Valuable Lessons from Teamwork and Diversity in Global Environments - Essay Example

?“Diversity of teams refers to the availability of different kinds of people in one team. Having people of different genders, culture, opinion, perspective, skills and background is important in bringing out high-performance teams because each person contributes their strengths, and where they are weak, they are supported by the others” (Ask, 2013). The global environment contains many cultures, backgrounds and genders. Diversity is one of the most important aspects of a team and it could positively impact a group’s performance if they can manage it well. With diversity a group can accomplish its goals in more creative ways because there are a lot of ideas from different backgrounds. It will lead teams to work together and achieve a high level of performance. During the semester I have learned very valuable lessons from teamwork and diversity in global environments. I learned how team diversity can have a positive impact to the team if team members are able to manage it well. Additionally I am in a position to better understand and deal with issues that may occur in a team. Also I learned how to lead people to accomplish high performance teams. When team members are able to accept differences and respect other backgrounds, they can focus on their ultimate goals and overcome their obstacles in pursuing their finish line with effective ways. I have learned many important things from this class, but in my perspective there are three most important aspects from this course. The most important aspects from the course are my daily activities in this semester that may lead the team to perform, setting up common purpose, motivating the team, and giving feedbacks. Settings up common purposes or goals are the first most important element before the groups goes further. “Real teams are not just a collection of individuals reporting to the same manager. They are people who must depend on each other to get the job done” (Johnson, pg.13, 2013). This means that all of the team members need to agree to focus on one goal. They need to see the works as a group’s achievement not as individuals’ goals. It is because they will depend on each other and need each other’s assistants. This means that they need to respect others before they work toward team’s goals to be able to work together. For example I have learned theoretically frameworks from professor’s Milter class by giving presentations in class and practically in my Indonesian organization (PERMIAS). I am the president of this organization and I had first task from Indonesian ambassador to host Indonesian cultural events to promote Indonesian to the USA citizens at October 19, 2013 in Washington D.C. The Indonesian ambassador wanted me to arrange Balinese cultural dance because he wanted to introduce this Indonesian dance to USA’s society. My first obstacle was to convince my group members to work together arranging a Balinese show dance. I have 17 members in my team who come from different areas in Indonesia. Each of my group members had different ideas. Some of them didn’t agree to arrange this event because they wanted to show traditional dances from their own regions. Some thought that Javanese dance would be more interesting and there were people who wanted to organize Kalimantan dances. After several meetings I couldn’t find a solution to make them focus on one goal, thus I approached them one by one by arranging non-formal meetings such as dinner and lunch. I discussed with them by telling them that the most important thing in this event is to arrange Indonesian culture. Balinese dance is one of the Indonesian traditional dances and it can represent Indonesian. We can perform other traditional dances after this event. I told them that focus on one goal is very important. In the end all of them accepted it. Even though they are not from Bali my teammates still want to arrange this event. My Indonesian cultural night was a huge success. The initial conflict while trying to focus on one goal is very crucial. As a group leader I should lead the group to be able focus on one goal. Consequently the group will work optimally to approach the team goal. They will respect differences and work for the team’s needs instead of individual needs. By having this element I believe that the group will achieve the common purpose effectively. I can apply this lesson in my future working environments. I will work in my family business company. My family business is an entertainment production. They supply gaming machines to other countries. There are foreign employees who work in my father’s office. I believe there are a lot of mindsets when they are solving problems because they come from many different countries. The lessons from the course helped me to be able set common purpose effectively before I execute the business plan to selling gaming machines to other countries. This lesson taught me that I could give informal approach to my future colleagues if formal ways don’t work. The course has also broadened my knowledge that I will achieve business success if I can set common purpose. Motivating the team is also important. Leaders or managers need to explain the ways to accomplish team’s goals in diverse work environments. By applying diversity all of the team members are able to understand the meaning of the companies’ projects and how it is important for them. Additionally, leaders should be able to sense if one of the group’s members loses their motivation toward the corporations’ goals. They should give individual approach and help people who don’t have working motivation to work at their best. “People work better when they are internally motivated rather than externally driven” (Johnson, pg.27, 2013). This means that greatest motivation comes from people’s heart, therefore the projects have to be meaningful for them or in other words by doing so it will positively impacts their life. I learned this lesson in my teamwork and diversity global environment group in this semester. During the lesson my group has an opportunity to present motivation. After I read this chapter I directly studied it from my team. One of the group members doesn’t work at our minimum group expectation. He frequently missed group meetings and showed less effort towards finishing teamwork and diversity group works. I decided to talk with him after class. I told him that by working together we could accomplish our goals in more effective ways and we will achieve better grades because the team needs his ideas and contributions. Finally, he realized that it was important for him to get good grades. At the middle of this semester he showed serious effort to contribute to teamwork. If one of group member’s is losing their motivation leaders should give individual approach and motivate them. It is very important to make everyone feel important and motivated. It will make people contribute at their best to fulfill team goals. In the future I can use this learning to motivate my employees. I am a natural leader and I want to be a leader of an entertainment production company in the future. I believe at some point of time my employees will loss motivation. At that point I know how to solve that problem because of what I have learned from this class. I can use individual approach to motivate them. I can explain them how the companies’ project would be meaningful for them. All of my employees will work at their best on accomplishing company goals. After setting up common goals and motivating team, feedback also plays as an important role in-group. Giving feedback is about addressing evaluation to group members about their performance. Doing so could motivate them in future to perform better. Feedback is very important. In giving feedbacks people should analyze the situation before evaluating people. “When feedback is given and received effectively, both the individual and the team benefit” (Johnson, pg.77, 2013). We want to give effective feedbacks that are useful for teams. In working with different team members from different cultures they all have different personalities. Therefore, we should understand whether we should give objective-descriptive, evaluative, negative, or positive feedbacks. When individuals place feedbacks on the right ways it will make the group perform at their very best. The group will produce better outcomes. I learned this from teamwork and diversity global environment class by hearing group member presentations. I applied this last month in my daily life. I have a part time job at foot and ankle USA. I worked as the chair of marketing internships program. I have to monitor all of the new internships on their works. I have one employee, Peter. He is a sensitive man. One time I asked him to organize advertisements for promoting fundraising events. My company wanted to collect used shoes and donated it to Red Cross for emergency relief. He submitted the work late and the advertisement was not attractive. Since I understand that he is very sensitive I decided not to confront him. I showed him some respect that he had done the task, but later I gave him with polite words to address the negative feedbacks and how to improve his performance. Finally, he could accept it and at the next assignment he submitted on time with better quality. I learned that if we can address feedbacks in the right ways we could lead group to show better performance. I think this is very useful for my future. I want to be a leader in the business world. In the business world I will meet individuals with different personalities and backgrounds. I should be able to deal with people in different ways. In the real world there are a lot of unexpected issues that could happen. Sometimes employees submit their projects late and below expectation. As group leader I should do something to improve the team performance. First of all I should understand their cultures and backgrounds so I can give my employees feedbacks that they could accept. By having this I think that my group will work at their best to fulfill the team goals and produce better outcomes that will not cause conflicts. Three aspects about business which are setting up common purpose, motivating team, and giving feedbacks are important. In my perspective people should be able to address all of these three correctly. If they could do it then they can lead their team to show high performance team, but they can’t accomplish this easily. Individuals should learn this aspect by theory and practically. Due to the fact that there are a lot of backgrounds in teams’ people should understand personality of their employees so they can manage their team in the right ways. It is very important when people understand it by applying into the real world. Read More