The Tribune

By ALICIA WALLACE

In school, group work makes an appearance at a particular moment, and it never seems to go away. For some, it seems like a good idea while others are immediately stressed by the mere idea of having to work with peers, some of whom may regularly get significantly better or worse or have certain habits that do or do not bode well for the group.

It becomes a norm for students to complain whenever group work is assigned, especially when students do not have the gift of being able to organise themselves into groups. It feels like a setup. For some, it may even seem like the end of the world. A very real outcome — a grade that affects the grade point average — is partly dependent on other people.

Most groups have at least one slacker. This person does very little, if anything at all, knowing that other group members will do whatever it takes to get a passing grade. Sometimes there is one person who is determined to get an A, even if it means they do all of the work themselves. There is often the person who only wants to make the slides, and there are the people who definitely do not want to have to present in front of the class. There is work to do, and there is negotiation to do about how that work is done.

When students complain about group work, teachers say some version of, “Well, you’ll have to do it in the real world, so you may as well get used to it now.” This is one of the ways that we are introduced to collaboration. It is a cold, hard reality, so here you go, and no, there will be no training or discussion on how to approach this new and difficult task now or in the future. Good luck!

We need more than luck to survive group work. Collaboration is a practice and a skill that we need to learn. Practice is useful, but there are basic principles that need to be clear in an environment in which team work is required. There need to be explicit discussions on:

Purpose. It is a given that everyone in the team needs to know what is being done. It is just as important to know the point of the work that everyone will do. What is the expected outcome? What is the change that will take place as a result of this work? Who will experience and benefit from that change?

Motivation. Different from purpose, this is the often elusive why. Sometimes teams clearly state the share motivation for carrying out the work. Often missing is the motivation of each team member. Someone is interesting in learning throughout the process, and someone wants to get a good grade or a raise, someone else wants to leverage the output in a proposal submission for another opportunity. Different people are driven in the same work by different motivations. This can heavily impact the way they go about the work.

Values. What do all of the team members believe about the world they are working within? Why are they interested in the problem to which this group work is a response or interruption? What is true, for each person, about working with other people?

Complementarity. A strong team is one that is diverse and has a range of strengths and skills. The team members complement one another, each bringing an element that would not be there without their participation.

Honesty. Being on a team that does not intentionally practice honest is difficult. People need to be able to say when they are struggling, when they have not completed tasks, and when they do not find contributions to be up to par. Silence around mounting problems causes more problems. From the beginning, people who are collaborating need to decide how they will communicate, including tools and frequency. They also need to have a clear way to handle disagreements. This is not the same as “agreeing to disagree” or rushing to a “resolution.” It means having the ability to state different points of view and full discuss them, where needed, in order to see the weak points in the work being done together and the opportunities to improve.

Valuing contributions. For many, it has become easy to be a cog a wheel, performing necessary functions with little thought in the process or commitment to the outcome. It makes a difference when team members not only value the contributions that others make, but value their own work. It is important to be attentive to the time and effort it takes to complete tasks and to assign value to them. Not only is the final product going to be of value, but all of the inputs have distinct value and stand as evidence of the capabilities of the people who had a part in turning them into the final product.

Roles. To complete the work ahead, what needs to be done? Who is best equipped to do it? Everyone sharing every task generally leads to a messy workspace and a waste of time. Identify skills and capacity within the team as quickly as possible in order to assign roles. While it may seem unnecessary, it is helpful to have descriptions for each role so everyone is clear on what each person is doing, in addition to their own tasks.

Follow through. One of the most destructive elements in any collaboration is the failure of a team member to follow through on an agreement. Team members need to be able to trust one another. When one person’s part of the work depends on someone else’s there can be significant delays in submitting deliverables when any person does not follow through. Honesty and clear communication are required here, particularly when a team member first starts doubt that they can deliver on time. Everyone needs to know what is happening, what is or may be delayed, and how others can step up to maintain the workflow.

Landscape. Though it is almost always more work, people tend to try to reinvent the wheel. On the other side, there are many people who steal the work of others. Before beginning work, teams need to take a look at the environment in which they are working. Name the thematic areas of the work and identify those that are already in that space. Who has information that may be useful? Who has experiences from which the team can learn? Who can be invited to join the team? Who might serve as advisors? Understand the space and the role of the team in it.

We will always need to build, join, and strengthen teams. Working together is a requirement, no matter the field of work or areas of interest. People are stuck in groups they would prefer to leave more often than not, and this is largely because there is no orientation and there are no guidelines for participation in team work. In this case, people do not learn just be doing as much as they develop aversions which lead to starting with less-than-desirable attitudes. When schools and workplaces refuse to do the work of teaching healthy, useful ways to work in teams, team members need to take the initiative have conversations and set ways of working early in their projects. It is an investment of time and energy that will pay off, over and over again, all throughout the process.