Lost at sea and landing on the moon
An effective team is made up of a range of people with different quality and skills all aiming to work together to create a final output in the highest quality possible, whether it is a new product or an idea. It is simply defined as a limited number of people who have shared objectives at work, who co-operate, on a temporary or permanent basis. In my case, this group was temporary, therefore only lasted for a short period of time. In order for the team to reach their goal they must set aims and objectives in order for each team member to follow. An effective team involves a leader who will communicate and encourage each member to contribute their ideas, in order to get an array of opinions. The atmosphere must also be calm and laissez faire as this will enable team members to el comfortable with each other encouraging them to voice their ideas as well as feeling comfortable and settled. In addiction team members must be open to constructive criticism as well as learn from others within the group.
During class we were split into groups of four to complete a task called “Lost at sea”. This activity outlined the application of both Belbin’s team work roles and Tuckman’s team development. Dr R. Meredith Belbin identified ways in which people behave when put into teams I believe that Bonnie was the shaper of the group. She was able to set objectives and priorities and guided the team towards the completion of the task. Bonnie also had lots of ideas and challenged other group members if she did not agree with their way of thinking. However she often spoke over their group members creating slight arguments and bad attitudes between certain team members. I believe that the team worker within the group was Katie. She was very caring and very person orientated. She ensured that everyone’s opinion was heard improving communication within the team. She kept the team together by ensuring arguments did not take us off track. Katie demonstrated how Belbin says team workers have people’s feelings as her main priories, as this was communicated through her soft nature. In addiction I believe Darren was the pant. This is because he had creative ideas and often corrected us on the reality of the most important items in which we would really need. He was creative, imaginative and generated ideas as well as solved difficult problems.
These roles for each group member best described how they made us a powerful group however Belbin also mentions that some team members to do perform to the best of their ability. If I was to critically evaluate our group, would agree that we had a “critical member” This was reflected throughout the activity as it regularly caused arguments and disagreements. This member of the group was adamant that their opinion was always right giving little opportunity for other opinions to be heard. Therefore another member would counter argue resulting in members struggling to agree. However, Katie was often able to resolve this. I addiction there was a rude group members, however I do not think this was a major issue however on occasion it prevented the group from communicating effectively.
I believe that as a whole our team worked well together as after arguing, each team member began to understand the importance of each voice being listened to. The group’s roles and dynamics were equally balanced as it allowed each group member to contribute their ideas, skills and qualities to the team. However, I do believe that the team could have performed faster as I think each choice considered was over evaluated and therefore the task was not completed. Tuckman’s theory speaks about how a team develops through the four different stages: forming, storming, norming and performing. In order for us to fully develop we had to establish each step and take into account of each purpose. Due to being peers we had already established the forming stage; however the storming stage took a lot longer. This stage is when the group beings to exchange ideas but there is still little structure to the group – no clear plans to take the group forward. This took the longest as different group members challenged each other’s opinions and this showed a lack of togetherness within the group, also known as group cohesion. We reached the norming stage when we established that we needed to value each group member’s opinion without being dismissive, after doing this it allowed us to conform to a set of ideas. This further lead us to performing when we began to function like a team as a clear organisational pattern was formed.