Interrelationship and Team Effectiveness - Essay Example

? Topic: Lecturer: Presentation: Group work is very essential in organisations for improving organisational effectiveness and competitive advantage. However, this depends on the effectiveness of the group in the task assigned to accomplish which in turn depends on the nature of interpersonal relationships. Most theorists attribute the failure of group work to poor interpersonal relationships leading to lack of cohesion which is essential in any team. Interpersonal relations are needed in decision making, resolving conflicts, task assignments and other processes. The purpose of this work is to reflect upon my own group work experience by focusing on the interpersonal relationships that existed in the group and their impact on the group effectiveness. I will then outline the implications of analysis of my experience for the effective management of people within organisations. Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………1 List of Tables………………………………………………………………………….2 List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………2 1.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………………..3 2.0 Stages of Group Development……………………………………………………..4 2.1 Forming…………………………………………………………………….5 2.2 Storming……………………………………………………………………6 2.3 Norming…………………………………………………………………….7 2.4 Performing………………………………………………………………….7 2.5 Adjourning………………………………………………………………….8 3.0 Approaches to Interpersonal Relationships…………………………………………8 4.0 Interrelationship and Team Effectiveness…………………………………………..11 5.0 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..14 References………………………………………………………………………………15 List of Tables 3.1: Meredith Belbin 1993 Team Roles for Successful Teams…………………………9 4.1: The Big Five Trait Model…………………………………………………………..11 List of Figures Figure 1: Five Stages of Group Development…………………………………………...5 1.0 Introduction The purpose of our group assignment was to research and critically analyse the approaches to organisation structure, culture and approach to management/ leadership style of an organisation, in this case, British Airways. The group comprising of six individuals of the same age and culture was to collect and analyse data from the organisation so as to demonstrate our research ability as well as critical thinking ability. Based on this analysis, I will discuss one aspect of my experience in the group work and its implication in effective management of people in organisations. The aspect to be analysed involves interpersonal relationships and team effectiveness. I will start by explaining how my group developed and what I experienced during this period. I will enumerate the positive as well as the negative aspects of the experience and the role I played during this group life-cycle or stages. This will enable me to learn from experience and also use what I have learnt to other situations or organisation to contribute to its effectiveness. I will discuss group effectiveness and especially the role played by interpersonal relationships. This is an area on interest since most studies do not reveal how personality types contribute to the effectiveness of the team. Most theorists focus on input-process-output and forget this important aspect. To achieve this, the essay will be divided into four sections. The first section will focus on group development and its implication on relationships within the group. The second section will focus on what I learnt from the experience and how I can be of help if faced by a similar situation in the future. The third section will focus on how to improve interpersonal relationships and to develop effective teams. Lastly, I will conclude with a summary of the analysis. 2.0 Stages of Group Development There are various theories focusing on the group formation and I will utilise the five states of group formation. In addition, I will utilise my own experience in the group to put the theory in practice. During the process, I recorded events as they were unfolding in my diary and also sough other group members and non-group members of what they thought of the group or what they were experiencing. This will be an important source of information for analysis as it will help me to reflect on the group experience. The group life-cycle or development stages were developed by Bruce Tuckman (1965). He enumerated five stages: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning (Keen, 2003:30; Schermerhorn, 2011: 156-157). The last stage deal with disbanding of the group hence is of little importance for this study but important if the group was to continue with future activities. These are described in the figure 1 below. At each stage, there were a lot of challenges which may have contributed to lack of group effectiveness and which I will describe. Figure 1: Five Stages of Group Development (Schermerhorn, 2011: 157). 2.1 Forming This is the stage where group members are chosen and whereby team members begin interacting and knowing each other. The composition of the group is this very crucial in this instance as it directly affects team success (Srinath, 2006). I was not happy with the way the group was selected as I would have preferred other members especially those am acquainted with. Though we were all Chinese and of the same age, our attitudes and values did not match. Furthermore, our personalities were so different. I am an extravert person who likes socialising and also very ambitious but the rest of the members seemed not to have ambition. Student A was emotionally unstable and could not handle stress well and this affected his ability to collect information. Sometimes we would work under stressful conditions especially while trying to get secret information