Individual Paper Teamwork Management Term Paper Essay

Teamwork
Name:
Institution:
Teamwork
Introduction
A team may be defined as a group of individuals who join the effort and work together to achieve a common goal. It is essential to comprehend that different people forming a group have their unique capabilities and skills, and every member is critical in making the group achieve its predetermined objectives. Therefore, teamwork may be examined as a cooperative effort where individuals interact to achieve a certain purpose. Besides, teamwork involves breaking down and subdividing subtasks among the team members where every person is required to carry out and accomplish their individual tasks before the results of the subdivided tasks are integrated together. Some of the characteristics of teamwork include sharing the same mission and objectives, open and direct communication, availability of the resources required to support all the team members, and there is sufficient leadership to support all the members. The literature examines and analyzes the dynamics of the team by reflecting on the formation, storming, and performing phases.
Formation phase
This is the first stage of team development, and it is during this time that the team members come together with the goal of accomplishing their shared objectives. Ordinarily, at this stage, all the group members exhibit some characteristics such as being polite and remaining positive, and the team members are yet to comprehend what they are required to do. Additionally, individuals are also overly polite, and they tend to be pleasant. Besides, this stage is likely to last for some time as the team members get to know each other. It is important to note that at this stage, the leader has a critical role in developing clear objectives and goals for the entire team and for individual members and should also facilitate open communication to enable the people to know each other.
There are numerous activities that took place during this stage. The team discussed every member’s skills and interests; this was essential because it helped in ensuring that every team member was assigned tasks that align with his or her skills. This was critical because each person was assigned activities that he or she would accomplish effectively. Besides, the team also discussed the project goals; this was critical as every person needed to comprehend the objectives of the team and what every individual needed to facilitate the team’s goals. Most importantly, since conflicts are likely to occur throughout the team’s lifetime, it was necessary to develop the ground rules which were needed to determine how the team members should interact and how the approaches that would be used to solve conflicts once they occurred. The team leader was given the role mediating whenever issues arose between the group members. It was required that everyone would be listened before the leader would give directions. Additionally, depending on every person’s capabilities, the leader would also be assigned individual roles, and every team member was required to accomplish the assigned activities before providing the results for consolidation (Duygulu & Ciraklar, 2009). Besides, the members also discussed the timelines; this was critical in ensuring that the team’s goals and objectives were accomplished within the agreed period. Most importantly, the leader was required to monitor the participation of every individual to ensure that their contributions were being put into use, and this was critical in ensuring that every individual’s contribution facilitated in accomplishing the intended goals.
Team interaction
The team leader had scheduled meetings every day; therefore, all the team members were required to show up during the planned time. The scheduled meeting made it possible for the team to communicate effectively since all critical communications are done during the meetings, and this also made it possible to find the corresponding information in time. Additionally, the team also developed guidelines that determined how individuals interacted; each member of the group had a turn to speak, disagree with other individuals, and explain reasons for opinions. Effective communication strategies enabled the team to complete its projects quicker and also record better results. Besides, having an effective communication model made it possible for the team to share information effectively, thus promoting the integrity of the team.
Vision and goal
Having a clear vision and well-stipulated goals were critical in giving the team a direction. All the team members were inspired by the same factors, and this brought the members close to each other. Every member of the group would obtain the same mark; this motivated every individual in the group to make contributions, which would increase the overall marks for the group. Both the goals and the vision of the team were critical in uniting the team and also gave the team a purpose that every member was determined to achieve. It is critical to comprehend that in order to ensure that all team members are focused on achieving the goals of the team, then every person should have been included in the goal-setting process where each individual should have a say and feel the sense of ownership.
Problems experienced in the formation stage
Lack of diverse skills
It was found that team members had similar skills and interests. This would limit the creativity of the team since members would be unable to generate free ideas. Besides, it would have been difficult to turn the perspectives of every member into opportunities. To ensure that the team’s purpose is not threatened by a lack of skills, it is critical to examine the skills of every person before the commencement of teamwork. The group members had different cognitive abilities, such as creativity, planning, decision making, and interpersonal skills. Members of the team were assigned activities depending on their skills; for example, the team leader required both planning and inter-personal skills. Besides, the members also had different personalities; for instance, the boys in the team were extraverted while on the other side, I was introverted. Having a team of people with different capabilities and characters helps in forming a dynamic team where individual strengths are exploited to promote the success of the team. The members, however, had same physical abilities.
