Nemesis

"Good team player."

Everyone writes that on their resume, and pretty much everyone believes it about themselves. But what does it mean?

Does it mean you get along with most people, aren't some kind of recluse without any social skills, or a backstabbing, Machiavellian career climber? That puts you in the same group with about 80% or so of the population. Is it therefore some kind of minimal social requirement, just to filter out the extremists and the recalcitrant?

I think it's supposed to mean more than that, or else we wouldn't put it on our resume. I think we mean we're better than most people at getting along, not being selfish. Yet, examining our criteria doesn't yield much evidence.

Enter the nemesis. We all have one. This is the one person we can't get along with at work. Something we do sets them off, or the words they use grate us entirely the wrong way. We can't stand their commando style. They hate our jokes.

I have seen this many times. One example: I knew a tech lead who was competent, but a little soft. The business analyst that was his customer was pretty tough, and would poke holes in everything he did. He shrank slowly over time. They replaced him with someone more confident and a little bolder, and everyone got along fine. Then, ironically, when that business analyst left, her replacement was even tougher. She and the second tech lead battled too much, and couldn't work together. I had a feeling the first tech lead would have gotten along with her just fine. All of these people were able to work with others, but as pairs, they couldn't.

How you deal with your nemesis is the true test of whether you are a good team player. You will have to spend a lot of time listening, really listening to see what it is that causes the friction. This doesn't mean rolling over and being a push-over. Sometimes it means the opposite of that.

But it does mean investing extraordinary effort into adapting yourself so that your interactions are productive.

Because ultimately that's what it means to be a good team player: listening to the needs of your teammates and then adapting your own efforts. It requires tremendous observations skills and sensitivity to words, body language, intonation, work habits, motivations, among other things. Few of us are very good at it.

Think about that the next time you see "Good team player" on a resume, especially if it's your own.