from the staff of British Airways. This needed courage and perseverance and ability to control anger and other affects which he was unable and unwilling to. It was also difficult to relate with student B and C since they liked keeping to themselves. However, student D was easy to relate with. The group members disliked me at the first instance since they thought I was being full of myself but as time passed by they realised I was not being proud but just pursuing the set goals. We also familiarised with the tasks at hand to understand them better and to see how they fit with overall objective of the course. Student D assumed leadership of the group. He was conscientious and emotionally stable hence we thought he was best placed to lead us. I would have liked to take that role since I was looking forward to the success of the group but I hesitated since I did not want to be blamed for any eventual failure. 2.2 Storming At this stage, we had gotten acquainted with each other. We had no cultural problems or problems related to age since we were all of the same culture and age. The group was thus homogenous but as Keen (2003) puts it, this is not good for the group as some elements diversity are essential in enhancing group success through creativity although on the other hand, diversity can lead to conflicts. After getting to understand the tasks, this stage involved dividing roles and tasks. This was not easy as I expected. The leader decided to assign tasks without consulting us and I could not accept this so I resisted. The others had no much say and took up their tasks without complaining but were not satisfied. As a result, tensions were building up in the group some supporting me while others supporting the leader. Since the timeframe to do the assignment was very long, my colleagues felt there was no need to stress ourselves with a lot of work; we could do it gradually. However, being ambitious to complete the task I resisted and the group leader agreed with me that we should take work seriously. If we had not insisted on this, we would not have finished the assignment on time due to the various challenges we encountered on the way. There was also a lot of hostility among members especially as one student was emotionally unstable; a slight provocation could make him want to fight with other members. We took a lot of time to understand each other’s interpersonal styles thus being able to deal with each other. 2.3 Norming According to Shermerhorn (2011) group norms are supposed to emerge at this stage for smooth operation of the group. This is the stage where relationships are built so that the group can work together cooperatively. Though we came up with rules to guide the group, tensions still persisted especially due to some students lacking motivation to do their tasks. Several members still unhappy with the way tasks were assigned and thus did them reluctantly thus slowing down our work. Furthermore, we worked as individuals since some members preferred to work alone rather than collectively. We did not discuss issues often; members kept their feelings to themselves and were always busy as the leader was pressuring us to complete the work. I was unsatisfied with the group work as I felt group identity was lacking and I could not share opinions with others. Sometimes I was just there physically but emotionally absent so as to deal with my frustration. At the end of week 5, we had little to show of what we had accomplished. The sense of belonging was lacking and motivation was low. 2.4 Performing This is the stage where group effectiveness is apparent. The results are expected and as such we had to work under pressure to complete the work. The leader was expected to give us feedback on how we were performing but he did not. We also did not participate in leadership and communication was very poor. Until now, we rarely talked to each other on how the tasks were coming along and what challenges each of us was facing so as to help and support each other. It was very clear that the group had not yet reached maturity in relationships. As an extrovert, I could have done something to facilitate the group socially but unfortunately I decided to leave them alone and shared my opinions with other people outside the group to help me deal with tension. This cost us a lot in terms of marks scoring. It was not as I had expected but had only myself to blame for not taking action. I could say team roles as identified by Belbin (1981, 1993) were lacking hence the imbalance in the team (Tjosvold, 2005). The leader had done a good job in ensuring we completed the assignment in time although without cooperation. Sometimes the results were conflicting and we had to go back to the drawing board to find out where or who went wrong and this delayed our work. This was a result of lack of cooperation. 2.5 Adjourning Having completed the assignment, the group was disbanded. I feel that I cannot work with those members in any other situation in future. 