Final Team Report-Team Rain-v2

Final Team ReportTeam RainLDR 6110: Leading Teams10 February 2015AbstractDuring the course, Leading Teams, students were assigned into one of four groups to complete a group project. Our group, Team Rain, was first assigned at the end of the first class session. We immediately put a plan together to meet and to quickly select a topic for our presentation. Knowing that time was of the essence, we assigned tasks and deliverables in an efficient and timely manner. The members of Team Rain contributed to the ultimate success of our final team presentation. Despite differences in age, student status (full v part time), and cultural differences, we were able to unite around our class task. This was a worthwhile learning experience for all members of Team Rain.Final Team Report - Team RainTowards the conclusion of our first course meeting, our group, Team Rain, was formed. We did not know each other. We came from various backgrounds, both culturally and age. Understanding that we had a limited amount of time to put our project together, we quickly moved to task mode. Our first team meeting was scheduled the following week.Prior to our first class meeting, one of our teammates was particularly proactive in bringing in research and had sketched out our team charter. During our first meeting, we reviewed the syllabus and the topic options available to us. Thinking about the business world today, and even the makeup of our class, we realized that effective communication is the key to success. Our global political leaders would also benefit from enhancing their communication skills. Many falsely think that using communication skills is something that is easy. However, in our discussion, we realized how complex of a topic it is. Because of the relativity to today‟s business world, we thought that this was the best topic to pursue.In any form of business you do communication is key, its starts with communication. For example when someone buys food, clothing, or pay bills you‟d need to articulate. Whether speaks English or a different language, it‟s also important for diversity and to learn to speak different languages. Doing business in the United States or out the country it‟s good to be multilingual. Often times communication barriers start, but to keep in mind the group/team solutions that Levi mentions. We learned of three main barriers to effective communication: ordering, moralizing, and advising. When one orders a solution, the communication is sent coercively and backed by force. When coercion is used, people often become resistant and resentful, or people may become very compliant and submissive. Moralizing is a solution manypeople use where it appears that they are placing a halo around their solutions for others. They tend to back their ideas with social or moral authori ty; speaking with “should” and other words. Finally, advising is one of the most commonly used barriers to communication. It is often a basic insult of intelligence of the other person. It implies a lack of confidence in the other person to understand and cope with their own difficulties.Cohesiveness is, in part, the measure of the success of the group. A group with more cohesiveness is more likely to keep its members than that of a group with little cohesiveness. Members of a high-cohesive group are likely to talk in group terms, using 'we' instead of 'I' when talking about group activities. The more cohesive a group the greater the sense of team spirit and the more individual members will cooperate with each other. A low-cohesive group may find that members frequently miss meetings; sub-groups or cliques may form within the original group and there is likely to be an underlying sense of frustration as the goals of the group are less likely to be attained. This cohesiveness accounts for our strengths and weaknesses as we came together as a group.As Levi mentions, the storming phase of our team did include some confusion about roles and requirements (43). Specifically, there was confusion about the requirements for the presentation and the team report. Some thought that both were connected. After reviewing the syllabus together, and asking clarifying questions in class, we learned that both tasks were separate. We learned that in this fast paced class it is imperative to clarify any questions or concerns as soon as possible. This is very similar to the work environment where deliverables are due at such a fast pace. If the team gets off course, the results can be tragic.Our first team meeting was a bit awkward at first because we didn‟t know each ot her. However, by having meetings in a neutral zone, the library group study room, and through our small group work in class, we overcame group socialization (46). During our brief time together, we became a stronger group. This was evident by our increasingly informality during meetings. We got our work done but we were able to do it in a way that was not too rigid or formal. This, we believe, helped to complete our work in a timely manner.Our norms and our team charter were developed in rather quick manner. A teammate came to the first class meeting with an example of a team charter. We used our discussion board and time in class to solidify our team norms. We tried to compile as many explicit norms as possible to avoid any question about team expectations (50). While we did write our norms, some of our group norms developed over time unconsciously and gradually over time (51). One of our norms that came about