Teamwork and Leadership

It has been an interesting and frustrating week. I certainly don't want to relive the whole thing here, just share a couple of observations.

One of the highlights of the week was a visit with a professor whose classroom my husband and I sat in 26 years ago at Tristate University in Angola, Indiana. After over 30 years as a professor and with three years to go until retirement, he is still enthused about his work. That was a blessing in itself. As he shared some of the current projects in the Tristate engineering department, he used the word "team" several times to describe the approach. I shuddered and was glad I escaped academia before the emphasis on teamwork in education took hold. There were few times I was asked to serve on a team during my early education. More recently, I took a graduate library science class and was assigned to do a team project. It was a source of high stress as we sought to coordinate schedules and efforts. The class was on organizational management and as a reaction against the team project I did my research paper on individualistic versus collectivistic cultures in the workplace. I much prefer to take responsibility for a project and do it myself than to use the team approach.

Dinner with the professor was Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, I discovered that management has zeroed in on something I do and is working on ways for it to be done better. As a first step, they've adjusted the format. This was disturbing to me. Should not those most affected by changes be involved in the process of planning those changes? As someone responsible for implementing the changes, why aren't I part of the leadership team? Why am I being informed of the changes via a general announcement?

Obviously, there's inconsistency in my attitude. Am I a team player or not? I'm still working on the answer to that question. I think it has to do with whether or not the project is too much for one person to handle and how teamwork is managed. Group grocery shopping drives me crazy. If there are two of us working together to fill one grocery cart, it seems to me that one of us is superfluous. One can quickly make decisions and fill the cart. Two will end up discussing which brand of yogurt to buy and whether we really need the Twinkies. If both have opinions, my philosophy is to give each a grocery cart, assign general categories of responsibility, and cut out all the negotiations. Buying groceries for a household does not require a team but if it's going to be approached as a team project, find a way to divvy it up into individual projects.

On the other hand, the graduation party we had back in May was more than I could handle and I was glad to team up with two other families for it. I became a team member, discussing details, measuring how strongly each felt about certain aspects of the event, reaching compromises, and dividing up tasks in order to do more together than we could do apart. After all the parties were over and my graduate sank exhausted into the clutter of gifts and memorabilia, the reward for our work was her contented sigh as she commented that she and her buddies had the best party of all. It was teamwork that did it.

Back to the grocery store analogy, what I encountered this week was the discovery that while I was out filling my cart, someone had changed the menu without telling me. When I signed up as a shopper, I was agreeing to a particular set of expectations. If the expectations are changing, I'd like to be involved as part of the meal-planning team. I may not be interested in the job if I have to visit specialty shops every week to seek out elusive ingredients added to my list by people who don't shop.

Some things require teamwork. I like being on teams with worthy goals and good management where I can find a role to play. I don't mind managing teams if all the members are interested in working together and listening to each other. I'm uncomfortable on teams where the team members are assigned tasks at the whim of management without involvement in the decision-making process.

I protested Wednesday's management decision and a team meeting has been scheduled for next Wednesday. It remains to be seen whether I can continue as part of the team. Once again, relationships get difficult, but they are still worth the trouble.