Announce a group project in any classroom from middle school all the way up to professional school and groans trickle through the stale classroom air, the palpable representation of a universal frustration with group work. Ask any high-achieving student why they hate group work and the answer is nearly always: freeloaders.
Freeloader, the inevitable group mate that will do less than their fair share, leaving the rest of the team to pick up the slack and haul their lazy classmate over the finish line. However, I’ve changed how I frame my relationship with the freeloader over the past few years. Maybe it’s overly optimistic, but it certainly cannot be assumed that the freeloader is intentionally lazy. Extraneous circumstances abound in life. So I can frame any extra work I do as a good deed. A friendly gesture akin to holding the door open as classmates pour into morning lecture or buying a friend a cup of coffee after a long morning. With friendly gestures, come opportunities for reputation. The good kind of reputation that over-time extends past the group itself to classmates, faculty, and beyond. A reputation of leadership built on trust, kindness, and commitment to see a project through. This framing not only offers opportunities for connections, but also opportunities for personal development. I treat the extra work I do as another opportunity to practice polishing presentation slides or working on my public speaking.
So with these benefits to extra work established, you can see there’s little point to agonize over doing more work than your peers. The only negative? Time. To put in more time than my peers means those minutes must be sacrificed from other activities, giving my classmates extra time to study for the test or ace the next morning’s quiz. However, this would only be true in a vacuum. If time was in a set equation where time input equalled productive output, bereft of other variables. But it’s not. The finite resource is not as limiting as some people think. The time for an enriching activity like extra group work can just as easily come from the many nutrient-poor activities we engage with as it can from our nutrient-dense studying or morning jog. In addition, the link between negativity and productivity is undeniable. To approach a task with a negative attitude, dooms the work to be take longer and provide less value towards personal growth.
As you can see, the profit is heavily skewed towards being the generous group member over the “time-rich” freeloader. So the freeloader actually gives their groupmates opportunity, not torment. But anyways, what does being angry and forcing equal effort get you? A shoddy project and a less than desirable reputation.
The choice seems like a no-brainer to me.
Zachary Holloway 