over time was our use of new technology. Many of the members of the group use WeChat, a phone application. Other members of the team needed to be flexible to adopt this technology. We found that this mode of communication was useful to generate ideas, sharing information, and to discuss routine problems (297). This type of tool can be brought back to the workplace. For example, many organizations have some type of instant messaging technology. This technology may be more efficient than email and is something that is embraced by a younger generation of employees.In addition to the aforementioned use of technology, Team Rain brought a number of different strengths to the team. Some on the team came from business and professional backgrounds. This experienced helped to build organization to the team. Tasks like setting up team meetings, minutes, and documented deliverables were spearheaded by those with more experience with this type of project work. Others in the class, those who were most recentlystudents, brought to the project team a new and fresh look at research methodology. These individuals were very strong in developing a research tool to assist in our presentation. They questioned the validity and reliability of the survey that we were creating. This proved to be immensely helpful as we refined the survey. Some members brought a great deal of proactivity to the team as well. We had team members who completed research prior to our first team meeting, some who had developed survey questions without being specifically asked to do so, and others who had completed our research analysis without being prompted to do so. These are wonderful traits for a team to have. We were able to save much time and focused our resources on how to make what we have even better.To learn more about our strengths, weaknesses, and challenges it was important for our team to facilitate quality team meetings. In addition to ensuring that our team had a private space for our members to meet, we outlined a brief agenda of the topics and deliverables to be discussed prior to our team meeting. Kayser, as outlined in the Levi text, discussed five main communication activities for team meetings: 1. Maintain an open and collaborative climate 2. Manage disruptive behavior 3. Manage differences 4. Summarize important decisions 5. Evaluate the group process (111-112).Thankfully, we did not experience disruptive behavior in our team meetings. We did maintain an open and collaborative climate. Each member of the team was given an opportunity to comment or to speak their mind. Before any final decision was made, we went around the table to ensure that all members were on the same page. In the development of our survey, we did experience a few differences about the format and style of this research tool. We debated the merits of using a survey or interviewing tool, the number of questions to ask, and the types of questions to ask in the survey. All members of the team felt comfortable to give our ownopinions. Finally, a decision was made after a consensus was met with all members of the team. We did not move forward until that consensus was meant. This meant that each member had to compromise in their own beliefs.Once we deployed our survey, we monitored the results from our survey. We utilized an on-line tool for our survey, Survey Monkey. This proved to be quite helpful in the analysis of our results. The sign-in credentials were shared with all members of the team. This way, our results were accessible by all team members at any time. This met the needs of different work styles on our team. Some on our team preferred to work in the morning, late at night, or during the afternoon. We were not held back by outdated tools.One of our team members had experience in the Learning and Development field training employees on effective communication styles. He was able to research and to share websites, articles, and past training material to the project team to assist in our presentation. As our group had a diversity of academic, professional, and culture, we benefited from having team members from the spectrum of experiences. This helped out team to use our strengths to our benefit.Our team had many strengths working for us throughout the project. Primarily, we had a nice mix of professional and full-time students. The professional members of the team brought to the group experience with project planning and organization. With a deliverable due in such a short amount of time, the professional experience proved to be an immense help to our team. Those on our team who were primarily full-time students brought an academic research perspective to our team presentation. Our full-time students worked effectively together to bring all of our research together and comprehensively analyze the data for our presentation. It wasclear to those on the team that the full-time students had much recent experience with this type of work and were an asset to our team.The leadership and team issues that emerged during our project centered on our lack of one declared leader on the team. We did create leadership roles based on tasks: writing of the team charter, research, presentation development, and the final team report. This leadership style emerged as our project team evolved. As Levi mentions, “when no leader is assigned to a group, a leader usually emerges from the group to coordinate its actions” (185). Our team leader coordinated meeting events and minutes. As we reflect on our team projects, we believe that