Is it time to stop the bubble of the “funny teamwork”?
Teamwork couldn’t be a pain, but definitively it’s never “fun”. It never been, and a colorful toy application with puppets won’t change that.
It’s probably part of the game, but the algorithm behind the several social networks I use to browse every day insists on showing to me the same ads all the time. They always say these smart algorithms know you even better than yourself. Well, it comes out I use to work alone since long time ago, but these pervasive ads belong to companies that offer apps (to other companies) to transform teamwork in something “funny”.
…now it seems that teamwork is no less fun than a day in a theme park. Teams are composed of extremely friendly and clever people, that communicate in a way that seems some sort of an “Instagram party”.
There’s a plethora of such these applications out there, but probably you are already familiar with the most popular ones: Asana, Monday.com and Slack, for instance.
Their carefully designed marketing campaigns look very similar, if not clonic. Some screenshots of their clean, flat, colorful UI mixed with pictures of young, happy, stressless workers completing their task list harmonically so they can then go out and party while shooting plenty of selfies.
Of course none of this, or at least most of, is new.
On one hand, it’s been decades since project management applications exist. Timeline/deadline graphics, task lists and assignments, etc. are of course part of the functionalities of these web apps. They just redesigned it to make it look more “2019”, so new generations can rediscover it.
On the other hand, the idealization of teams and teamwork is even older. It already came with stock photos market, where you can spend literally hours browsing pictures of models and actors seated down and peacefully debating in shiny meeting rooms, or staring at someone’s computer screen paying so much attention.
Now all these things came together at a new level, and now it seems that teamwork is no less fun than a day in a theme park. Teams are composed of extremely friendly and clever people, that communicate in a way that seems some sort of an “Instagram party”.
Most of people who have worked seriously in teams, in serious, real life projects, will agree that teamwork is everything but fun. Teamwork is difficult, basically because it implies dealing with the most complex object in nature: human beings. Many times teamwork leads to moments of misery, uneffcient work and despair. Certainly not all projects die in the process and some may succeed, with the euphoria shot that comes at the end, but even in those cases teamwork was a challenge. And challenges may be appealing, but not funny. They’re not a smartphone game. Not a milennial swimming pool party.
So what if we choose to relax, try to be honest, and stop focusing on magical tools for an unexisting world?
Business meetings are serious things, with people fighting for their own interests inside. They are not tea parties, nor can be dispatched remotely with toy mobile apps. Projects are complex, and some tasks can become stuck forever, not just unlocked with a magical click. Deadlines are slippery, not just a nice dial in the UI of a tablet’s screen, that you play with.
May it’s just time to treat stuff as is, instead of presenting it as something naive or infantile just because some startup out there thinks it was a good idea to grab their share of $$$ from the digital transformation industry.
Hopefully when work becomes decent stuff again, salaries will follow the same, doesn’t it? ;-)
