Effective Team and Performance Management - Coursework Example

Reflective Paper on Observation of Team Work When we were divided into groups that would do different works of research, I felt fearful because I had never worked in any other group before, and, worse still, the members of the group in which I was put were all new to me. Naturally, I am a very withdrawn person, and I really felt very exposed and vulnerable when I was put into that group. It was a group of five, and three of the members were a year ahead of me, and this even made it worse for me. This is because I really felt intimidated to work in a group where most of the members were a year ahead in campus, and I felt as if it was a set up by the lecturer for bullying. However, I did not have much of a choice in this matter, and I had to do it whether I felt like it or not. Different groups were assigned different areas of research around the campus, and each of the assignments was unique and very involving. These meant that no member of any group would just joy-ride and have a good time without being actively involved in the assignment (Cohen 1994). Our group was assigned the duty of follow a line of investigation on the town in which the campus was located in. This assignment looked somewhat far fetched and irrelevant, and also the other members of the group sulked when this duty was assigned to us. We would have preferred some of the other duties assigned to other groups, for instance researching on the history of the campus or the history of the school’s health center. However, we had no choice, and we had to start immediately because we were given only two weeks to have completed the job and hand in the full written report. When the members of the group met after this assignment was given, the first thing that had to be done was to choose the group leader. It was obvious to me that such a post would not fall on me, because I was younger than three of the group members, and, more to that, I was a very reserved and shy person. However, my predictions were wrong; the members of the group unanimously elected me as the group leader. I was meant to coordinate every step the group members took towards the successful accomplishment of our task, and I was supposed to guide the group in the right direction. Well, I have to admit that this was quite overwhelming to me, and I felt very discouraged because of the way things were happening that day. I had no choice but to accept the leadership role given to me, and work began the next day (Conyne 1999). The first thing we had to do was to go to the library and do adequate research on the subject before going into field work. It was very disappointing to me when the books we found in the library could not give us the full information we needed on the history of the town and on the basic steps involved in forming a town. We therefore had to do something we had never done before; we had to do research online until we got enough information. It was not easy, considering the fact that we were all used to getting materials from books in the library. This was the slowest step our group encountered in the accomplishment of the whole assignment. However, we got the information we needed, and we did not need to do much field work to get the information. However, because some field work was still needed, a member of the group had to volunteer and go to the town’s public records to get the remaining information. This is where trouble began. No member wanted to go, and they all suggested that I do the field work “since I was the leader” of the group. This annoyed me, and I became so angry to a point where I decided that the group work would not continue, and we had to report to the lecturer. The lecturer did almost nothing to “solve” this issue, and this was much to my disappointment (Hoppe 2010). I thought the lecturer would come to my rescue, but I was wrong. Since she wanted every person in the class to develop certain qualities so that we could appreciate what other leaders do, she decided to go dumb on the issue. However, she sternly reminded us that this assignment accounted for thirty percent of the assessment tests, and that neglecting the assignment would have severe consequences including repetition of the course unit. We therefore had no otherwise but to continue with the research. However, the members of the group maintained their stand; I had to go to the public records office and get the info we needed to get. I went to the records office, though I was very angry as I did this. I felt that this was more or less like bullying, and I accounted all this to the fact that the group members noted that I was shy and that I was a year younger than them. However, the research work had to continue, and I swallowed my pride and bitterness and got the necessary information from the records offices. We were happy to have compiled the necessary information of the town, and, by the end of this, we had learnt to appreciate the leaders who struggled to see the town or the country established. There are some things that were noted in the formation of the town, and these issues were major, and they were as follows: Appointment of leadership This was a major step in the formation of the town. Different leaders had to be elected and assigned to different roles, and it was not easy to settle on the final leaders of the town. However, the leaders were finally elected, and they had to decide on how the town was going to be run and they had to decide the policies that would govern the town for its betterment (Hayden 2006). Apart from the appointment of leadership, there also had to be a structured system of bureaucracy. This system would dictate the order of how things would happen in the town, and this would ensure that every leadership position was maximized, and that there was no mixing up of duties and positions (Wildavsky 2004). Appointment of leadership in any environment is tricky and views of stakeholders had to be considered. Thus, the approach that was used to choose the leaders was satisfactory to the stakeholders. Laws and policies There had to be written laws and policies for the town, so that administration would be smooth and effective. It would be difficult to run the town without any written guidelines for the management of the town (Hayden 2006). Making of the laws and policies for the town was not an easy process, and it took many years of trying to pass bills with the government chief authorities. Laws had to be made on how to keep the town clean, on how to maintain health and sanitation, on how to distribute the resources of the town, et cetera. Also, policies had to be made on the trade activities in the town. Policies in that effect included those that governed how space for trade would be allocated, how the industries would be given space, space for advertisement, space for recreation, for social resources, for hospitals, schools and other amenities (Hayden 2006). Space for residence also had to have governing policies. Without these policies, the town would be a mess, because every person would do what he pleased. Also there had to be a set of the punishments given to those who broke any of the laws governing the town. It wad not easy to make these penalties, but the leaders finally managed to make it (Wildavsky 2004). In the process of doing the assignment, we came to appreciate the rich history of the town. We appreciated the legislation, and we appreciated the laws that govern the town