Please critique my essay - Issue - Two minds are better than one...

[Subhash_Ghosh]

While pondering over the question of whether individuals working together contribute more for the speedy execution and success of an assignment than the efforts of different individuals, I conclude that yes, the value of teamwork and collaborative effort definitely outweighs the piecemeal contributions of individuals working on their own.

Firstly, it's very evident that group work can result in combination of several individuals and hence more ideas and perspectives are pooled in for the benefit of all, as compared to individuals working in a segregated manner.
For example, in the software companies, when there is initial brainstorming session among fellow team members, every person can bring in novel thoughts and experience,(which may be obscure to other people), and which might become important factors in
making the project successful over a period of time.

Secondly, every member can be allocated work commensurate with her capabilities, interest and aptitude. This will result in high levels of participation and commitment, thereby leading to efficient working of the team and increased output. As is seen in
the arena of sports as football, the players of a victorious team are strong in various areas as midfield, defence, playmaking etc., and they contribute in their own individual way throughout the course of game to the victory of the entire team.

On a similar note, tracking of tasks becomes easier when the members of the team deal with a complex task broken into pieces, and the overall progress can be tracked usually as a sum of progress of all the individual sub-pieces. In other words, the weakest link in a chain can be located usually without much difficulty and steps can be initiated and implemented in an iterative manner to weed out the causes of bottlenecks. Needless to say, this automatically results in the improved efficiency of the entire team and expedites the progress of the entire assignment.

However, it is to be noted that there could be concerns on the validity and usefulness based on line of the old adage - "Too many cooks spoil the broth". Admittedly, presence of many people in a team can roil the smooth functioning of an assignment because of multitude of preferences and ideas, thus making the choice of a methodology and implementation more difficult for the decision makers.
That apart, personality clashes of people can also affect the functioning of a team. To extend this theory further, people who are focused inwards may not thrive in an environment where gregarious people might do. Also, the thoughts of sharing the end-gains and credit for the success of a project may prevent some individuals from sharing their ideas, plans etc. and may lead them to contribute at a sub-optimal level and even under-perform.

Although these points do sound somewhat alarming, further analysis on how to obviate these definitely scotches the apprehensions about the viability of teamwork. The number of team-members can be always optimized based on needs and timelines, and where there is great diversity in skill sets and expected functional roles of fellow team members, chances of people infringing on each other's boundaries are very minimal.Also, a strong and capable leader can always manage the expectations of the entire team and can allay any fears arising out of lack of visibility of the end-goal and upshot of triumphant conclusion of a project.

In summary, while it is possible that teamwork, when not planned, managed and tracked properly can have pitfalls of its own, the contributions from various individuals as a part of a properly functioning team definitely accelerates the overall progress
and always contributes more significantly to the success of a project than the efforts of individuals working in a sequestered mode.