5 attributes of great academic team members (hint: don’t forget funding)

Whether you’re assembling a team for an interdisciplinary research project or a project that involves people in academia, government and industry, the prospect can be daunting. Not only do you want people who will get things done: You want people who will get along and not (inadvertently) create more problems than they solve. Fortunately, 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.

One factor that is often overlooked is the willingness to contribute to the grant-writing process. While great teams can be built without funding, grants can tremendously amplify teamwork and impact. For many of us, it’s increasingly helpful to win external funding to achieve our professional, societal and personal goals. And often, federal funders require synergistic teams. With over $6 million in federal funding from my team-built grants, I’ve observed a common list a list of team member behaviors that are critical to create successful teams. Here are my top six:

Pictured above: Faculty (L–R): Jana Minifie, Rose Flores, Bahram Asiabanpour, Hamed Ghoddusi, Steven Lewis, Nicole Wagner, Harold Stern and Semih Aslan.

Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people. — Steve Jobs

1. Great team members spend time acquiring grant writing skills

As grant awardees know, writing grants requires a very different skillset from writing journal articles. Thus, to be awarded grants — and to respect everyone’s time — it’s critical for all team members to obtain grant writing skills. While seasoned team members can provide grant writing mentorship, there are so many resources out there for new grant writers to do their own homework. Unless a potential team member brings a great deal of valuable expertise, it may be a red flag if they do not do their homework in the grant-writing area or acknowledge the earned skill and art of grant writing.

2. Great team members contribute to the grant proposal process

We all go through periods when we are too busy but know our schedules will open up later, so a team member may think they can contribute down the road should the project get funded. However, when someone is too busy to help you submit a grant, it’s a warning sign that they may never have enough time (nor the right attitude about time — including yours) to help execute the project when you are awarded. To enable you to achieve your best, stay away from imbalanced dynamics from the start — unless you surely know that a fellow team member can carve out the time for your project in the future.

3. Great team members are aware of other team members’ pain points and challenges

It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed. — Napolean Hill

By their nature, effective teams are made up of complementary members in different positions. This can often include colleagues from different disciplines, departments, colleges, other universities and organizations, and those at different stages of their careers. Due to everyone’s unique situation, people will have different workloads and pain points. For example, within a university, departments and colleges may operate very differently regarding teaching loads, expectations of service commitments, post-award support, and level of research infrastructure. Thus for team morale and effectiveness, it’s critical for team leaders and members to recognize and support everyone’s unique situation by seeking input from all members. When we become aware of others’ challenges, we then can identify how to help them succeed — and thus help the team succeed.

4. Great team members mentor early career researchers

To build a strong team, you must see someone else’s strength as a complement to your weakness and not a threat to your position or authority. — Christine Caine

Over the course of my interdisciplinary team experiences, I’ve been mentored by some great team leaders who recognized how they could help less experienced professors. These leaders were effective, high-performing professional and personal role models who didn’t always realize I was watching their behaviors and learning from them. I have also been part of teams where the leader or seasoned experienced members did not invest in their younger or less experienced team members or seem to care. Rather, they were motivated mostly by their own interests. These teams were less effective and efficient, and rockstar-in-the making team members, including younger professors, ultimately left those teams.

Team member cooperation trumps competition. Seasoned team members with effective leadership skills do not see early career researchers as threats but as assets and allies. As such, experienced researchers can have a profound positive — or negative — impact on their younger and less experienced colleagues.

5. Great team members double dip — and help others to do so

This is what I like to call “feeding two birds with one scone.” While time is the most precious commodity in academia, it’s critical to see the multifold purpose and opportunity inherent in many activities, which enable you to deliver multiple outputs at the same time. Great team members do this and teach less experienced members how to do this by example. They may use a class field trip to collect data for another project that benefits both their students and their outside project. They may assign graduate students in their class to assist with a grant research project. Or they may execute service and research tasks together. There are so many examples of double-dipping, but once you start doing it intentionally, you will see abundant opportunities in the work you are already doing and will be on your way to producing and impacting so much more.

Don’t overlook this factor for team success

While there are team member behaviors that are critical to building successful teams, it’s important to note a consideration that is often overlooked: time availability. While some of us are hopeless optimists and think we will always have more free time in the future, we need to recognize when someone doesn’t have enough time to contribute to or effectively lead the team — starting with ourselves. I’ve made so many time-related mistakes by taking on too many graduate students, saying yes to too many service commitments that yielded a lower return on my time invested, and not delegating to others to free up time for tasks that only I could do. Be realistic and conservative with how much time you — and others — truly have.

We are in academia because we are ambitious, and as such, we want to reach our goals, make a positive impact on the world, and do the best research we can. However, we may also need to look objectively at what it will take to do that research. In some instances, the type of team project you want to do may need a heavy dose of infrastructure development. Be cognizant of (and conservative with) how much time and energy you will need to invest in this development endeavor. If your time or your teammates’ time is limited, you may want to take the path of least resistance, especially if you are on the tenure clock. For example, instead of building a new laboratory, you may want to look at the resources you already have or that are more easily obtainable, including secondary data. Or collaborate with others who have a facility or equipment in place so you do not have to go after that risky big grant just to spend more time building a new facility and procuring and setting up new equipment — all before even doing research.

If you are on a big, challenging project or one that could benefit from stakeholder input, consider forming an advisory committee. In my experience when you ask people to help you accomplish something great, they are usually glad to help.