3.0 Approaches to Interpersonal Relationships This experience has taught me a lot about interpersonal relationships and given another situation like this, I would act in a different way. My experience can also serve as a warning to other student groups in the university and especially to the lecturers in choosing group members. Reflecting o my experience, I would actually not repeat such mistakes if I was put I a leadership position in future. I would ensure teamwork is effective by developing on areas that I felt weakened the team. The first point of weakness that I enumerated was the group composition especially filling team-player roles. I will use Belbins framework of 9 team roles for successful teams (Keen, 2003: 39). For a team to be effective, Belbin enumerated nine team-roles that need to be filled which include: coordinator, plant, resource investigator, shaper, and monitor-evaluator, team worker, implementer, completer and the specialist as shown in Table 3.1 below. Table 3.1: Meredith Belbin 1993 Team Roles for Successful Teams Role Characteristics Coordinator self-disciplined, confident, mature Shaper Full of drive, not mind being challenged, push own views forward. Plant Dynamic, challenging, outgoing, and self-confident Monitor-evaluator Serious, strategic Team worker Sensitive, supportive, perceptive, accommodating, social. Implementer Reliable, disciplined, efficient, not flexible Completer Careful, conscientious, predictable, realist, drives deadlines. Specialist Possess skills and knowledge, dedicated. Source: Adopted from Keen (2003: 39). According to this model by Belbin, these roles need to be present in every group for effectiveness to be achieved and in case some roles are missing, some members can take up more than two roles (Keen 2003). As an extrovert member I could have taken up more of these roles to ensure cohesiveness among group members. I left the leader to impose his decisions on us leading to dissatisfaction by members and consequently low motivation while I should have assumed the role of plant or team worker. I should have challenged those decisions no matter what others thought and encouraged sharing. Besides, I should have been more accommodative and supportive to other group members instead of seeking support from outside the group. Since the rest of members were introverts, I should have acted as a coordinator between them by facilitating communication. Although the leader was a completer and implementer, this had its negative effects. He was inflexible and this caused tensions within the group. However, I should have mobilised the rest of the members to challenge his decisions instead of group think and this would have made a difference. Together as a team, we would have been able to convince the leader to be a bit flexible or to reconsider his decisions. On the other hand, this would have resulted in conflict between the leader and the rest of the group. I therefore think my approach to keeping silent and watching was justified as it reduced conflicts. Besides, the leader was ensuring that everyone works hard to meet deadline. Would I have been the leader, which I evaded from to avoid blame in case of failure, I would have adopted a different approach to leadership which is participative leadership. By allowing all members to contribute to decisions they will develop a sense of belonging hence increased team cohesiveness (Campion, Medsker & Higgs, 1993). I feel that I should have done much for the group to encourage positive interrelationships but the chance is already gone. What I feel now is a sense of guilt knowing that I let the team down but then the leader is to blame for the failure thus I can escape blame. I have learnt a lot from this experience which I can apply in future assignments and have a satisfying group experience. May be I can also take up a leadership role and lead from the front. 4.0 Interrelationships and Team Effectiveness The analysis of my experience in the group work activity has a lot of implications for effective management of people within organisations. This is due to the fact that the people are the most valuable resource in organisations for gaining sustainable competitive advantage (Hayes, 2002). The subject of my analysis was interpersonal relationships and team effectiveness and hence the subject of my discussion in this section. Theories of personality are essential in explaining team effectiveness and also other requirements for team effectiveness. I will thus utilise the ‘Big five’ trait model as shown in Table 4.1 below. Table 4.1: The Big Five Trait Model Personality factor Description Neuroticism Prone to anxiety, worry, guilt, emotional instability vs. relaxed, calm, secure, emotionally stable. Extraversion Outgoing, friendly, enthusiastic, vs. solitary, shy, serious, reserved Openness Imaginative, curious, intellectual vs. conforming, practical, conventional. Agreeableness Sensitive, tolerant, easy to get along, concern for others feelings and needs vs. cold, suspicious, hostile. Conscientiousness Reliable, responsible, self-disciplined, ethical, hardworking, ambitious vs. disorganised, unreliable, lax, impulsive, careless, Source: Adapted from Nevid (2011: 396). Different people have different personalities which affect the effectiveness of any team or group. There are many levels of interpersonal relations: intrapersonal, inter-personal, intra-group, inter-group, intra-organisational and inter-organisational (Forsyth (1990). Intra-personal relationships involve oneself and perceptions about ourselves while inter-personal relations involve relations with others. Relations are also within and between groups and also within organisations, between organisations and organisations and their environments. If we are able to perceive ourselves positively then relations with others and in groups would not be a problem. Barrick and Mount (1991) assert for a group to be effective, it should have a mix of different personalities. However, the mix may also cause problems. While extraversion is good for interpersonal relationships and team cohesion, having many extraverted members can be a problem due to competition and conflict. Conscientiousness is also good in a team as it helps to achieve outcome regardless of relationships with team members. However, as we saw in the case of my group conscientiousness did not lead to team effectiveness due to lack of concern for other group members and use of