How being a team player kills individuality
Sometimes its better to squirrel a project away until it is ripe
How being a team player can kill individuality
I was inspired by a segment of Sesame Street that I watched with my 4 year old. The plot had one of the characters learning to “Stop and Think” before acting on personal desire to score points in a game or to do something out of enthusiasm. The message loud and clear was “losing control and doing what you want in the moment leads to exclusion from the team for not being a team player”.
Sesame Street “Stop and Think” Song from YouTube
In my former life as a product manager (PM), I had no choice but to stop and think about the team and the way they would receive my boundless energy, opinions, or actions.
As a junior PM I was constantly reminded to keep my personal opinions to myself and instead to facilitate the ideas put forth by the stake holders. I had to learn to find creative ways to integrate my common sense or personal expertise without rudely acting the know-it-all. The reason I had been hired had been because I was an expert in what our clients did and what our developers could do. One goal of a good PM is to always have the development team appearing in the best light. By this token, any accolades or wins were always thanks to the team effort or to the individual developer behind a given feature. My hand like Little Finger on Game of Thrones, was behind the scenes. I benefit if my team benefits but I am nothing without my team.
Work environments abound with this word “team player". This implies everything from “works well with others” to sharing credit for achievements across the team. PMs are the unsung heroes of any development team. If they do their job well, everyone looks good. They very often not only manage the product but indirectly manage the people bringing forth that product as well.
Narrowing focus and prioritization of the project falls on the product manager as does getting folk to meet their deadlines. For a team running at capacity, product and project managers and developers alike have no room for individuality. They must always think of inter group relations and of the product road map. Developers sometimes have it worst when caught in a cycle of endless Kanban tasks. Life becomes one of endless reaction to the task at hand with very little time for creative thought and action. Creativity to the most unfortunate team members can be limited to firefighting, providing band-aid solutions during emergency situations.
But if team members including PMs are not given the necessary allowances or time for individual contributions and if they are not encouraged in their individuality then how does a business foster an environment of creativity and new initiatives? Simply put, they don’t.
To collaborate as a team too early can result in a project scope with
- too many specifications
- too much brainstorming and not enough expertise
- misunderstanding of fundamental needs of client
- misplaced priorities
- premature limitations by naysayers
Individual actions on the other hand can provide a means to break through the complex or the inert. It is the rogue developer who decided to create a test site to explore a complex problem in her spare time OR it is the rogue PM who opted to scope out and wireframe the most complex want/need of a client previously considered inconceivable that push the boundaries set by prejudice and red tape to create new initiatives. Usually these types of actions result in a more realistic starting point to scope out a complex project.
These very acts of creativity also improve the general health and well being of the team at large by fostering individual talents and increasing individual moral, confidence, and feelings of ownership. The pride for a job well done should belong to the individual and be recognized by the team as a whole. The rest of the team can increase their respect and value for these individual members.
These stand out individuals who through their own initiatives have gone against the grain of the team are much later rewarded with promotions despite having not played by the rules. Think of your Senior Developers and Senior PMs, they definitely did not get there by laying low and playing to the team.
The team that does not value the individuality of its members is bound to fail. Go on Muppet Penguin on Sesame Street. Follow your passion and score!
Let individuals rise.
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D.M. De Alwis
