Are you a team player?
Do you support others?
Do you work well in groups?
Do you believe that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts?
Well then, congratulations! You’re about to lose at a little game called “getting ahead in life and business!”
Think about it: how many movies, TV shows, books and news stories drill into our heads the whole “one person can make a difference” message? How many times do we focus on the star player on a sports team, or the lead singer in a band? How often do we focus on a single figurehead, be it a CEO, President or Prime Minister? We focus on breakout stars in movies. Solo acts springing from bands. Fan-favorite characters from ensembles.
People will always give more praise to one member than the group as a whole.
Sometimes it’s deserved, like when you’re pulling the weight of your entire team. Or if one person is already a standout before they enter the group. But regardless of the situation, the whole is not judged by the sum of its outputs, its parts, or even its strongest member: it is judged by its most interesting member.
Organizations don’t promote teams; they promote individuals. Similarly, an entire team will not get fired at once (usually). Though we may work in groups to do things better than we could solo, the actual effects of working with others are quite malleable. For example, let’s take two of the greatest music acts of the 20th century: Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
Now, we could argue till the cows come home over who had the greater impact on pop culture, had better songs, and so on, but here’s what we’ll focus on: Elvis was one dude, while The Beatles were four.
Let’s assume that at the height of their respective popularities, Elvis and The Beatles each commanded a concert fee of around $100,000 per show.* That means that Elvis made $100,000 per show, while each of the Fab Four made $25,000 per show. Ah! But what about the backup musicians, roadies and techs that Elvis used? Consider that The Beatles had the roadies and techs, along with (possibly) some backup musicians. And since Elvis was the marquee name, the people doing musical accompaniment made less than if they were in part of a band. Elvis would never join The Beatles, since that would make him lose money. But any of The Beatles would want to go solo, since that would help them to earn more.
So in short, it’s bad to be in a band if you’re a singer, but it’s great if you’re a drummer.
Teams will always work in the favor of the weakest link (and drummers are not the weakest link – as a drummer myself, I refute the notion of that idea); the other members will need to contribute more to bring the work to their usual level. The higher-end achievers, meanwhile, suffer from working with others, as their own efforts are diminished by sharing in the accolades of others.
If you’re looking to stand out from others, working in a team is the worst way to do it: you have to share and contribute, compromise and reduce your overall contribution. Working on a team means that you have less work that you need to do, but that also turns into less work that you’ll get credit for. And ultimately, everyone on the team is working alone, anyway.
Teams will assign tasks to their different members, and although there will be some crossover in the final work, the plan is that everyone plays to their strengths. And while working in a group can help to inspire or excite its members, it won’t do much to change their overall output. So instead, contributions are limited so that even with a single output, group members can point to different parts of it and claim it as their own.
Working in a team is a difficult task, one that can ultimately offer little reward. And although it can be a necessity at times, it’s better in the long run to shoot for being a solo act.
* Number made up by me for example purposes
