Teamwork
Teamwork is difficult. Trying to get everyone along to complete a project is a challenging process as every person is different and have varying perspective on how things should be done. I once had to work with a team when creating a group presentation on a book for one of my English classes a few years back. This may not be a professional setting, but I think an academic setting share quite a few similarities.
The project that I was a part of had essentially a circle network configuration. Everyone equally had their own input and there was no hierarchy to report to, just other team members. We divided up our work among the six of us and everyone did their own part. We were able to agree on a lot for things for the most part, and it wasn't as inefficient as the text said it may be.
In terms of Katzenbach and Smith, our team had several distinguishing characteristics. Regarding the “high-performing teams are of manageable size” we had an optimal group size of around 6 which is quite easy to get along. I think anymore then that would have proved detrimental and a lot of members just standing around like dead weight. We all also held ourselves collectively accountable as no one member is important than the other. I think this is quite important because the finished product would be nothing without the collective effort. Discussing “high-performing teams develop the right mix of expertise” we did divide up the work based on who excelled in it. So, for example I chose to create entire the presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint which I had quite some experience doing. Others who were excellent readers wrote the analysis and etc. This was also time effective as everyone could excel what they were good at. With the quality “high-performing teams develop a common commitment to working relationships” our team set up schedules and deadlines that had to be adhered to, otherwise we would have not finished the assignment on time. We respected each other’s time so everything can be combined into the final presentation in a timely manner. I think we all had a sense of mutual understanding that allowed us to finish the project quite quickly rather than simply procrastinating until the very last minute as I have experienced in other team projects. It also gave us enough time to prepare our speeches and how exactly to deliver the presentation.We were able to analyze the text effectively and get our messages to our audience quite well. When I made the presentation, I made sure that it looked clean and not too wordy for the audience to be able to understand and not just bore them with paragraphs of texts. When I showed my work to the rest of the team, they were happy with what had I done and so we submitted it to the teacher before we presented it the next day.
In the end when we gave our presentation to the entire class, we spoke in a calm and collected manner, in the sense that we believed in what we were telling them. The team took equal turns in speaking and understood each other’s material well enough to talk about it.
The teacher commended us on it when we finished the presentation, saying it was one of the best he’s seen in a while. If I recall correctly, we ended up with a 96 on the presentation and written analysis, in a way to quantify how we did. I was quite lucky to have a good group of members who knew what exactly they were doing, and also for all the hard work that they put into the project.
I believe your example is an of all-channels network, not a circle network.
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit surprised about what you wrote in the first paragraph, where you said teamwork is inherently difficult. Has that always been your experience? Have you ever seen a group performance where the performers seem to enjoy being together? Perhaps a band or a stage troupe, or some other example where you were in the audience, not part of the team, have you witnessed that?
You didn't discuss how your team was selected, nor whether you had any prior experience with members of your team. Those factors might matter. Perhaps surprisingly, my experience is that with student projects if some of the team members are friends ahead of time, then it is more likely that one will act opportunistically regarding the work of the group, taking advantage of the friendship.
Having talented teammates certainly is a plus. I wonder if the project you describe here required other attributes of a good team member, such as unselfishness, that do matter in other contexts. So I'd be interested in knowing how that played out in your group. For example, you said you were the PowerPoint presentation person. Was there any other area of the project where two people wanted to do that piece? If so, how did it get decided who actually did it.
Incidentally, while you said six members in the group was not too large, my own view is that if there is to be spirited discussion about how a paper should be written and what points should be emphasized, three is about the maximum and the others should then play the role of readers/commenters/editors. You didn't mention that other function in your piece above. Did any of the teammates do that?
For the most part, I have found teamwork to be difficult. Maybe others have found it quite simpler but I have not. I have been part of a theatrical production and the teamwork was still hard, but rewarding. I don't think it's easy for a group of a strangers to get along as opposed to complete strangers. When I went to see a musical they all seemed to be having great time, though I do not know necessarily what happened behind the scenes.
DeleteI think there was one other person who wanted do to the powerpoint but I told them I would create one as they seemed to have more to say about the analysis of the book, rather than me.
I believe we all as a group played the role of editors and commenters when we finished the piece, and didn't delegate it to any one person. I found that it was much simpler to finish the project having six people writing rather than just three.