What makes teams work?

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It turns out I’m not a team player.

So I’m out in San Francisco attending a leadership training program for minority journalists. Why, you ask? Yes. I ask that, too. I’m not a leader—at least by title, in that I’m not a manager. I have no plans to become a manager. I need to be the boss of someone like I need a bullet in my forehead.

What’s more, I find corporate training programs suspect. I am suspicious of team-building exercises that involve physical contact. I don’t like the idea of strangers judging me and my career choices. And the very thought of spending five days—five days!—away from my family makes me feel like throwing up.

Now that I’m here, though, I’m prepared to embrace the experience. (Really, boss. You’ll get your money’s worth.) Being a leader, I’ve discerned, doesn’t necessarily mean I have to run my news organization, or even aspire to. I can learn valuable things from the line-up of trainers, including what makes teams work. This is what the other participants said:

What makes teams work?
• selflessness
• a leader
• collaboration
• consensus

What makes teams fail?
• self righteousness
• infighting
• lack of direction
• crazy people
• surly, exhausted, deeply cynical, seven-months-pregnant team members

No one said that last one, but they could have—especially after my assigned team decided to get a jump on our group project this evening. At the tail end of 12 hours of team-building exercises and workshops, I am all teamed out. Which would have been fine with everyone, should I have just kept my surly, exhausted cynicism to myself. So now I am the surly, exhausted, deeply cynical team member no one likes.

I’ll be posting updates on what I learn as the week grinds on. See, boss? The airfare’s already paying off.