“Is teamwork exhausting?”

A better question might be: are we truly working together, or simply working side by side?

I’m curious: in your teamwork experiences, what has drained you the most?

Just one sentence. Sometimes a brief story reveals more than we expect.

For me, teamwork isn’t exhausting because of the amount of work, but because of the friction between different ways of thinking. That’s when everyone feels tired, even when no one is necessarily wrong. We often assume teamwork means dividing tasks to make things lighter. In reality, it means sharing responsibility, margin for error, expectations, and finding common ground.

Teamwork becomes lighter only when people look in the same direction, understand the same goal, and respect the same way of working. When communication is clear, processes are simple, and information isn’t scattered everywhere.

But when systems are loose, communication is driven by assumptions, and tasks are assigned “based on trust,” teamwork stops being collective effort, and starts becoming collective exhaustion.

That’s why working alone means facing the work itself.

Working in a team means facing people.

You’re not just completing your own tasks. You’re also learning how to read between the lines, how to speak without offending, how to give feedback without being misunderstood, how to wait, how to coordinate, and sometimes, how to step back.