bizMe

You know those personality tests you can take online? I’m always interested in them until about the twentieth question, and then I just lose interest. Not sure what that says about me . . . is there a “lazy” personality type?

Lucky for my short attention span, I recently stumbled across a 20-question online quiz from J.T. O’Donnell Career Insight Company, which focused on work styles, with a special emphasis on how people interact in groups. According to this quiz, I am an “Energizer” (and here I was calling myself lazy . . .), someone who thrives on competition and likes to see the big picture. Unfortunately, this can also cause me to come across as self-centered and pushy. As much as I hate to admit it, when working in groups, I do tend to be a bit over-zealous. When I’m excited about an idea—when that proverbial light bulb goes off and I think I have a solution to the task at hand—I’m sure I can come across as a bit of a know-it-all. And that is where my fear of teamwork stems from: I want to be liked, and I want to succeed. But I have no idea how to combine these two desires successfully.

I don’t think I’m alone in my consternation over teamwork. The workplace team can be a source of stress for many young women. “It’s just like high school in that there is always the slacker, the over achiever, the gossip who wants to just hang out instead of doing their job,” says Lila, 27. “The right group makes all the difference. Depending on who gets assigned to one of my projects, I either really look forward to working on it or I dread it. It’s just like picking teams in gym class.”

Gee, thanks, Lila. I was always picked last in gym class.

“Teaming” with possibilities
If you’re more of a lone wolf than a team player, take heed: learning to work effectively in a team is of vital importance for career success. Managers love teams, as a good group can achieve far more than an individual, thanks to a healthy combination of personalities and strengths. In a 2001 article for Kansas City Business Journal, consultant Quarterman Lee explains, “We only have to remember the feelings of playing with a winning sports team to recognize a power that mobilizes the best of talents and effort. Teamwork appeals to the higher and more effective motivators . . . (and) help(s) satisfy the individual’s craving for social interaction, and esteem and self-actualization.”

This may be true, but human nature and the current fragile employment climate can make teamwork a scary experience for some. Maneuvering through the spider web of personalities and egos can be difficult, especially for younger, newer members of a company. It’s easy to feel bullied by overbearing or bossy coworkers, or resentful of the slackers. You may be wary of taking too much of a leadership role due to your relative inexperience, or feel like you’re unfairly being handed the grunt work.

There is hope, however. By figuring out your ideal role in the group, and discovering ways to handle difficult personalities, you can turn conflict into an asset. Says Lee, “We often mistake an absence of overt conflict for effective teamwork. But conflict is natural, even desirable. If conflict is not visible, either people are thinking alike, or they are suppressing it. Neither situation promotes teamwork. Effective teams gain much of their power from divergent thinking, attitudes and experience. Without this variety, conflict is lessened, but the resulting decisions and actions are less effective.”

My first tip? Go take that quickie personality test. You’ll have a better idea where you fit in the grand scheme of things.

Back already? See, I told you it was quick. Now that we know where we stand, let’s look at some common issues that arise in a team environment.

Should you leave your ego at the coat check . . . or hang it on your chair?
It’s a common refrain: you’re on a team where one person gets all the credit, and that person also happens to be the member with the most trying personality. It’s like high school – the most popular girl was usually not the nicest, right? Sadly, that pattern is mimicked in the workplace. Certain personalities have a way of delegating all the hard work and taking all the credit. But if we’re getting real here, the egomaniac’s minions have to take some responsibility for the situation. There is a certain safety in allowing dominant personalities to stay dominant; by remaining in our comfort zones and grumbling about the inequity of the situation, we don’t have to own up to our personal shortcomings or insecurities.

Ego is an inherent part of the workplace. Think about popular success icons, like Donald Trump or Bill Gates. Neither of those guys is known for his docile personality or sweet disposition. Still, it’s hard to know if this is a chicken-or-egg situation—did they possess such domineering personalities from the get-go, or are they a result of extreme success? More importantly, how do you define success? Is being liked and respected of equal or greater importance to you as being financially or professionally successful—or could you care less about what people think? If you’re the type of person who doesn’t care about squashing people under your stiletto as you claw your way to the top, then more power to you. Ego doesn’t need to be a bad thing, and you have every right to operate in a way that feels appropriate to you. However, within a team environment, this type of behavior can backfire.

“I was working in a five-person team, and there was this one woman who treated us all like her slaves. It was supposed to be a peer-managed team, with no designated leader, and yet she came into the first meeting with a written agenda and assignments without consulting any of us. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, so we all went to our manager and asked for her to be removed from the team. I somehow doubt that this will help her come review time,” says Jess, a 30-year-old junior consultant.

