“Treat a difficult child the way you would your boss at work. Praise his achievements, ignore his tantrums and resist the urge to sit him down and explain to him how his brain is not yet fully developed.” ~Robert Brault
Teams are essential to the success of a company. People’s ability to communicate and work with one another is crucial to completing tasks. Nicola Davies explores this in her nursing article, “Build an Effective Team”. Personalities are important when choosing which employees should work on a particular project together. Some experts say that people with commonalities work better together. However, teams containing ethnically and sexually diverse individuals were found to be more apt to create better and new strategies, as well as ideas, which in turn advance the company and help it to grow and change with the times.
Nicola Davies categorized people into three categories: the action-oriented, the people-oriented and the thought-oriented individuals. Action- oriented people who focus on time-management and stress team improvement. People- oriented employees are often the facilitators of a team to make sure that there is cooperation between the team players and their communication skills often carry over to others outside of the team, helping the team successfully network. The thought-oriented employees are good at analyzing the team’s various options to complete their project and have their specialized knowledge and experience to offer. All three types of individuals are needed in every team.
It is important to realize that every member of a team has something to contribute and no one person’s ideas or suggestions are superior to another person’s. To prevent a team falling short of its full potential, factors associated with group competence need to be cultivated. These include: Self-awareness, Mutual goals and involvement by members, Open discussion of feelings and conflicts, and Consensus on decisions.” (Davies) I have been in teams before where members did not always pull their weight or one person (usually me) had to take on a lot of responsibility in order to complete a finished project. I suppose I could be categorized as an action oriented person. Davies’ insights into teamwork were interesting and, in hindsight, right on the mark about what a productive group dynamic entails. However, I think that his suggestions could be more helpful when forming or working in large teams, rather than with partners, unless both partners can be easily categorized as being thought-oriented.
Sources:
Brault, R. (2009, October 21). A Robert brault reader. Retrieved from http://www.robertbrault.com/search/label/Parenting
Davies, N. (2009). BUILD AN EFFECTIVE TEAM. Nursing Standard, 23(29), 72. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.
I agree that every member of a team is important. It does not matter how big or small a role each member has, they are all equally important. I feel strongly about this especially because I play on a basketball team and every player is needed in order to succeed. The players that don't play in the games are needed to practice against in order to keep the players that do play on top of their game. Therefore, every single member of the team is has a role to play for the the team to be successful.
ReplyDeleteYou describe an interesting framework for types of team participation. It would contribute to everyone's learning to share this with the class!
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