Being above average in learning, I always considered myself intelligent. It is quite easy to let that get to your head, and soon, I started looking down upon my peers. So, when I was asked to work with this relatively quiet, shy student from my class, let’s call him A, I was apprehensive. It was a final year masters’ degree level project with a timeline of 4+ months. I had my doubts, but my friend spoke highly of A’s work. I thought to myself “I trust my friend, and he trusts A, so maybe I should too.” And lookṣing back, I realised that it was one of my best judgments, because my project got to be phenomenally better with A’s expertise. Turns out that this shy kid was actually full of ideas, extremely hardworking, and reveled at the thought of converting my vision, however abstract, into reality. But that is not the focus of this article. High-headedness often makes one rude and arrogant. Before our collaboration, I was extremely critical of A, thinking he was inferior to me, and dreading that I would be stuck with him for another year of college. My orientation was nothing but negative for him, and under normal circumstances, I would never have collaborated with him. But working with him helped me realise how mistaken and misguided I was. It taught me an important lesson in judging the benefits and drawbacks of, well, people.
While friendship is something which is much more complex, intimate and rather spontaneous, group collaborations is where we exercise a higher degree of deliberation and choice. And this is where the comparison of the positive and negative attributes of people kicks in most significantly. Hence, this article opens a discussion upon the good and the bad sides of people with a predominant inclination towards professional collaboration, and touches upon other kinds of relations towards the latter part.
The Good and The Bad
We humans have a very solid, water-tight criteria for judging people. Oh yes, we judge people, irrespective of how progressive we might think we are. We by nature assign categories to people around us – a good person, a bad person. When asked to choose people to be with, we make our decision based on who is being nice to us, who has a skill or attribute which we deem desirable, and whose personality “vibes” with us. This selection criteria filters out 90% of the people, leaving only our friends or comfort people open for collaboration. This leads to the formation of “clans” or “permanent groupmates”, which can be found in schools, colleges, and professional settings where we have freedom to form our own team.
But if we pause and think, “good” or “bad” are both highly subjective to both the observer and the observed. It means that 1) the same person may be “good” for someone and “horrible” for someone else while exhibiting the exact same behaviour (a teacher who gives daily homework: good for parents, bad for students), and 2) the same person may choose to be “good” to someone and “bad” to someone else (a social diva who inflicts domestic violence: good for whole world but monstrous for the spouse).
The point is that a lot of factors run behind a person being the way they are. Behaviours change with circumstances, but we tend to take people at face value. The reality kicks in when it comes to getting things done – the nice person turns out to be either a bootlicker, an incompetent player, or a backstabber; the skilled one has his head high above the roof, but good sense buried deep below; and the person “vibing” with us is lazy and absent for most of the work. We often mistake one favouring aspect for the whole orientation of a person, and then suffer with all kinds of perils, only because we were too afraid to try working with new people. And in the process, we eliminate all those actual good people, whom our filtering process subconsciously judged “unworthy.”
When forced to work in groups where the formation is decided by an external party, we often fail to consider collaboration with an open-mind, and suffer for it later. Instead of seeing the possibilities for developing the project, we fixate on the differences and give up without trying, inevitably dooming any scope for collaboration. Of course, being with the people who make you uncomfortable in spite of all their strengths is not recommended, but the approach should be to actively curb differences rather than arbitrarily creating them.
The essence of collaboration is about realising the requirements of the project, and then determining who can fulfill those requirements suitably. Each member can contribute to his/her best capacity by allowing others to make up for what he/she lacks. Priority should be given to the project rather than the projections of our bias.
Navigating group dynamics doesn’t come easily. It might happen that the person we assign a task to is severely arrogant, but given the right temperament or recognition, can work wonders for the project. It might be that the shy guy is extremely talented, but just needed someone to pour their trust in them. Any team needs to actively deal with the shortcomings of its members for the greater good of the outcome.
Or of course, it might be that our worst fears are realised and a team member turns out to be worse than what we imagined. But it also teaches us how to cope with things going south under unpredictable or unexpected situations. If instead one was to stick with the same bunch of people over and over, they run the risk of getting complacent, leaving them unprepared to deal with the dynamism of working with unfamiliar people.
Connecting with Life
How do these insights connect to the larger things in life? At a minimum, they humble us. That little judgy mechanism which is constantly whirring at the back of our head, maybe we can learn to occasionally tune it out a little, thinking “okay, my first impression says I don’t like this guy, but let me see what he/she can pull off.” Being open-minded enough to realise that “I might be wrong” about someone is a sign of maturity, and deliberate evaluation of people rather than instinctive reactions could, at the very least, prevent you from doing what I did with A – treating them like a jerk, and regretting your behaviour later on.
This humility helps us see the good in people despite the external appearances – perhaps she complains a lot about others because she cares about them on a deeper level, perhaps he asks stupid questions because he wants to prevent himself from acting stupid later on, and perhaps she acts arrogant because deep down she is afraid of admitting that she needs help learning this concept and is merely putting up a tough exterior. It helps us shed our biases and opinions and see them for who they are – people, just like us, full of fears, pet peeves, historical trauma, family drama, problematic relationships, and what not. Perhaps they weren’t fortunate enough to have shared a similar upbringing, or perhaps they were pushed around until they realised that defiantly fighting for their viewpoint is the only way for dominating people to take them seriously.
But it doesn’t just end with that.
Harbouring these realisations could make you a better human. However, to relay this sensitivity to others on the team, and managing to bring them all, with their own set of biases towards each other, to a common understanding of working towards the shared goal, that is what makes you a better leader. And so, understanding people doesn’t just allow you to grow as a person, it opens up the potential to grow as a team.
And lastly, it could make you a decent human – instead of being harsh to a person for having a divergent point of view, you might choose to respect their opinion while maintaining yours. Who knows, maybe someday they might come around to seeing your side of the story. It would imbue the person with respect towards you, and could avoid nastiness which would have stemmed from a sudden sharp remark from your end.
Bottom Line
They say that “your comfort zone will kill you.” I guess a part of that could apply to people as well. A bunch of people we can conveniently reach out to for support is great, but we cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that we just don’t know when we might need to depend on someone unfamiliar. And hence, being kind, understanding and supportive to people in spite of their perceived drawbacks could go a long way in helping you succeed. And in the process, who knows, maybe you could get to liking that person.
Friendships are spontaneous in this sense because you never know what you are looking for before entering into the bond – it is less ‘formed’ and more ‘shared’, and we discover the substance of it along the way. Genuine friendships, unlike crushes or tussles, do not obsessively focus on the enticing attributes or distasteful drawbacks of the relationship – they are mature in realising that a person comes with the whole set of traits, positive and negative, but we enjoy the positives together, and overcome the negatives the same way.
I believe that every person has this duality to their nature – things which we will find good in them, and things which we may not like. But neither can be labelled as “benefits” or “drawbacks”. Perhaps that is the beauty of being human – for something purely beneficial becomes a tool, and purely harmful, a hazard.
By: Pranav Alok Garg
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