Balancing individualised work with teamwork
3 ways interdependence harmonises the relationship
What comes to mind when someone says ‘teamwork’? This word might conjure up images of well-drilled sports teams, orchestras or people gathered around a table in meetings. Past experiences of dreaded team-building events may re-surface. Maybe even a certain, cheesy mantra pops up: teamwork makes the dream work. (Oh, please…) In contrast, if someone were to ask us the same question about ‘individualised work’, the image in our minds would be vastly different: perhaps the furrowed brows of a person deep in concentration, as they type away on their laptop in a quiet space, eyes fixated on the screen.
Individualised work vs. teamwork
When we think of individualised work vs. teamwork, it might be easy to instantly assume that the two are at odds with one another. After all, one is about tailored, specific, specialised work, while the other is about interaction, coordination and cooperation. How can each person working in isolation on their assigned tasks result in a situation where the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts? As the other famous saying goes, there’s no ‘i’ in ‘team’. Well, here’s how it’s possible:
Individualised work promotes learning
Individualised work being designed by the individual doesn’t negate the need for accountability to the team and the employer. Indeed, it is this individual accountability to the team which has been found to promote learning (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993). Channelled towards a shared purpose and goals, individualism also galvanises us to find a way of making a unique contribution to the team. In turn, this learning behaviour, applied in a healthy environment which is conducive to personal and professional growth, may drive performance. Indeed, Edmondson (1999) found that team psychological safety, which is a mutual belief among members of safety in interpersonal risk-taking, was related to stronger team performance.
Clear team expectations raises productivity
However, individualised tasks don’t happen in a vacuum. In the ‘Wisdom of Teams’, Katzenbach & Smith (1993) found that several other key elements underpin effective teams: commitment to a shared purpose, complementary skills and mutual accountability. Setting clear team expectations, for example, by having team norms or charters, improves both individual productivity and collective performance (McKinsey, 2021). Companies which perform most strongly are underpinned by an ethos of supporting teams to tailor their goals and helping them understand how achieving those goals would contribute to the company’s overarching objectives (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993).
Shared goals is one of the attributes given in the definition of teams by Kozlowski & Bell (2003), along with task interdependencies. Having shared mental models (SMM) makes achieving these goals possible but what is an SMM? According to Mathieu et al (2005), it is ‘an organised understanding or mental representation of knowledge that is shared by team members’. Team SMMs, which are a mutual understanding within a team of how members will interact with each other, have a positive impact on performance. A combination of successful collaboration and individual accountability is likely the driving force behind this. When people are given autonomy over, for example, their training needs and task planning, their job motivation increases, which translates into more effective performance. Meanwhile, collaboration can improve productivity and efficiency in teams through harnessing collective intelligence, which leads to more strategic and effective actions (Obodozie & Nwabufo, 2025).
Collaboration cultivates sharing of knowledge
One important process that collaboration both enables and facilitates is the exchange of knowledge. The sharing of ideas, information and insights, along with mutual help between team members, also boosts performance, and this positive effect is amplified when it occurs against a backdrop of efficient information transfer and high-quality goals (Janz, Colquitt & Noe, 1997). Similarly, high task independence has been found to strengthen team autonomy and performance (Langfred, 2005). In other words, the best performing teams balance high individual autonomy, which allows each member to personalise their own work accordingly, with strong levels of coordination, leading to faster and more effective decision-making (Mathieu et al, 2008).
So… does this mean individualised work and teamwork are the perfect marriage?
In practical terms, yes. Employees feel most motivated and do their best work when they’re not micromanaged with someone looking over their shoulder all the time. Rigid task processes can feel monotonous and robotic, like following a set programme. When individuals can impose their own workstyles on tasks whilst leveraging a collective pool of knowledge at the same time, companies reap the benefits. As long as there is clarity over team expectations and goals, along with trust and accountability to the team, autonomy can thrive within interdependence.
Balancing individualised work with teamwork is therefore not only possible but necessary for high-functioning teams. It is only by both embracing autonomy at the level of the individual and blending it with the myriad benefits of collaboration that we can unlock the full potential of a team. Interdependence is indeed the way to success.
Would you like to know how to integrate interdependence into your workplace and improve your employees’ job satisfaction and productivity? Get in touch at at lizzie@workstyle.org.uk!
This blog was written by one of our team of fantastic volunteers, Olivia Mak, on behalf of the Workstyle Revolution.
