High Performers Often Hate Group Work
How to Build Teams They Actually Want To Work In
From Dr. Tricia
I was in statistics class. The teacher announced that we would be conducting a study and writing it up–with a partner. I instantly assessed the talent in the room, raced to the front, and asked a stranger if she would work with me. It was the only time in my academic career I had equal collaboration. It’s also how I met my best friend.
Most high performers have learned to hate teamwork. They value collaboration and relationships, but they’ve learned that ‘teamwork’ usually means carrying slackers while everyone gets equal credit.
To be fair, when I asked one of my kindest, most diplomatic clients about whether she liked group work in school, she laughed first. And then she said, “yes, I liked it, but maybe that’s because I just took the reins and told everyone what to do.”
Over the years, I’ve noticed a juxtaposition between what high performers say they hate and what they want to be part of. Repeatedly, I hear them say, “I’d love to be in a position where I can work with really smart people.” Giving them the opportunity to do that may be one of the lowest cost talent retention strategies that exists.
Why Teams are Often Painful for High Performers
Groupthink
The obliteration of critical thought is painful for a High Performer to witness. While it is normal for humans to want agreement and consensus, the pursuit of unanimous thought at the expense of logic demoralizes High Performers. They are left to deal with the tension of either ignoring the pain of irrational conclusions or speaking up to debate them. If they are the only ones pointing out the flaws in logic, the decision-making and diplomatic thin-slicing required for helpful interjections becomes exhausting. However, if they don’t speak, they may be left to pick up the pieces of bad decisions.
Social Loafing
Everyone assumes that someone else will take responsibility for thinking, responding, or executing. Action slows and the High Performer is left with the choice about whether to pick up the slack.
“Dr. Tricia, their strategy isn’t going to work. Let me rephrase. They don’t have a strategy. But every time I point out that the current actions are going to have suboptimal results, they volunteer me to drive the initiative. I don’t want to take on another thing by myself; maybe I just let them fail and learn?”
“Safe” Leadership
Rather than address poor behavior one-on-one, leaders who want to avoid conflict opt for a group discussion about that matter. In this setting, High Performers are penalized, as they sit through a 60-minute explanation of protocol that clearly refers to one or two of the low performers in the room. It takes courage to address poor performers 1:1. Doing so protects the organization from building processes around the weakest link.
Meandering Meetings
A 10-minute decision becomes 45 minutes of tangential discussion. High performers sit in constant tension, trying to act socially appropriate while quietly losing their minds. Or they disengage entirely.
Related Information for a Deeper Dive: Team Cohesion, Motivation, & Morale
Why Team Building & Personality Assessments Often Fail High Performers
Team Building Initiatives & Events
High performers need high face validity. If they’re exchanging a full day or two of known productivity, they need to know what they’ll accomplish.
Many team-building activities are gimmicky. Everyone knows you can’t build trust through a trust fall. Provide frameworks that either connect to outcomes they care about or address their actual pain points
Personality Assessments
Most personality assessments have poor psychometrics. Worse, analytical high performers struggle with dichotomous questions where the real answer is ‘it depends on context.’ Answering overly simplified questions makes them feel frustrated and lost. Thus, the experience and inaccurate results are often frustrating or even disempowering, rather than useful.
AI is changing this. Psychologists who are trained in rigorous assessment can now leveragefamiliar with core, well-researched personality principles can collaborate between AI and teams. This will provide customized assessments that meet the thought and working styles of high performers.
AI is changing this. Psychologists can now leverage well-validated personality research—constructs like the Big Five that have decades of empirical support—and use AI to create targeted assessments for specific team needs. This collaboration potentiates positive outcomes while avoiding the landmines of popular assessments.
Related Information for a Deeper Dive: The Dangers of Personality Assessments
What Works - Teams that Attract and Retain High Performers
1. They can exchange ideas with intellectual equals.
2. Others bring the same level of commitment and initiative.
3. Their voice is heard and their insights are valued.
4. They feel like team initiatives, both the serious kind and the frou-frou kind, have value they understand, even when it’s not entirely comfortable.
5. Thoughtful, continuous action and alignment around goals allows them to see the impact of their efforts.
6. Strong leadership and group norms that reward creative initiative and action-orientation while disallowing interpersonal drama and mediocre performance.