Poor communication
Ideally, communication is integral in all phases of the team development as it helps the team members to interact and share ideas and opinions, which are likely to impact the objectives and goals of the team. It was noted that the majority of the team members concentrated on their independent roles, and this impacted communication between the members (Measom, 2019). This necessitated the team leader to design and implement the communication approaches that would bring the team members together to share ideas and solve the issues likely to affect the team. The leader was required to organize meetings that were aimed at promoting communication and enabling the team to share the progress of the project. Besides, during the meeting, individuals were also required to talk about their successes and the challenges they experienced during the early stages of team development. These meetings facilitated openness, where all the members were able to air their views and opinions.
Lack of trust
Trust is a building block for relationships established between teams. Usually, lack of trust is likely to impact and break a team since it threatens the productivity and interaction between the team members. Since the team members had not worked together before, trust was a huge problem because the individuals had not developed connections among themselves. The team leader implemented a different mechanism of strengthening trust among the individual members; these include encouraging open communication where every person can communicate with other members in a meaningful way. Further, the leader also discouraged members from blaming members for mistakes made by the team. The members were also required to address the trust issues they faced openly; this would help in promoting the strength and effectiveness of the entire team.
Conflict
Ordinarily, misunderstandings are common during team formation since individuals are unaware of each other potential. It is vital to comprehend that the criteria that members use in dealing with the conflicts within the team is critical because it determines the development and the success of the team. The leader was effective in establishing various measures that would help in resolving disagreements among the team members. Some of the approaches that were agreed upon to promote conflict management include showing the willingness to cooperate as a team, understanding when to offer an apology and forgive and avoiding taking things personal (Amaresan, 2019). Such proper conflict management strategies were critical in enhancing the success of the team.
Storming and Norming Phases
During the second stage, the team members have known each other, and every out is comfortable expressing his or her opinions and ideas. Additionally, more conflicts are likely to be experienced during this stage because different personalities may clash, and the team members are likely to disagree when giving their opinion and when discussing how to complete tasks. Although disagreements are common among the teams, it is essential for the team leader to manage the group activities to prevent disputes that may affect the existence of the team (Priestley, 2015). The leader should identify potential conflicts before escalating to levels that they may become unmanageable. In the norming stage, the team finds ways of solving the issues which are experienced by the group members. This is accomplished through setting standards and rules that determine how people interact, and things are done. Besides, the norming phase is regarded as the sweet phase since all members in the group are accustomed to interacting in finding solutions to the different tasks before the team. Some of the norming behaviors that are common in this stage include the potential to accept constructive criticism, allowing open communication, facilitating better working relationships, and adhering with the team rules and regulations.
Role of team members
Most of the conflicts encountered during the storming phase were related to the roles and responsibilities of individual members. To ensure that every person understood what he or he was expected to facilitate in the team, the members discussed and agreed on the various activities that individuals were expected to carry out. For instance, some members took the roles of a harmonizer and ensured that the team members were always focused on the objectives and goals of the group and not on the differences among themselves. Besides, other members acted as an energizer and were responsible for motivating and challenging the team members to act harder when everyone was almost giving up. Furthermore, there were also dominators, leaders, and followers; the role of the leader was to influence other group members to follow the vision of the team while the followers executed the tasks allocated to them and also adhered to the directives given by the team leader. For example, Reed acted as the team leader, and he was responsible for controlling and managing the speed at which the group members accomplished their tasks. On the other side, most of the other group members acted as followers and ensured that the tasks allocated to them were accomplished within the set time. However, all team members took part in discussing the answers that the members agreed on. The clear articulation of every member’s roles reduced the conflicts that were related to the contribution of each member.
Team cohesiveness
The general cohesiveness of the team was achieved once internal conflicts among the members were solved. The team leader, who was the dominator, made the group members realize that they are all focused on achieving the same goal and, therefore, ought to work together. Besides, having open communication platforms during the team meeting also made it possible for the individuals to engage and find solutions to the issues that might have impacted the team, and this was critical in promoting openness and trust among the members. Additionally, Reed, the group leader, was also effective in ensuring promoting the bond of the team by ensuring that every individual had a role that determined the success of the team. The team leader also ensure that every person had a say in the group, and no one was considered more important than the rest of the members; this helped in maintaining a stronger team where each group member was focused on the success of the group.
Harmony in the team
Harmony in a group is examined as what the team attains when the relationships among the members are intentionally built. Ideally, having a team that works harmoniously always generates better results, and it is, therefore, necessary for the team leader to ensure that conflicts and disagreements are completely solved. In order to promote harmony, the team leader was focused on promoting consensus on the issues brought by a different member. Often, there were numerous ideas that were raised by different group members, and individuals were required to discuss them and convince each other. Then the members would take a vote when deciding the final answer....