Too Much Working Together

Earlier in my working career, the majority of organizations expected work from their employees to be performed in solitude. Employees had designated cubicles or offices in which they could focus upon the assigned tasks at hand. Advantages and disadvantages to working by oneself are debatable, but one thing was for certain. At the end of the day, it was quite clear who was an asset to the company and who was not. Rewards and punishments were easy to assign and high-performers were individually recognized for the work they completed.

In the past 30 years, however, there has been a cultural shift in the workplace leading to the creation of the team-oriented work environment.  Since each employee has strengths and weaknesses, it stands to reason that a team comprised of different individuals should collectively be more competent than any single worker, but theory and reality are two entirely different creatures.

Collaboration can work well for large organizations with adequate resources; such was my experience while working for GE. But for a smaller business, it can often be a hindrance for several reasons. Large and small businesses alike have to deal with issues that may arise from a clash of personalities in a team environment, but larger organizations are better equipped to avoid such clashes by providing opportunities to redistribute teams. If Tom doesn’t get along with Kim, perhaps Tom should be in a task force with Ellen and Joe instead. Lacking in personnel, smaller organizations don’t have that option.  

Additionally, larger organizations can provide designated spaces for team meetings with offices and conference rooms that a smaller company may not possess. Studies have found that over 70% of employees routinely waste 15 minutes just looking for a space to hold their meeting. That’s not just 15 minutes of wasted time; it’s 15 minutes multiplied by each employee within the team, resulting in hours of paid time with zero productivity.

However, the challenge with collaboration goes much deeper. Despite the best intentions, collaborative efforts frequently punish the top-performing employees. The brightest and most capable of employees find themselves hampered by their team, struggling to explain why a technique is valuable or how a goal can best be achieved. In the time it takes to convince the rest of the team to agree with the course of action that should be taken, a high-performing employee could have completed a task on his or her own three times over. What’s worse, because of their superior ability to perform, when this kind of employee is involved in a collaborative effort, they are often recruited for additional collaborations.

Being asked to be more involved sounds as though it should be an honor, but that’s hardly the case when it involves increased demands, additional investment of time, and decreases their ability to be personally effective in their individual tasks — and all without additional compensation. Evidence shows that top-performers frequently become so burned out by the demands of collaborative efforts that they leave the organization, or they choose to stay, but spread their growing apathy for an organization which demands so much, but rewards so little.

Remember the solo performer from decades ago who was rewarded for his or her high performance? Because of the collaborative nature of teams, our top-performing employee is no longer rewarded for a job well-done, and whereas the employee of several decades ago might have retreated to the sanctity of an office for a few moments of unencumbered solitude, today’s employee often doesn’t have that option. According to the New York Times, 70% of employees inhabit open-plan offices in which there are no private spaces despite the fact that studies show that open-plan offices make workers “hostile, insecure, and distracted.” Additionally, open office environments lead to 50% more mistakes, meaning that the time it takes to complete a task is doubled.

In essence, it isn’t teamwork itself that’s to blame so much as the improper implementation of the collaborative concept. True teams can and do work effectively on many levels. Too often, however, teams are given no real direction as to how tasks are to be completed and, like wolves in a pack, they spend as much time arguing to figure out their roles within the team as they do actually working toward their common goal.

In order to make the collaborative effort worthwhile, organizations should implement minor changes that would enable teams and individuals to both complete the work efficiently and be rewarded for their contribution. Simple changes such as providing both public meeting spaces and private work spaces allow employees to have a designated place to collaborate as a team, but also give them the opportunity to retreat to private offices when they need to buckle down and complete an assigned task without coworker distraction.

Organizations bent on continuing collaborative efforts should also utilize metrics to single out the top-performing individuals and recognize them accordingly in reviews, basing bonuses and raises upon both their individual performance along with the performance of their team. Additionally, companies should give high-performing employees permission to decline requests for help or, at the very least, to limit the time they spend helping their coworkers. 

Collaboration isn’t the enemy of the office environment, but poorly implemented collaboration causes more harm than good, punishes the best employees, and ultimately creates additional and unnecessary stress that can be avoided with better management, clearer communication, and a greater understanding of employees’ needs.