How to build research teams and relationships that work

“Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships.” — Michael Jordan

As an undergrad and graduate student, one of the things I dreaded most was being assigned teamwork. I would immediately think of how time-consuming it was to coordinate, all the difficult interpersonal dynamics to navigate, and managing folks that just don’t pull their weight.

However, my naïve, narrow understanding of teamwork kept me stuck winning games, not championships. While it’s true that many people do not make team good members, there are strategies to spot great team members and develop groups of people who can work together to accomplish things you could never do on your own. As the renowned cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Here are my lightbulb moments and experiences that have led me to become a teamwork believer.

5 tips to building a great team

Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life. — Amy Poehler

Finding new team members for a research project may feel like a daunting, time-consuming task. If you’re at a large institution, you may not know where to start, and at a small one, it may feel like there are fewer people who complement and synergize with you. However, it’s not as difficult as it may seem because you are likely already doing things that facilitate teambuilding. Here are some helpful strategies

1. Attend professional campus events

Inherent in academia, we attend seminars, graduations, workshops, university conferences and professional events within and outside the university. View these as inspirational opportunities to meet at least one new person at every event and catch up with folks you already know. “Double dip” — that is, team build while attending the event for another purpose — and see this as an opportunity to find resources and potential complementary team members.

2. Stay in the know

All too often, we receive overabundant communication for any one human to process, so it’s easy to ignore those college newsletters, university press releases, and social media posts that flood our accounts. However, just taking a few moments every day to glance through the items that pass by your screens can provide you with the critical information for your team or team-to-be — ultimately helping you identifying team members as well as successful team-building and inspiring leadership behaviors of people in those stories.

3. “Double-dip” social events and committee work

As a member of an educational organization, you know there is a plethora of campus events that happen all year. Going to that beginning-of-the-school-year barbecue or the graduate college’s fun run can be one of the most effective ways to find awesome folks across your campus that you would not otherwise find by perusing online faculty profiles. And meeting them in person is often much more efficient than looking through their CVs and faculty websites. For one: you can quickly gauge their behaviors and ask for feedback that will give you immediate insight into whether they will make a good team member. While some events may seem less attractive to attend — for example, they do not focus on something that is in your discipline, or they are social in nature and you just have too much work to do and deadlines to address — take a moment to be intentional and open to the opportunities within all of these events. Surrender to the big, unexpected inspiring opportunities that can happen when meeting new people. Acknowledge that these meetings would not happen if you didn’t get yourself out there and carve out even a small amount of time.

If you’ve been at a university long enough, you know that you’ll be asked to be on committees and increasingly on interdepartmental committees where you’ll meet people that you wouldn’t otherwise. See these as opportunities to get to know potential team members. Many of us academics are serious introverts, so it’s important to practice getting to know others even when your mind is focused internally and elsewhere (like on your deadlines). Even if fellow committee members aren’t fit for the team you are assembling, they may know of other colleagues and resources that could be invaluable to you. So seek these inspiring and unexpected connections.

4. Use your institution’s research office

Investigate your research office’s resources, including online faculty profiles and team-building events. Although they provide resources to directly help you find team members, sponsored programs offices also often host educational events that can indirectly facilitate your search for finding team members. Like all of us on campus, time is the most precious commodity of those in sponsored research positions, so do your own homework first to find team members. If you’re still stuck, then reach out to your sponsored research colleagues. They often interact with faculty across campus, which enables them to have unique insight to identify potential team members for you.

5. Leverage previous academic contacts

Utilizing relationships from your previous positions, including as a graduate student, is especially helpful when infrastructure development is needed for your research area or you are new to your position and still getting to know people. I’ve seen new assistant professors build impactful multidisciplinary teams, land big grant awards, and produce high amounts of scholarly work by drawing on these relationships as they settle into their new institution.