Teams can stifle productivity

This (Creating Passionate Users: The power of One.) is a great post and its prompted some good discussion of a tough issue ie the balance between teamwork (as imposed conformity, aka bullying) and the productive contributions of individuals as individuals:

I simply don't buy into the "none of us is as good as all of us" as fact. While it's often true, it's just as often not. There are times when you can and should step back and say, "Not only am I as good as all of us, I'm actually better at this particular thing, because the entire team is headed in the wrong direction, and there's too much inertia to get the whole damn team to turn around at the same time." Obviously a manager doesn't want total anarchy and chaos from each individual thinking their idea rules and everybody else is an idiot, but somewhere there's a balance, and the heavy emphasis on teamwork/teamplayer-ness is tipped way too far in the non-individual direction.

Comments

[Sarah]

Surely the point is that good teams have good leaders who are prepared to let all team members show their strengths for the benefit of all, including the the individual.

Strong and innovative individuals can pick up the pace and raise standards within the team. This should be encouraged from the top down and everyone in the team should welcome that. Moving the whole team up the ladder is surely the ultimate goal.

And if that individual is consistently stronger and more innovative than the rest of the team, perhaps then they need to move up a grade and join a new team.