Self-Reflective Writing on Teamwork - Free Paper for Everyone

Good teamwork has a crucial role in implementing and fulfilling a common goal in a team project. My team was composed of five students, Joanna, Qiao, David, Jimmy and I and each student had a different responsibility. Our meetings were held on 23/04/2018, 2 pm. Second time: 28/04/2018, 3 pm. third time: 01/05/2018, 3 pm. All were held in the hub.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Every individual in the group had a role, and my role was crucial to the team just like anyone else part. I was the group coordinator, playing the role of maintaining group discipline, ensuring every group member got a fair chance and ensuring deadlines were met. To make my position a success, I worked closely with the team leader and secretary. Owing to my role, I always kept an eye on team members' working progress, seeing to it that the task given was undertaken as scheduled and finished as agreed. I have come to realize that my role was useful in that all members participated and discipline in the group was spot on despite difference in reasoning. Also, deadlines, as agreed, were met and as a result, there was no unfinished work at the end as every person delivered.

Other than my roles, each group member had a part. Member Qiao was the team leader. He controlled the group proceeding and made the final decision for the group after consulting with us. Qiao was also in charge of harmonizing the group and minimizing chaos due to group member's personality differences and interests. Member David was the secretary, and he was in charge of keeping all the group record, taking notes and receiving work hand in. I worked with member David to ensure every person delivered, those who delayed were reported to me and I would follow-up to ensure they delivered as agreed. David was also in charge of compiling the work and coming with a comprehensive report. However, we all discussed the work together and gave him all the fine details that were relevant to the group discussions.

Member Jimmy was in charge of the venue, and work-related activities. He was given the duty of booking the site before time, and in case of changes in the venue he was expected to communicate, luckily he delivered and booked the room on time and not even a single day we missed the venue. Joanna was the timekeeper. Before the beginning of all meeting, two hours before to be precise, he was to send every single group member a text message as a reminder of the set meeting time and venue. This role was set to reduce cases of absentee and invalid excuses like "I forgot." I would say his position was active since not any single member never received a text of time reminder. Every person presence and input in the meetings was critical to the success of the group.

Groups are dynamic as they host a wide range of people with diverse personalities and interests. Due to diversity, the group formation was a problem at first. Every person wanted to lead and have other follow. For a group to be effective, it has to pass through different stages. According to Tuchman's teamwork theory, there are four stages of group development which are the forming. Storming, norming, performing and adjourning (Riebe et al. 2010). The forming and storming stages to me are the most difficult as it was evident in our group. During the two stages, there was a lot of argument, and people were undecided. There was also cases of competition on who is better than who. The initial phase of team development was the forming.

In the forming stage, the group members were not united, and it was difficult to reach an agreement. Each member was eager to find there and hardly felt a sense of belonging to the team. As members were nearly strangers, they didn't know precisely their roles, and they needed the leader's guidance. To overcome the problems of this sate we decide to have a team sit down in the hub to build trust and familiarize with each other. For two minutes we had open discussion people introduced themselves, and sooner than we realized, people began to accept each other. In the same time we went ahead and divided tasks and responsibility we had a group leader. Secretary coordinator and timekeeper. Role sharing made every person fell member of the group. After the people were familiarized and roles divided, the group objective defining was done and this was the storming stage (Miller 2003). There was a lot of argument and hidden agendas in this stage as people were competitively showing off their skill. The group leader needed to come in and reduce the chaos by dividing the task ahead.

Some of the significant challenges presented were in tasks sharing since the group was to handle a whole topic, as a group we decided to have the task shared amongst us. This was to ensure every person participated and no one was left with too much work to handle than others. It was conflicting at first since many of us wanted to do less. However, the group leader declared that every person would have apportioned to work on. The group had been presented with many research topics, and from the many, each group was to choose one. In our group, a disagreement occurred in the choosing of the theme as Joann and Jimmy selected topics 1, and Qiao and David selected topic 2. Through discussion, we examined what problem would be more comfortable to solve and what question had content easy to access and find. We unanimously settled on issue 3. Through discussion, we solved the problem and conflict resolution strategy applied in this case was the problem-solving strategy whereby we lay all cards and decide which has more value than the other and why (Wallensteen, 2015).

Another argument arose in selecting subtopics each would address. Jimmy and Qiao picked the introduction, having interacted with the two the group came in and asked Jimmy to handle the topic subtopic on benefits. The decision was made because Jimmy had proper grammar and the area needed good explaining of which Jimmy English would be of great help. The group also vowed to help him come up with as many befits as possible. Luckily Jimmy compromised leaving Qiao to handle the introduction. In this case, the compromising strategy was applied (Folger, Poole and Stutman, 2017)

Every person was now with a task to accomplish, and each work was divided based on one's area of strength. We also set a deadline for our group that we had to meet; this was supposed to keep everybody busy and committed to the task. However, it was a challenge to meet the deadline as expected. David in one of the meeting failed to show up due to unknown problems. This was conflicting to our schedule, and many were angry for him failing to show up. However, since we had a deadline to meet and four of us were present us decided to extend the meeting for two more hours to handle the task David was expected to do for that day. This conflict was solved through accommodating strategy whereby we did put ourselves in his position, and rather than complaining; we decided to add more hours to our schedule to do his task (Folger, Poole and Stutman, 2017).

Although the group had many challenges, the group leadership helped make the group a success. The leadership style adopted in this case was democratic as every group member was given a chance to give his or her view (Northouse, 2018). Decisions were made unanimously, and no one felt forced. Due to excellent leadership, the group was able to solve conflict swiftly.

At the end of the group we did present to the class, and though we did well, the group had areas that I thought we would have done better and improved. The group did not rehearse before presenting, and this made the group presentation weak. We did not delegate roles per our areas of strength during the performance, and as a result, it was difficult for us to answer questions directed to us by the audience. Although our tone and presentation were right, I think the group could have done better.

In conclusion, I learned that excellent communication and discipline are essential to make teamwork more efficiently and unity together more tightly. Besides mutual respect, trust and understanding are crucial to achieving a common goal.

Bibliography

Riebe, L., Reopen, D., Santarelli, B. and Marchioro, G., 2010. Teamwork: efficiently teaching an employability skill. Education+ Training, 52(6/7), pp.528-539.

Miller, D.L., 2003. The stages of group development: A retrospective study of dynamic team processes. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences/Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l'Administration, 20(2), pp.121-134.

Wallensteen, P., 2015. Understanding conflict resolution. Sage.

Folger, J., Poole, M.S. and Stutman, R.K., 2017. Working through conflict: Strategies for relationships, groups, and organizations. Routledge.

Northouse, P.G., 2018. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.