Does teamwork really work?
January 9, 2018
By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc. / LMMiami.com
- Let’s get the snark out of the way first.
- If you want something done, do it yourself.
- If you want something gridlocked, put a committee in charge.
- A camel is a horse designed by committee.
- Groupthink.
- Despite its bad press, teamwork and its cousin, collaboration, are pervasive buzzwords in the corporate world.
- Teamwork is great to disseminate responsibility in such a way that nobody can individually be thrown under the bus in case something goes wrong.
- Throughout my long and winding career in the marketing, advertising and editorial rackets I’ve partaken of hundreds of attempts at teamwork that were anything but.
- Most of these attempts began by blatantly breaking the #1 rule of brainstorming: the notion that no idea is a bad idea, that no idea should be frowned upon.
- It was sad to see how, most of the times, browbeating and eyerolling became the norm immediately.
- A bunch of people in a room just trying to intimidate one another.
- Pissing contests.
- Turf wars.
- In some cases, it all becomes a text book case of The Abilene paradox.
- Don’t know what the Abilene Paradox is?
- Google it.
- It is fascinating.
- You’ll be surprised at how many times you’ve experienced it firsthand throughout your life.
- It basically consists of a bunch of eager-to-please individuals who, for the sake of not rocking the boat, pretend to agree on something they all secretly disagree with.
- Peer pressure combined with groupthink at its weirdest.
- Good-intentioned folks “picking their battles” and acting against their will simply because they don’t think it is an a opportune political maneuver to raise their voice.
- Focus groups anyone?
- Mind you, collaboration can produce great outcomes though.
- The Bible, for instance, arguably the most important work of literary fiction ever written, is a massive oeuvre of teamwork.
- Dozens, if not hundreds of scribes and scholars making their selfless contributions throughout generations to shape the myths and morality of Judeo-Christian civilization.
- Storytelling at its best.
- Yeah, it is a gigantic compilation of make-believe yet it still is, at least until the advent of the internet and wikipedia, the most ambitious treatise of ethics, literature, fact and fiction known to man.
- And woman.
- To be continued next week.