Back in undergrad, a professor asked my classmates and me to say how much we liked/didn’t like group projects. He said to rank them “from 1-5” so I ranked them “Zero,” and in case my meaning wasn’t clear, I added, “I hate them.” Then he put us students in three groups: one for the people like me who hated them, one for people loved them, and one for the people in the middle.
Guess which group got the A on our big group project? (Hint: “hating group projects” equalled “smart and hard working.”)
It’s no surprise that all of us who “hated” group projects didn’t actually hate collaboration. We just hated doing all the work while everyone else in the group mooched. So when we were all in the same group, we excelled.
Now that I’m years away from undergrad, I don’t “hate” group projects anymore. In fact, I’ve started seeking them out because I’m in a space where I get to work with people who are actually a team.
For example, this spring I started two podcasts with co-hosts. And I’m currently creating a whole summer of inventive services with my colleagues at the church where I work.
To me, the take away from my 180 on group projects, isn’t the obvious “group work can be good in the right circumstances.” Instead, my take away is that I had to proactively FIND the right circumstances.
To take the podcasts and summer series as examples:
With my co-hosts and my colleagues at church, I’ve seen their work ethics up close (and they’ve seen mine). We decided to collaborate because we knew we would all pull our weight and because we knew we were all equally invested in our project.
That’s a big difference from my school days of arbitrary groups where everyone wants something different (and maybe wants you to do the work for them).
What about you? How do you collaborate these days? (Hopefully more/better than in school…)