The teammate in question sounds like what Rhoberta Shaler, PhD, calls a “rhino” in her book, Wrestling Rhinos: Conquering Conflict in the Wilds of Work. Rhinos “live in the ‘it-must-be-my-way’ camp and they behave from an ‘I’ll run you over if you get in my way’ philosophy,” she explains in an article for Hodu.com. According to Shaler, rhinos can be “tamed” but only by those who refrain from whining or making excuses. Instead, beat the rhino at her own game. Shaler recommends confronting the behavior without emotion, since bullying rhinos feed on any perceived weakness: “Learn to speak up at the first sign of wayward behavior. It takes strength to do so. Do it with no emotional taglines. Simply the facts.”

There are a ton of theories out there on how to best handle bullies in the workplace, but a common thread runs through them all—and that is to not let them get the best of you. Do this by staying calm in heated discussions and honing your acting skills. Like my mom always says, kill ‘em with kindness—and a healthy dose of condescension doesn’t hurt either.

Case in point: when President Obama was running for his first senate seat, he had a habit of calling his most threatening opponent by his first name. He’d address everyone formally—Mr. this, Congressman that—but with this particular fellow, he’d just call him “Blair.” I noticed that he used the same tactic recently in a verbal spat with a journalist. It’s extremely subtle, and extremely effective. He doesn’t get visibly angry; he stays calm; and yet he manages to put his opponent in his/her place. You can use a similar tactic with an overbearing or difficult teammate—the calmer you act, the better you’ll look, and the more ridiculous his behavior will seem.

Don’t get me wrong, though; not all ego-maniacs are bullies. In fact, a bossy, driven coworker can be your best asset on a team. Myra White, a Harvard professor and Strategic Talent Management Consultant, urges us to look at the silver lining of a potentially difficult personality in an article for Management-Issues.com: “ . . . Fellow team members need to see the value of outspoken, high intensity team members. Such team members can be real engines for team success. Often they are willing to do more work than others. Team members also should realize that on great teams everyone is a coach, which means that they must learn how to manage their fellow team members’ behavior and be willing to listen to members who challenge the status quo.”

And then there is the flip side…what if you are the one with the ego? It’s all about using your strong sense of self worth for good rather than evil. In their book, Egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (Or Most Expensive Liability), authors David Marcum and Steven Smith define a healthy ego as a potent combination of humility, curiosity and veracity. According to Marcum and Smith, the problems start when you are out for notoriety or acceptance rather than the greater good of the organization. To escape the trap of becoming too self-obsessed, try seeing the team as an extension of yourself—the better your group performs, the better it will reflect on you in the long run.

Subscribing to the “group ego” theory can help you relate to other members of your team, says Kathryn, an HR specialist in her late 30s: “My best advice for a positive team experience? Focus on how others are reacting to you, rather than how you are reacting to them.”

Finding your place
May, 34, loves teamwork so much that she focused on group dynamics when getting her Masters in Social Work. “Basically the idea is that when you are part of a group, consciously or subconsciously, everyone takes on a distinctive role,” she explains. “Some are natural leaders, whereas others fit themselves in to the needs of the group dynamic. But the great thing is, each role is actually necessary for the group to function. If everyone were a leader, conflict would arise and there would be little to no progress made. When people fulfill the diverse roles however, the dynamic formed allows the group to move forward and do work.”

The other advantage (or problem, as the case may be) with group dynamics is that your role can shift depending on the situation at hand. In your personal life, you might tend towards a dominant personality, but in a work setting, you could fall into a more subservient role due to the corporate hierarchy. And yet, in the same environment, a year later, you might end up being the leader. The people you’re partnered with affect your role as well—if they all happen to be slackers, you might end up taking on a more involved role than if you are grouped with a bunch of overachievers. This can be a positive thing, helping you figure out which role fits you best, and pushing you to strengthen unused abilities. Teams are a living, breathing social microcosm; a tiny version of high school, but with far more leeway in terms of your ability to change your social status.

Once you’ve worked in a variety of teams, you may discover that you are most comfortable in a specific role, which can be a double-edged sword. It’s wonderful to know your strengths, but in the working world, we don’t always get to choose our teammates. You might be a great leader, but what if you get paired with two other “leader” types? This situation can easily become an ineffectual power struggle, which leads us back to the ego question. This would be the time when leaving that ego at the coat check would be a good idea. Remember, you can still use the same qualities that make you a leader—drive, attitude, energy, inspiring—without being the actual leader.

