Lone Wolves: Why do some people hate teamwork? (2017)

There is a small methodology mistake.

They ask people to self-evaluate and then call the people who evaluate themselves better than others as "top performers" and the people who evaluate themselves as not better than others as "poor performers". But self-evaluation is really bad to show how someone will perform, especially if you focus on a group who has difficulties (or bad past experience) with team work and socialization (because they are obviously biased when they compare themselves to the team).

In fact, I would be surprised if a big part of "poor performers" are not really good performers with imposter syndromes (which is more common amongst good performers) and a big part of "top performers" are not opinionated idiots who cannot accept that sometimes they get things wrong and therefore blame the team for their "good idea" (which is in fact a stupid idea) for not being taken on board.

There's this attitude I've seen on HN that I can't stand, which is something like, "a real software engineer knows how to create business value." It pops up in discussions on this topic a lot, because teamwork is essential to business value etc. But what it always seems to mean is, "shut up and do this stuff you hate."

Everyone knows that guy who is insufferably arrogant who hates to work on teams, but there are legit reasons to hate teamwork, business value be damned. I've definitely enjoyed working on some teams more than others.

I think for me at least it boils down to whether I trust my teammates to get the job done. If I'm working with people who know what they're doing, teamwork is fine. But if I'm working with underperformers, be they clueless, lazy, whatever, teamwork is awful. Not just because I have to pick up the slack, but because I'm constantly worrying about the slack that I'm picking up. Figuring out which bits I could possibly trust to an underperforming teammate is more effort than just doing it myself.

An exception to this would be inexperienced teammates. Lack of experience is fixable, although there is something of an art to picking good projects for getting them up to speed.

"Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me — they’re shy and they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone — best outside of corporate environments, best where they can control an invention’s design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don’t believe anything really revolutionary has ever been invented by committee… I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone… Not on a committee. Not on a team." [0][1]

0: https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/01/18/woz-on-creativity-...

1: https://www.dailyfig.com/2016/11/11/steve-wozniaks-advice-fo...

I prefer working alone but it can be even better to work alone, together. Alone together means that there's a deep understanding of the other party and an openness to finding just the right configuration and the best way forward, together.

But too often, people that prefer teamwork, really just want to be heard and receive credit for work done, together. But they're generally not very productive and their opinions not that valuable.

They're also often susceptible to group think in a way that makes them functionally below par. They don't really partake because they're too worried about being caught with the odd perspective or different idea, so they carefully follow the implicit consensus. And nothing was produced that day. Especially nothing novel.

I don't want to work with these people because they _will_ come out of the wood work and pass judgement when you've been caught having a different opinion. And they _will_ pile on.

So I don't hate teamwork. In fact: I love it. But more often than not, we get the mediocrity of consensus and violence towards novelty. Or just differences.

I disagree with the notion of a "lone sheep".

By the same logic I have known a few "lone wolves" who are outrageously arrogant and disorganized and so unwilling to accept when they're wrong that nobody wonders why they're never in charge.

This article sounds like it's trying to make excuses for the shortcomings of the "lone" type by making a false distinction.

I'm saying this as someone who used to be considered a "lone wolf" and basically just grew out of it by speaking my mind more often, keeping my statements brief and relevant, and developing more patience for others.

Also worth pointing out this personal growth was not possible until I found a slower paced job where projects weren't always on fire and due yesterday.

I hate working on teams because my time is constantly taken up with and interrupted by "meetings" and meetings to plan meetings, and bullshit meetings for more meetings about meetings.

And then I have to involve all these random people and have more meetings and then meetings about more meetings again. Then when I am halfway through finally implementing The Thing, there is a meeting about why it is taking so long and then a meeting about being able to manage the costs better and then a meeting about the minutes of that meeting and then a meeting to go over the prior 6 months of meetings to give a rundown to the Big Bosses who then schedule more meetings.

It's a fucking wonder anything ever gets done anywhere. The "We gotta be a team!!11" obsession seems more to help people justify their pointless job positions half the time than to actually benefit anyone or anything.

Or maybe I am just grumpy. But based off 30 years of personal experience and the experience of colleagues and friends and family.. I don't think so.

But lets have a meeting about this and go over some teambuilding exercises to help us leverage all our skills!

They don't hate teamwork, they just have been beaten up enough to learn not to trust others. They attack others verbally before the other party can get their shot off. Meanwhile the other person is confused why they are being attacked and assumes the lone wolf just hates them and hates working in teams.

My kids work in team projects at school. The issue is that many other pupils just want to work the least possible and procrastinate as much as possible. This drives my kids crazy because they want to have good scores and they much prefer having a nice evening playing games or watching TV instead of rushing for late homework. (note to other parents: my kids do procrastinate, of course, but not as much as the average :-) )

Personally I think a lot of people's bad experiences with teams are due to mismanaged teams. Either there was no one to manage the team or the manager didn't know how to run a team. Of course you'll get lone wolfs, but there are many more in the first type.

Being a good team manager is a rare skill. A well managed team works like a well oiled engine. It'll also get destroyed with little effort the same way as an engine with sand in the engine oil*.

But the remedy is not the same. A mechanic will fix/replace the engine, but the team will get cancer and wilt over time.

