An Old Friend Returns to A4A, Part 3: Working With Everyone Else

Vitiis nemo sine nascitur ("No one is born without faults." - Horace)  

A challenge and a reward in anything one does involves the necessity of working with others. Some people have this belief that they can and need to do everything on their own, some believe that others can't do things as well as them, and few people realize that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, and one for helping others, as Audrey Hepburn once said. 

As we covered last time about myths of "The Field", today we're going to look at some of the wonders, challenges, and rewards of working with other people. Whether it's in a mixed expatriate environment at a large NGO, a small group of peers in your school, or even when collaborating virtually, you will inevitably need to work together with others for your shared objectives and goals.

You don't even need cultural barriers to find common frustrations when working with other people; every individual brings their skills, personality, understanding, and methodology to the mix. In an ideal setting, everyone would know exactly what their role is and what to do. In practice, this is not the case.  Let's look at some examples and reflect on some of these: 

Case 1: The Model United Nations Forum and The Scene-Stealer Jennifer was a star member in her high school MUN club, and brought these same skills to her college MUN club in her very first semester, impressing the senior members. She had a very good eye for organization, managing, and was very ambitious. Jennifer was also very disliked by her second semester, and ended up not being welcomed or even wanted by her fellow peers, leading her to leave the club by her second year to the delight of everyone else.

How could this happen when someone is hypercompetent and has excellent skills? The answer is that she micromanaged and had no faith in her team for her specific forum during one event. She took over all the duties that normally required 2-3 assistants to help with participants, working with admin, and managing her own designated duties, completely ignoring her teammates who left to wander around and griped that they had nothing to do. Worst of all, she didn't even know their names, but they certainly remembered hers when the gossip and official complaints were made.

Jennifer took the feedback negatively and said that nobody was doing anything and that she had to do it all by herself, not realizing that she simply spearheaded everything without getting anyone else's input, let alone caring if they had any. This led to widespread resentment and teaches us a few things.

When working with others, it doesn't matter if you are smarter or more experienced, what matters is that you know how to play nice and play well with others. There is no point in having an entire basketball team if you are going to play offense and defense yourself, and the same goes for any project you are involved in with your peers. 

Even if you can carry the entire team on your shoulders, why would you do that? 

For starters, it's unsustainable: if you don't empower people, you risk disempowering them and in the event you leave, get sick, or reassigned, you leave them with more work and difficulties because they aren't just deprived of a chance to work with you as a team, they are deprived of working with each other too. 

A good rule of thumb is to remember to pass the ball and get familiar with your team. If they don't feel like they're contributing in spite of being paid, they will end up wasting their potential. If you can do something on your own but you see your colleagues could do it almost as good, work together and pass the buck without worry about taking credit for it, and acknowledge and encourage their contributions. You will not only make them feel like they're doing something, but they'll like you a lot more by seeing them instead of saying nothing and letting them feel invisible and unwanted. 

Case 2: The Load and The Accounting Project Jace was assigned to an accounting project with four other students who were already friends, but didn't know anything about him. As Jace was shy, he took the approach of saying that he will do whatever they ask of him and assist if they have further requests. Jace ultimately ended up doing nothing and ended up confused because his teammates expected him to know what to do and got frustrated when he kept asking questions, telling him that he was wasting their time when they should be doing their individual contribution to the assignment.

The other students in the team saw Jace as lazy and freeloading, while Jace saw them as unfriendly and hostile to him trying to get help knowing what to do and how to do it.  This is a case of extremely poor communication and focus on deliverables, but absolutely no consideration for team building. You can focus on deliverables, but you should never forget to build your team's individual members up as much as you build up the core team. Most people have a hard time verbalizing and elaborating on exactly what they need, and others in turn are not mind readers. If there is a disconnect, it is entirely your responsibility as both individuals and as a team to bridge that gap, otherwise, future collaboration efforts can risk being compromised by petty interpersonal politics. 

There is a tendency to judge people if you don't understand them, whether they are very different or when they appear to be exactly like you. In practice, most people, even if from the same town and cultural heritage, are uniquely dispositioned to think and act according to their individual experiences, not just to social conditioning. If you for example were Indonesian from Jakarta, just because someone else is from there doesn't mean they had the same experience or values as you--they could have been part of an entirely different tax bracket and grew up in a neighborhood your family advised you to stay away from, and so they don't have the same love for your hometown as you! 

Don't ever assume someone should know something, or that they don't know anything. Instead, assume positive intentions and difficulty in communication, seeking to understand them while helping them to understand you afterwards. A little extra effort in interpersonal skills leads to much happier outcomes working together and with deliverables.

Case 3: The Pack Mule Erin and her team were assigned to do some research prior to being deployed into the field for monitoring and evaluation training. Being the kind and understanding person she is, she made it a point to help others understand when they couldn't comprehend some of the guidelines and instructions, and went out of her way to personally assist them with each of their difficulties.

By the time research was done and they were in the field, Erin was completely drained and unable to do her part for the rest of the assignment: she had given so much of herself to the team that she forgot to take care of herself. Worse: the team ended up depending on their individual relationships with her rather than with each other and as a whole, so they struggled to build a team dynamic with each other and without her, causing delays in the project. 

When working with a team, one should in equal measure ask what they can do for the team just as much as they ask what the team can do for them--both must be considered, otherwise, both lead to unequal participation, disappointed expectations, and poor team growth. As always, figure out appropriate boundaries and assert them at the beginning, or feel them out and adjust accordingly due to different personalities interpreting the aims of a task at hand differently and having their own designated duties. 

If you are too focused on yourself and not the team, you won't have a good relationship with your team. If you are too focused on the team and not yourself, you will burn yourself out and carry the load for everyone else as poor Erin did. If you and everyone else communicate effectively and remember that you're all in this together, you can all bring each other up or drag each other down. 

Conclusion Remember that you and everyone else are always a work in progress. If you treat everything as an exercise and an experiment, you will not beat yourself up or others for not being perfect. When you judge others for their perceived screw-ups or yourself for not having the experience or skills to do well individually or as a team, you don't give anyone--including yourself--the necessary support, patience, openness, and flexibility needed to build yourself and your team into All-Stars.  Next: Pausing, Not Quitting