today. It was not easy for us to abide to the town clerk’s rules and regulations without questioning, and we even wished that other students would appreciate the same so that we would make the running of the e town smooth and effective. It occurred to us that the town was not formed easily, and that its smooth existence and running was not given on a silver platter (Birkland 2010). On the contrary, many people sacrificed their time and intellect and they also suffered a lot to see to it that the town was successfully formed. What’s more, it was also very touching to know that some of the leaders who were pioneers in the formation of the town were still alive, and that they still had the same passion they had decades ago (Gerston 2010). Finally, the assignment was complete, and completion was done about three days before the deadline. We were all so happy to have completed the assignment, and we could not wait to submit it to the lecturer for assessment and marking. However, I have to say that there are a few observations I made in the whole process of doing the assignment as a group as opposed to doing it as individuals. These observations are as follows: Team Dynamics Team dynamics can basically be described as a power that drives any team in a certain direction, and this power is usually unseen. Team dynamics determine how members of the team will react to different situations, and how they will behave (Housel 2001). For instance, because two members of the group, including me, were a year less than the other three, we tended to have an unseen separation in the team, ad the three others tended to somewhat get along together like I did with my counterpart. Anything nasty that the three would do would be taken personally, because we felt that it was being done because we were a year of study behind them. However, as we latter came to know, this was not the case, because the three older students appreciated us and admired our efforts (Birkland 2010). Another fore that drove the group was the force of personality types. There were members in the group who were somewhat authoritative and domineering, while others tended to be somewhat relaxed and they preferred to be lead rather than lead. There were members who were self motivated, and they were what we can call “go-getter” types of people. On the other hand, some members of the group just preferred being an audience as the other members did the actual performance. Therefore, it was hard to push such kind of people into action (DiTullio 2011). I also noted that two of the group members were tight friends. This had both positive and negative effects on the group and on the assignment. The two friends positively affected the group in that they tended to have flowing conversations with each other while we were in the group work, and this was an ice breaker that made the other members also open up and even participate in the talking. This was a motivating factor to the other members, and there was a level of social freedom created as a result (Housel 2001). However, there were negative effects of the friendship between these two group members. The fact that they were very close at times caused other members of the group to feel left out, and this resulted to the formation of two unseen subgroups in the main group. Therefore, when it was time to make crucial decisions in the group, these two friends were not involved in the decision making by the other members, and the chain of communication in the group was not smooth and uninterrupted. As a result, the overall performance of the group was not the best it should have been, and we got less from the group that we could have if no group member had close friendship with the other (DiTullio 2011). Unstructured problems Unstructured problems are problems that are not commonly encountered (and have never been fully solved) or problems that have never been encountered before (Nadler 2004). The unstructured problems have no specific or definite formula of solving them as opposed to structured problems. When we were beginning the assignment, we did not know exactly how long it would take us to complete it. Also, we never had an estimate of the budget that this assignment would take, because we had never done anything like that before. Another unstructured problem was determining how much effort each member of the group would have to put in so that we would all have equal participation. This was especially because some members of the group felt overworked, and they felt that others were not doing anything or much work (Nadler 2004). These were the major issues that the team had to address to ensure that the appropriate approach is factored and defining the ways in which the entire project could be successful. Thus, the team was forced to introduce strategies that could counter these challenges. It was pretty hard to solve such a problem, because there was no way of quantifying the research work. For instance, there was no way of telling whether it was more work to get the information than to compile it, or to compile it than to do the typing and printing. However, we tried distributing the work as fairly as possible, and each member of the group was needed to get fully involved in the assignment. We came up with a structure through which we would rate the performance of each member and hand it over to the lecturer when the assignment was handed in. this rating was on a scale of one to ten, and it showed how active or inactive each member of the group was in accomplishing the assignment (Hoppe 2010). Generally, the approaches that the team introduced ensured that the entire project and approach towards accomplishing duties was successful. Other issues The level of empathy in the group was somewhat low, and members did not feel for each other. Most of them were not considerate of others, and, if they had their way, only one or two of the members would have done the whole group’s work. However, the level of empathy was seen to rise with time, and as each member of the group started having a degree of freedom with each other. This resulted in the effectiveness and appropriateness of the team members towards the success of the project. Thus, team work is an important requirement for success of projects. References Birkland, Thomas. 2010. An Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, Concepts, and Models of Public Policy Making. New York: M.E. Sharpe. Cohen, Elizabeth. 1994. Designing group work: strategies for the heterogeneous classroom. Amsterdam: Teachers College Press. Conyne, Robert. 1999. Failures in group work: how we can learn from our mistakes. New York: SAGE Publishers. DiTullio, Lisa. 2011. Project Team Dynamics: Enhancing Performance, Improving Results. New York: Management Concepts. Gerston, Larry. 2010. Public Policy Making: Process and Principles. New York: M.E. Sharpe. Hayden, Gregory. 2006. Policy Making for a Good Society: The Social Fabric Matrix Approach to Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation. Switzerland: Birkhäuser. Hoppe, Robert. 2010. The governance of problems: puzzling, powering, participation. Bristol: The Policy Press. Housel, Debra. 2001. Team dynamics. California: South-Western. Nadler, Gerald and Chandon, William. 2004. Smart questions: learn to ask the right questions for powerful results. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Wildavsky, Aaron and Polsby, Nelson. 2004. Leadership in a small town. London: Transaction Publishers. Read More