I have quite a bit of experience racing sailboats, in roles including skipper, tactictian, and trimmer/regular crew. I have raced with novices and with experienced crew. The single best predictor I have found for success at teamwork is that everyone is interested in winning (in a way that typical students may not be interested in doing a good job on a school project, even one that closely resembles a real world project). If my crew want to win, they will follow my instructions, even if they are inexperienced they will accept my coaching (or better yet, my more experienced crew will coach them and take the cognitive load off of me) and still do a good job. Given that, the most likely obstacle is too many leaders though I have been in several races where we solved that by just letting one person be in charge for the race even though several of could have done that job.
Good example! I think most of the frustration I have with group work is when I could do the whole thing myself, faster or at least more efficiently, but I’m being arbitrarily forced to coordinate with other people. In sailboat racing, I’m assuming, it doesn’t make sense to go at it alone no matter how good you are, any more than it makes sense to play soccer as a team of one.
Too many leaders happened a lot in the school clubs I participated in. Main reason i stopped participating; it was frustrating to watch people waste time arguing over who was in charge when they could have been doing stuff.
My suggestions:
1) find other people as good as you.
2) find activities that are you competing against yourself eg:
rock-climbing, martial-arts, running, archery, cycling etc etc...
you can do them with groups of people—but aren’t reliant on the skills of other people to have a good time doing it.
Yep—I’d say that 80-90% of martial arts involves honing your own craft. You get to try out that practise on somebody else… but it’s no way the same thing as “teamwork”.
I am notoriously “not a team player” when it comes to sports… and I LOVE martial arts. :)
There are also martial arts that are entirely solitary… for example archery. But they’re rarer.
Edit: oh—and I guess I should say, that I consider that the end goal of martial arts is to be a better martial artist. Not to just beat the one guy you happen to be fighting right now.
Thus you are in fact competing against yourself—you are trying to beat your past skill-level… the guy you’re currently punching is merely a means to that end. :)
Whether or not you are competing against yourself or others seems independent of whether you are competing by yourself or with others, and so I think you’re misapplying the distinctions. Changing the word “against” to “by” clears the confusion and links it back to the original subject more strongly.
Yes, I think that’s the important distinction. It’s all about whether or not you’re cooperating with others to secure the goal, or working by yourself. In all the sports I’ve described above—you are not cooperating with others to achieve the same goal—except for the more nebulous “have fun” goal :)
The fact that others can be involved while you practice is a secondary matter—that only concerns you if you literally want to be by yourself… which as you say—is not likely to be the case.
I have quite a bit of experience racing sailboats, in roles including skipper, tactictian, and trimmer/regular crew. I have raced with novices and with experienced crew. The single best predictor I have found for success at teamwork is that everyone is interested in winning (in a way that typical students may not be interested in doing a good job on a school project, even one that closely resembles a real world project). If my crew want to win, they will follow my instructions, even if they are inexperienced they will accept my coaching (or better yet, my more experienced crew will coach them and take the cognitive load off of me) and still do a good job. Given that, the most likely obstacle is too many leaders though I have been in several races where we solved that by just letting one person be in charge for the race even though several of could have done that job.
Good example! I think most of the frustration I have with group work is when I could do the whole thing myself, faster or at least more efficiently, but I’m being arbitrarily forced to coordinate with other people. In sailboat racing, I’m assuming, it doesn’t make sense to go at it alone no matter how good you are, any more than it makes sense to play soccer as a team of one.
Too many leaders happened a lot in the school clubs I participated in. Main reason i stopped participating; it was frustrating to watch people waste time arguing over who was in charge when they could have been doing stuff.
:) I know the feeling.
My suggestions: 1) find other people as good as you. 2) find activities that are you competing against yourself eg: rock-climbing, martial-arts, running, archery, cycling etc etc...
you can do them with groups of people—but aren’t reliant on the skills of other people to have a good time doing it.
Does martial arts, which involves fighting an opponent, really belong on this list?
Yep—I’d say that 80-90% of martial arts involves honing your own craft. You get to try out that practise on somebody else… but it’s no way the same thing as “teamwork”.
I am notoriously “not a team player” when it comes to sports… and I LOVE martial arts. :)
There are also martial arts that are entirely solitary… for example archery. But they’re rarer.
Edit: oh—and I guess I should say, that I consider that the end goal of martial arts is to be a better martial artist. Not to just beat the one guy you happen to be fighting right now.
Thus you are in fact competing against yourself—you are trying to beat your past skill-level… the guy you’re currently punching is merely a means to that end. :)
Whether or not you are competing against yourself or others seems independent of whether you are competing by yourself or with others, and so I think you’re misapplying the distinctions. Changing the word “against” to “by” clears the confusion and links it back to the original subject more strongly.
Yes, I think that’s the important distinction. It’s all about whether or not you’re cooperating with others to secure the goal, or working by yourself. In all the sports I’ve described above—you are not cooperating with others to achieve the same goal—except for the more nebulous “have fun” goal :)
The fact that others can be involved while you practice is a secondary matter—that only concerns you if you literally want to be by yourself… which as you say—is not likely to be the case.