In that same vein, it’s important to remember that every role on the team is important—yes, even the slacker (not that you should strive to be one, of course). Says May, “Everyone thinks the slacker of the group is a bad thing, but without the slacker, without the workhorse, no leader would need to emerge. The roles depend on one another to allow the group to function and progress.”

Square peg, meet round hole: getting stuck in a role that doesn’t fit you
Sexist as it may be, women are often pigeonholed into the “mediator” or “peacemaker” role. Penelope Trunk, The Brazen Careerist (who, incidentally, is also an Energizer—she’s the one who led me to the aforementioned quiz) speaks to this in one of her fabulous blog posts, where she describes a book she had read in college:

“(The book was) about how in the history of English literature, men related to each other through women . . . I remember thinking to myself that this is such a lame way to function and that only lame women would put up with this position in life. But look, here I am. And actually, it does not feel lame so much as useful,” she muses. “I can see that I have had this position at work a lot. Men who are getting along at work can talk about football and go to strip clubs together. But men who are not getting along at work do well to put a woman in between them. Women seem to be natural mediators.”

Mediators are certainly helpful in team situations, but when you’re trying to make a name for yourself in your organization, this can be a frustrating role—especially when “mediator” isn’t the type of personality you actually are. But then again, when you’re on a team that isn’t functioning, playing peacemaker can be the only way to save your collective butts. Mary, a 25-year-old marketing executive in Chicago, recently found herself in this tricky spot. “I actually see myself as a group leader. I tend to be very driven and dominant in my personal life . . . I was president of my sorority and always led the way in school teams. But here I am in my first job, where I am the youngest person on my team, and I find myself keeping my mouth shut while my older, male teammates act like idiots. They’re all so busy trying to one-up each other that all I can do is try and keep everybody on track, “ she laments. “I’m not comfortable in this role at all, but what can I do? There’s a hierarchy here, and I’m just not sure how to fight it. No one is going to take me seriously as a leader, so the only thing I can do is try to pick up the slack so we all don’t get fired.”

Unfortunately, there seems to be something inherently “male” about group dynamics, explains Megan McArdle on TheAtlantic.com. “There is a competitive male dynamic to groups that is completely different from the way female groups act,” she writes.

“ . . . Unless the group is overwhelmingly female, the dynamic of any mixed group always defaults to male, with women fading back into supporting conversational roles . . . men in groups are focused on their role within the group. Women in groups are focused on the group. Men gain status by standing out from the group; women gain status by submerging themselves into it—by strengthening the group, often at the expense of themselves.”

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; if women are better at conflict resolution, then they might be a dysfunctional team’s saving grace. Merrick Rosenberg, President & Chief Learning Officer of Team Builders Plus, a New Jersey-based leadership development and team building firm, says that while most people (understandably) avoid workplace conflict, those who can “help others to accept differences and better understand each other” play a key role in the health of an organization.

“Everything you do either adds to the workplace or takes away from it,” she explains. “It’s easy to step back and shy away from conflict or avoid difficult conversations, but in the end, you’ll be working in a culture filled with negativity and stress. People who step up and take personal responsibility for creating a positive and productive environment are the superstars that rise to the top of their organization.”

Keeping score: fragile ego 0, strong ego 1
Taking that proverbial step up can be treacherous when your ego is too fragile—a common problem for young women. Dr. Myra S. White, author of Follow the Yellow Brick Road: A Harvard Psychologist’s Guide to Becoming a Superstar, reasons that “men consider conflict a natural workplace event—part of the human condition. As a result they don’t take it personally and easily shrug it off. Male senior executives frequently like employees who stand up and fight for their ideas with their peers—though note that I say peers and not necessarily with (the executives themselves). Otherwise they question whether an employee believes in what they are advocating. Generally, playing the role of a peacemaker tends to label you as a passive player and not a winner. What women need to strive for is being respected which is different from being liked. It is the people who are respected that employers tend to promote.”

The subject of gender and age stereotypes in the workplace is fodder for another article, so for now, let’s leave it at this: if you naturally fall into a mediator or facilitator role, you can rest assured that your efforts won’t go unnoticed. You don’t necessarily need to be the loudest or most aggressive member of the team to get your way—like Gloria Steinem once said, “We’ve begun to raise daughters more like sons . . . but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.”

However—I am a strong believer that we are all individuals, gender theories and group dynamics be darned. If you find yourself stuck in a role due to your youth or gender, and that role feels awkward to you, don’t sit idly by. We are certainly affected by others’ perceptions of us, but it’s within our power to change those perceptions. Let’s put it this way—egos are like coats. When working in the heated environment of teams, it’s usually best to leave them at the door. But if things get chilly, feel free to keep that ego at the ready.