Perceived vs. Real Traits.What Would You Do - Essay Example

“Perceived Vs Real Traits” Assignment) “Perceived Vs Real Traits” Everyone who works in a team, at one time or another, will feel that their co-workers or their seniors possess certain perceived ideas about their skills and will find themselves being forced to perform tasks that suit the perceived traits, thus not befitting their original traits or skills. I too have been through such situations in my life. One such incident took place when I was having my senior secondary education. As a part of the science exhibition at my school, we had a team of seven students and the theme was to show how waste plastic material can be used in road-making, thus ensuring public infrastructure development along with proper disposal of waste.

As a part of the project, a lot of drawings and diagrams were to be made. We had a team leader who was supposed to assign each member with a particular task of the project. In fact, I am a good painter and I am good in drawing too. However, the job of drawing was given to another student who was well below mediocrity in drawing as the leader could not recognize the skills in me. In addition, the task given to me was to develop a slogan related to the theme of the project; mere literature work I was very poor at.

From my appearance, what he could perceive was that I was a good writer, thus I was forced to perform a task that in fact does not suit me. To prevent the issue of perceived traits, it is highly necessary to promote communication, understanding and most importantly, a friendly atmosphere. It is highly necessary to improve the team’s understanding and acceptance of diversity for harmonious functioning of the organization. Heermann (1997) suggests a method named Personal Mandala to let the team members know each other.

In this suggestion, each member is made to prepare a visual presentation of their own personal ideologies, values, abilities, disabilities, expectations and the role they expect to play as a part of the team (pp. 40-41). In fact, a team with diversity will perform better than a homogenous team if it is possible to promote convergent thinking. For example, in a group with diversity, team members explore different aspects of any situation, thus, the team will be able to reach better decisions on any given issue.

To promote unity in a diverse group, it is necessary to have three enabling things, namely shared understanding, integration and trust. Shared understanding is the understanding of the goal of the team and the role each individual is to play depending on their skills. Thus, if there is shared understanding, each member will perform their task independently and more efficiently like different parts of a well-functioning machine. As Hinds and Weisband (2003) state, this will lead to predictability and increased motivation.

In addition, it is necessary to ensure continual negotiation and consultation, that too with the entire team. To reach a shared understanding, it is necessary for team members to learn about each other through communicating and sharing information (p. 24). In total, it becomes evident that a proper understanding of ones role and an understanding of the role of other members in achieving the goal of the team in total will help reduce the problem of perceived traits. In addition, it is utmost important to promote communication among the members enabling each member to communicate their views effectively.

References Heermann, B. (1997). Building team spirit: Activities for inspiring and energizing teams. US: McGraw-Hill. Hinds, P. J. & Weisband, S. P. (2003). “Knowledge sharing and shared understanding in virtual teams”. In Virtual teams that work: Creating conditions for virtual team effectiveness. Eds, C. B. Gibson & S. G. Cohen, (2003). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.