What Are the Big Five Personality Traits - Sok-Fitness Center - Assignment Example

?Q There are four fundamental types of groups ly the participant driven groups, the information presentation groups, the decision-making groups and the skill-building groups (sharedaction.org, n.d.). The participant driven groups provide emotional support to the members and help them with their individualistic problems. The information presentation groups provide members with the information they need on specific subjects to accomplish their goals. The decision-making groups make decisions upon issues. Management and planning groups are included in this category. Skill-building groups develop the members’ skills i.e. communication skills, planning and management skills etc. Bruce W Tuckman has suggested a model of group development based on four stages. Here, I shall evaluate the process of group development at Sok-Fitness Center where I am a member of the marketing team. Sok-Fitness makes partners in the workforce, so I have a female colleague Sarah with whom I work. She makes the schedules, and I go and discuss the matters with the clients. The first stage of group development is of formation. This is basically the stage of understanding the need to form a group and integrating into it. People form groups in order to have a better understanding of who performs what in the course of achievement of the organizational objective. “…individuals are also gathering information and impressions - about each other, and about the scope of the task and how to approach it” (Chimaera Consulting Limited, 2001). Formation of a group unites people on one platform and they are able to avoid conflicts. Our group was formed by our manager, and the two of us were assigned our respective duties by him, so there were no misunderstandings. The second stage of group development is storming. This is the stage when people feel the need to conflict over issues of mutual interest or concern. Some people enter minor confrontations while others enter into severe kinds of conflicts. The level to which the conflicts storm up varies from one organization to another depending upon the culture and policies of an organization, yet it is never entirely inevitable. People look for rules to guide them on different matters. Sarah was a new employee and needed a bit of training before making the schedules. So in the start, she and I had had some misunderstandings. She referred me to various clients haphazardly. This was causing trouble. We consulted the manager. He told us that I can schedule for myself unless Sarah is sufficiently trained. The company organized one week’s training session for Sarah after which she got skilled in making schedules. The third stage of group development is norming. This is the stage when the rules of engagement are developed. These rules help the people have a better understanding of their respective roles and responsibilities in the group. Once that is achieved, people perceive one another better and can appreciate one another’s skills and differences. However, after this stage, employees may become resistant to change because of their fear that the change might distort the group. We saw this stage after Sarah was trained. We did not have troubles thereafter. The manager asked us if we would like to exchange our roles, but neither of us opted for it. Performing is the fourth stage of group development and is rare to occur. This is a stage whereby every member of the group can emotionally connect with others and change the roles and responsibilities as per the need of the hour. This is a stage in which, the members entire effort is directed towards the achievement of the goal. We were fortunate enough to reach this stage. Q. 2 Some of the most common characteristics of a successful team are mission, empowerment, involvement, willingness to take risk, unity and change (Business Advantage International, 2008). Factors that can negatively affect the team include group think and dysfunctional conflicts. Several personality traits of individuals that make part of a team also have many positive and negative implications for the team as a whole. The contemporary psychology sums up these factors under the umbrella term of “Big Five”. The five OCEAN traits identified by the contemporary psychologists include openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Anissimov, 2011). Sarah and I were working as partners in the marketing department in the Sok-Fitness Center. Sarah was new in the field and lacked the required skills in the use of the scheduling software, but she did not want others to get an air of it so that her status on job would not be challenged. Thus, she measured very low on the scale of the openness to experience. By displaying this behavior, Sarah also displayed very low level of conscientiousness and extraversion as it was her duty to be truthful about her skills and not affect the work by hiding them, but she did not do it. Our manager of the team of the Sok-Fitness Center was a very agreeable manager. I can say this because the moment he found out that Sarah lacked training in the use of the software, he arranged a training session based on a whole week for her without letting her down. Sarah also displayed very little agreeableness and neuroticism. This is evident from the fact that she had lied about her competence in the use of the software and prior experience in scheduling. She lied because she could not experience the negative emotions she expected others to display after knowing that. I missed meetings with a lot of clients in the start because of the resulting misunderstandings. However, great organizations have great team leaders sitting at the top, just like Mr. Brown who not only never let Sarah down, but also conducted a meeting with me in person to advise me to be forgiving and understanding towards Sarah since she was at the beginning of her career. By this, Mr. Brown spread the message of involvement and unity. In addition to that, he knew that Sarah was new and not fully competent for the job, yet he gave her a chance. This suggests that he was a leader who is willing to take risks. Mr. Brown advised me to be more respectful towards Sarah and avoid dysfunctional conflicts with her. Great teams are like members of the same family wherein elders play the role of parents and the younger ones listen to them. I also found a noticeable improvement in Sarah’s behavior after she had learnt the software. Her newly developed competence had not only made her fit for her job, but also a more positive person as a whole. Q. 3. In the contemporary age, in which change is continuous, constant planning and organization of the team is necessary for its effective management. In order to keep pace with the schedule, it is imperative that the project progress is constantly monitored and updated on the daily basis. This is achieved by such software programs as Primavera. Large organizations have their branches established in different cities within the country as well as in different countries. Managers of the different branches need to interact frequently in order to maintain uniform standards in all the branches. This is achieved by phone and videoconferencing. The revolution of mobile phones has made the problem of communication insignificant. In addition to that, videoconferencing enables managers to interact with one another face-to-face remaining in their respective places. “Managing a virtual team means managing the whole spectrum of communication strategies and project management techniques as well as human and social processes in ways that support the team”(Kimball, 1997). Since the videoconferencing is recorded, managers have full control of the content and information that is exchanged by the interacting persons. Large organizations use statistical software programs to make accurate performance assessment of the individual employees. This solves the ambiguities and makes the analysis simpler and convenient. Drawbacks of the use of technology in the modern organizations are very insignificant. One drawback of the use of computers is that it enables the employees to dodge the managers by looking busy but doing nothing. Many employees spend the duty hours chatting with their friends on facebook and skype while the manager finds them immersed in the work on the computer. In rare cases, employees use the internet to sexually harass the workers of the opposite gender by clicking upon a link to a porn-site and then saying that it was an accident. Nevertheless, advantages of the use of technology far outweigh the drawbacks. References: Anissimov, M 2011, What are the Big Five Personality Traits? viewed, 7 December 2011, . Business Advantage International 2008, Six characteristics of a successful team, viewed, 7 December 2011, . Chimaera Consulting Limited 2001, Famous Models: Stages of Group Development, viewed, 7 December 2011, . sharedaction.org n.d., Types of Groups, viewed, 7 December 2011, . Kimball, L 1997, Managing Virtual Teams, viewed, 4 December 2011, . Read More