bureaucratic leadership style. It does not also enhance cooperation which is needed for team effectiveness. Agreeableness and extraversion on the other hand, contribute to team effectiveness by enhancing group cohesion. However, having a disagreeable member can be detrimental to the group due to delay in decision making. Emotional stability is also essential especially when the task is demanding. Low emotional stability may affect group cooperation as in the case of my group. I had to keep motivating and encouraging this individual. As we can see from this explanation, there is no single trait that is superior to others. A good combination of people with different personalities is a challenge for management to ensure effective teamwork. Combine extroverts, conscientious people, agreeable and open individuals. This will in turn enhance communication, decision making, and performance of tasks (Hackman, 1990). Team effectiveness can also be realised by proper management of conflict. In any group there are bound to be conflicts whether personal or job related. Most of the conflicts were job related and constructive rather than destructive. Constructive conflicts bring about benefits to the group while destructive or dysfunctional conflict hurts group cohesion and leads to interpersonal hostilities (Schermerhorn, 2011). Conflicts can be resolved through accommodation, collaboration, compromise, avoidance, and through authoritive command. I opted to avoid confrontation or conflict by avoiding it, for example by not challenging the leader or accepting the decisions made but this is not the right way to go. People should be empowered and enabled to challenge the authority where they deem necessary. Discussing issues or communication in general can help resolve conflicts hence improved interpersonal relationships and consequently team effectiveness (Parker, 2008). One can always compromise by giving up personal interests and accepting the opinions of others and this means removing bureaucratic structures and procedures and allowing communication in all directions. But it is not just communicating; the message should be properly decoded by the receiver for it to be effective. Leadership is crucial to organisation or team success. However, leadership style depends on personality of individuals thus while selecting leaders, personal attitudes and behaviour need to be considered. Just because someone is knowledgeable does not mean he/she is a good leader. Extraverts can make good leaders since they are good in interpersonal relationships (Luthans, 2005). Theorists also stress the importance of the leader involving subordinates in making decisions especially on matters that affect them. In our group, we were not allowed to participate in designing roles and tasks leading to dissatisfaction and rebellion on my part. Member satisfaction is one of the key indicators of team effectiveness and if members are not involved in deciding issues they may be de-motivated or dissatisfied (Srinath, 2006). The implication of this is that bureaucratic leadership should be avoided at all cost. Though it leads to quick decision making, it can bring the downfall of the group. It also hinders interpersonal relationships which are essential for successful teams. 5.0 Conclusion In this essay, I have described my experiences within a group which had been formed to research and critically analyse organisation culture, structure and approach to leadership and management. My reflection on group activities has revealed that personality types can have a negative effect on group performance if not well handled at each stage of group formation. The type of leadership also has implications for interpersonal relations and overall success. Though a leader may be knowledgeable, reliable, conscientious, without concern for others he/she cannot succeed. The analysis has also shown that conflict is inevitable in organisations as a result of interpersonal relationships but dealt with constructively, it can lead to team success. Reflecting on my own experience, I believe and other theorists agree with me that handling interpersonal relations can lead to team effectiveness. 6.0 References Barrick, M.R and Mount, M.K (1991). The big five personality dimensions and job performance: a meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1-26. Campion, M.A., Medsker, G.J and Higgs, A.C (1993). Relations between work group characteristics and effectiveness: implications for designing effective work groups. Personnel Psychology, 46, 823-850. Forsyth, D. R (1990) Group dynamics. 2nd ed. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Hackman, J.R (1990) Conclusion: creating more effective work groups in organizations. In J.R Hackman (ed) Groups that work and those that don’t. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Hayes, N (2002) Managing Teams: A Strategy for Success. UK: Thomson Learning. Keen, T.R (2003) Creating effective and successful teams. Purdue University Press. Luthans, F (2005) Organizational Behavior. 10 ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Nevid, J.S. (2011). Essentials of psychology: concepts and applications. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Cengage Parker, G (2008) Team Players and Teamwork: New Strategies for Developing Successful Collaboration. 2ed. San Francisco CA: Joss-Bass. Schermerhorn, J.R (2011) Organizational behaviour. 12th ed. USA: John-Wiley & Sons Srinath, T.T (ed). (2006) Team development and team effectiveness: a facilitator’s handbook. India: ICFAI University Press Tjosvold, D., Poon, M. and Yu, Zi-you (2005). Team effectiveness in China: cooperative conflict for relationship building. Human Relations, 58(3), 341-367 Read More