having a more centralized leadership role would have been beneficial to the team. A stronger team leader, one who not only coordinated events but also took a role of facilitator and moderator, would have led to a more cohesive team. We were somewhat scattered in our approach.As we reflect on our original team charter, we are impressed on all that we accomplished in a short amount of time. Our goals included effective communication, working together, and completing our project in a limited amount of time. By all accounts, we successfully completed all of our goals that we agreed upon at our first team meeting. We maintained constant communication throughout the project, even during the unplanned snow day. Our flexibility and resilience got us through the weather-related challenges of completing our project on time. We met on a separate day on-campus to make up for our missed class. This decision proved to be decisive in the overall success of our project. The unplanned team meeting was one of our most productive team gatherings.In our team charter, we noted that t he success of our team‟s performance would be rated through the overall success of the project. We believe that our final presentation was strong, interactive, and innovative. We incorporated different research techniques, like an on-line survey, to enhance our overall presentation. The immediate feedback from our classmates was also quite positive. As a team, we feel that our classmates gained new insight and information because of our research, data analysis, and presentation skills. Based on this feedback, we feel that we met or exceeded the expectations of our project.In a comprehensive review of our team assessments, it is clear that many of us were apprehensive just prior to our first team meeting. We all shared the experience of walking into our first meeting and quickly going through the …storming‟ stage of team formation. Many of us were relieved when some team members came to the meeting ready to go. Looking back, we think they were the initial drivers of the team project. While not verbalized, we all shared a motivation to do well and to be rewarded by our good work. For most us, this means earning a high grade on this project and in the course overall. Subconsciously, we were concerned about social loafers in our midst. Thankfull y, that didn‟t happen. We all did our share for the common good of the project.By the time that we had begun our second week of team meetings, our assessments reflect our team‟s growth from storming to performing. By our third meeting, during ourme morable “Blizzard of 2015” delayed team meeting, we quickly moved from social to task-oriented. In our assessments, we were relieved that remaining tasks were being equally divided among the group. We found that having quality …working sessions‟ worked best for us. We used our time efficiently to design questions, develop the on-line survey, and plan for our following week‟s tasks. As a team, we also appreciated the flexibility and the opencommunication that we shared between team meetings. We were able to successfully complete our work as a hybrid team-part in-person and part virtually.Finally, we reflect on the lessons learned from this project. Even though we were under a tight time frame, we may have wanted a little more time to discuss our main topic. While we are happy with the outcome, spending additional time weighing the merits of several topics may have been better for our team. This would allow, at least, the analytical members of our team the time to think about the pros and cons of each topic option. In the future, we would benefit from documenting our deliverables, tasks, and due dates in a shared file. We assigned tasks and deadlines verbally to one another. Since we were still a fairly …young‟ team, this made it difficult to tr ack members‟ work and workload. We aren‟t sure if one or more members took on the brunt of the project work. Creating a living project plan, referred to throughout the project, would help to ensure the balance of work and the meeting of deadlines. This brings us to our final lesson learned during the project. As a group, we would have benefited from selecting a team leader at the onset of our team forming. We could have accomplished this through discussion, voting, or some other means. Most, if not all, projects require one to be the project leader. This person is responsible for the project plan, setting up meetings, and assisting as issues arise during the project. This person does not have to be the sole individual responsible for the success or failure of the team. It is the person who helps to organize and to navigate the team down the best path to success. Our suspicion is that most teams in our class did not select a team leader. This is something that future classes and professors may want to discuss early on in the team project.In conclusion, Team Rain is grateful for having the opportunity to work with each other during this project. For many of us, it was our first opportunity to work with our colleagues. We learned about our similarities and differences. Our team valued the true educational value oflearning about different cultures and backgrounds. At the end of the day, our motivation as students is to learn and to grow mentally. We were able to accomplish both of these goals. Because of this class, we have the ability and new skill set to learn to lead teams in a fair and practical manner.ReferenceLevi, D. (2014). Group Dynamics for Teams. Los Angeles: SAGE.。