Fox example, if there's a person that doesn't fit with the team, they need to go - they're the sand in the engine oil. Spotting that person isn't always trivial.

* That engine doesn't have an oil filter.

Self-selecting teams FTW.

I'm fine working solo, paired, group, whatever.

Being on a high functioning team is just the best thing ever. Like how I imagine a championship winning sportsball team must feel.

My two recurring problems have been:

- The need to play catch with others who can not or will not throw the ball back.

This has taken every form. Too junior, too senior, gatekeeper, saboteur, communications barrier, maverick, Mr (or Mrs) Magoo, ad nauseum.

- Not having any one to "rubber duck" with.

I'll eventually figure out most things on my own. But it's oh so much nicer to have a buddy.

--

Alas, miscommunication and cross purposes is the default.

Getting to Just Right (Goldilocks) is rare, has always required huge effort, and is short-lived (often mooting the effort). (Cite: "forming, storming, norming, performing," where the chaotic PHBs trigger another reorg, like cosmic rays randomizing memory bits.)

And that's life. Work, marriage, parents, kids, teachers, volunteering, riding the bus, and so forth.

They seem to have missed my main issue with the “team player” culture: It dumbs everything down to the lowest common denominator. It’s good for the company since it avoids becoming dependent on any single individual. It’s good for the mediocre because they avoid competition / tasks they cannot do. But it’s bad for top performers (in terms of ability, not speed) because they will be stuck in the drudgery, doing work that anybody can do.

> a “lone wolf” (someone who works best on their own and has legitimate concerns for eschewing teamwork)

If the concerns are legitimate, does that not say more about the team than about the supposed lone wolf? The concerns regarding unfair workload, collective blame, unclear roles… these are characteristics of dysfunctional teams, not intrinsic properties of teams. They affect all team members.

My hot take: the team I'm on is prone to extreme bikeshedding so sometimes I just go "lone wolf" on my work items to get a minimum working version out. The team then gives a lot of feedback (which is great) but would be insurmountable if I asked those questions upfront.

This might not be the intent of the piece but it's important not to think of preferences for teamwork to be a fixed attribute of a person. My own behavior varies a lot depending on the team, project, and circumstances and I've been upset to see people be branded one way or another because of some specific setting, even when evidence to the contrary is right there in plain sight.

Because they have ADHD and anxiety perhaps? Adapting to others pace, doing anything while being watched, being distracted by others regularly - these are some points of pain. Everything (except fighting or fleeing) is hard when you are in the fight-or-flight mode (and many people are in it chronically because their bosses&teams just won't leave them alone).

"Teamwork" often doesn't just mean "gets along well with cohort," but also means "is compliant with authority."

Any hacker, even ones that hold to the former, will not be the latter.

Some projects arent meant for teams

One highly skilled and experienced person can move faster than 5 people that dont understand the vision and need meetings often

I don't really care if I work alone or with someone on a project just so long as the project is well defined. Otherwise, I'm trying to understand what's needed and how to achieve it. And in my experience, I tend to be a bit too conservative with my technology choices that often I wind up confusing younger developers (I'm in my 40s here) which can lead to more reductions in productivity as they try to catch me up to speed on new technologies that we could or should use (I tend to be open to such things, just I'm a slow learner).

Why? Let's see, starting with grade school on through my latest brush with the Agile Cult ... it's just been bad experiences all around. Being unable to concentrate due to the incessant babbling of others, the flow-destroying "interrupt, everywhere, all the time," the sudden changes in direction (characterized as "whimsical" if I am being extremely kind), the overhead of personalities, and so on. It's bad enough that it has probably unfairly colored some common, adjacent items.

I’m reminded of comments from Allen Holub on Twitter. The very nature of writing code is social. If you write code, you intend for someone to use it, or read it, or modify it, etc. GitHub is an excellent example.

But even if you don’t use GitHub, almost all organizations require collaboration on code. At the very least you need someone else to review your code.

So I don’t really understand how lone wolf could ever truly work in software engineering. I worry that letting the idea have any oxygen at all sets you up for failure.

Quiz question: Do you look at the domain name 'queendom.com' and 'queendomblog.com' and become distracted about the history/naming?

If you work on a team then you end up talking about rather than actually doing stuff quite a lot. Often people talk to show they know stuff rather than actually producing results. Quite often it can just devolve into a battle of egos. Even if the people are nice, a lot of people are not aware they doing a lot of stuff from their ego.

I find that some lone wolves are really just speed demons who are too impatient to wait for an entire team to get on the same page, so they blaze through a bunch of work quickly while answering to no one or consulting anyone’s opinion. In the end, they produce something fast that would have taken the team a lot longer to do as a unit.

Great post. Not sure, how much research is behind everything but the overall sentiment hits it pretty spot on.

These people usually are not confident in themselves are often are afraid of appearing silly or simply anxious about idea of delegating task to someone else in the group, afraid of possibly push-back. It's actually a really bad trait to have.

I used to be that guy that everyone complained about that wasn't good at working together with others. It took me a lot of work to change my behaviour and now people don't complain anymore ever since I started working alone.

Because sometimes you just move faster or think quicker than those around you. You may have different methods which suit your mentality which arent going to be ones that your team members can employ.

Queendom? Is this some sort of BDSM-related website?