, and overall impractical. This is not efficient when working on something that takes up a large portion of our grade. 

Ultimately, working alone is what suits me best. On my own, I will get more work done faster, and it will likely be of higher quality since I will be able to execute my visions however I need to without having to consult others. I choose to take on the magazine by myself.