The whole point of team work is to to work as a team. But clearly, some people didn’t get that memo. They’re the ones who expect the wheels to keep turning even while they’re planting both their feet firmly on the brakes. One guy, described as a “typical, rich daddy’s boy,” thought he could get away with doing less than the bare minimum. Boy, was he wrong.
The student he was teamed up with for a university project has told how ‘Richie Rich’ lost more than just a few marks, thanks to an act of malicious compliance. It turns out that after ruining his entire degree, the once-wealthy guy is now stuck doing minimum wage jobs, and learning that sometimes, only hard work pays off.
Team work makes the dream work, but only if everyone plays their part
Magnific (not the actual photo)
A typical, rich daddy’s boy has learned a hard lesson, after his laziness cost him everything
Iftikhar Alam / Magnific (not the actual photo)
dasun404malaka / Magnific (not the actual photo)
irrmago / Magnific (not the actual photo)
myoceanstudio / Magnific (not the actual photo)
Karl Joshua Bernal / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
How working in a team can benefit you in ways you might not realize
Teamwork is about so much more than working together to get things done faster. Science has proven that there are loads of benefits when it comes to collaborating with other people. One is that it can boost brainpower.
“We found that groups of size three, four, and five outperformed the best individuals,” explains Dr Patrick Laughlin a researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “[We] attribute this performance to the ability of people to work together to generate and adopt correct responses, reject erroneous responses, and effectively process information.”
And the more diverse the team, the better.
Research shows that teams made up of people with different backgrounds, genders, ages, ethnicities tend to be more creative and efficient than those where the members are very similar. That’s because diverse team members each have different and unique ways of seeing things or solving problems. When they all come together, there are likely to be loads of ideas and solutions to choose from.
One study, conducted by Tufts University, found that interacting with individuals who are different forces people to be more open minded, and to expect that reaching consensus will take effort.
“Most people think success comes from surrounding yourself with others that are like you,” says Frans Johansson, author of The Medici Effect. “But true success and breakthrough innovation involves discomfort.”
Discomfort pushes you to grow, explains Johansson. “This is where difference of experience, opinion, and perspective come in. Diversity is a well-documented pathway to unlocking new opportunities, overcoming new challenges, and gaining new insights.”
Being part of a team can also help your personal growth. You’ll probably learn new concepts, ways of thinking and maybe even some fun facts while interacting with your group. And it’s not unlikely that you’ll learn something about yourself in the process.
“We all have blind spots about our behaviors and strengths that we may be unaware of, and feedback from a team member can expose them,” notes Dr Susan McDaniel, a psychologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
The expert adds that you’re maybe not such a great listener. “That’s a skill you can grow in, and then take home and use to improve your family interactions,” McDaniel says.
According to the Atlassian.com, you’re more likely to take risks when working as part of a team. And that’s because there are people who have your back, or can catch you if you fall. Even more importantly, more risk-taking can lead to more brilliant ideas.
But the site adds that the most disruptive ideas often come from small teams, “possibly because larger teams argue more, which can get in the way of coming up with those big ideas.”
“He did that all on his own”: people weren’t surprised by the outcome
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