The Importance of Effective Team Behavior

Team dynamics can be defined as the psychological and the unconscious forces, which determine the direction of the team’s performance and behavior (Kozlowski et al. 2015). The concept of team dynamics is determined by the nature of the work in which the team is participating, the kind of individuals who are participating in the activities, the environment of the place where the team activity is taking place, the kind of social bonds which the members of the team share among themselves and various other factors.

I was a part of team recently, which worked over the trimester for a fund raising event for the UNICEF. The program was intended not only to raise sufficient amount of funds for the disabled people as well as the children with learning disability but also to raise awareness among the people regarding those concepts. The team comprised of members from various diverse age groups as well as educational and cultural backgrounds. The overall performance of the team was satisfactory and we were able to generate sufficient amount of funds through our activities over the trimester.

According to Patrick Lencioni, the found of the Tata Group, “Behavior is Comunication” and he lists five factors, namely trust, conflict, accountability, commitment and results as the basic concepts of an effective team behavior (Lucey et al. 2012). I would like to comment that our team followed all these five factors for the achievement of the goal set by us. The overall coordination of the team was very effective and all the members of the team shared a kind of trust among each other. Moreover, each one of us was accountable for the behavior of the entire team. It is true that there were some instance of conflict among some members of the team but they were quickly resolved and all worked towards the achievement of the common goal set by us. 

Team participation can be defined as the process, which ensures that each member of the team participates in the activities of the team and works harmoniously towards the achievement of the common goal (Teng and Chen 2014). It is to be noted that there was active participation on the part of almost all the members of the team and in case there was any discrepancy the issue was quickly resolved by our leader. The role played by our leader was important and he ensured that the entire team worked together for the achievement of the common goal.  

The Role of Trust, Conflict, Accountability, Commitment, and Results

Self-management, can be defined as the process by means of which the various individuals of the team work independently to learn new things and take responsibility for their individual actions (Solove 2012). Our leader always emphasized the importance of the concept of self-management and asked us to learn new things, which could help us in the achievement of the goals set by us. He also taught us the value of taking responsibility for our own individual actions, which helped us individually and indirectly our entire team over the course of the entire trimester.

It is to be noted that an important aspect of teamwork is to learn new things as well as implement them together for the collective good of the entire team. This concept was also taught to us by our leader who emphasized on the importance of working together within the team for the achievement of the goal. It is also to be noted that the team environment also provided us with an effective environment where we were able to learn from our teammates and implement them for the achievement of our goal. The diverse background of the individuals was initially an impediment however, later on as we got to know each other in a more better way we were able to work together as a combined cohesive unit (Carbaugh 2013).

A Peer Review of the three members of the team on various diverse points will reveal the following fact-

Figure: Peer Review of Team Members

Source: (Created by the Author)

The above figure clearly indicates the level of participation as well as the contribution of the three team members. The above figure indicates that the performance of the second as well as the third member of the team were much better compared to the level of contribution and performance of the first member. It is also to be noted that the performance of the second member was better than the third member in certain points whereas the performance and the contribution of the third member was better than the second in some other aspects. There was not much of a contribution as well as participation on the part of the first member of the team. However, it is to be noted that all three of them followed the policy of “equity” and tried their best to be productive as well as helpful to the other members of the team. Equity can be defined as the quality of being fair as well as being impartial. It is to be noted that out leader as well as the other members of the group followed the policy of equity and our leader tried to be as impartial as possible.

Team Participation and Self-management

Tuckman’s stages of group development was proposed by Bruce Tuckman in the year 1965 (Seck and Helton 2014). The model provides various stages or steps which are necessary for the for the overall growth of the team, the team to face challenges and resolve the issues faced by them and also for the achievement of the overall team target (Seck and Helton 2014). The four stages or steps involved in the process are forming, storming, norming and performing (Seck and Helton 2014). The first stage represents the stage of the formation of the team in the initial phases (Seck and Helton 2014). The second stage represents the stage of storming or the phase in which the initial inhibitions of the individuals are overcome and the entire team is taught to act in a cohesive unit (Seck and Helton 2014). The third stage or the phase of norming is the stage wherein the individual members of the team were taught to resolve the issues, which they have and they are encouraged to develop a bond of friendship among themselves (Seck and Helton 2014). The fourth or the final stage is the stage of performing wherein they are encouraged to perform and work towards the achievement of the team objective (Seck and Helton 2014). This tool is often used by the various people as well as leaders to guide the various members of the team towards the achievement of the overall goal and objective set by the team (Seck and Helton 2014). This model can also be used by the leaders to create effective team unity between the various members of the team, which will lead to the overall growth as well as the development of the team in the longer run. 

It is to be noted that our team leader also followed the Tuckman’s model for the process of the effective formation of our team (Seck and Helton 2014). In the initial days, about three months ago, when we assembled together t undertake the fundraising campaign for UNICEF, most of the people in the group were strangers to each other. This stage can be said to be our forming stage as per the Tuckman’s model. It can also be said that during this process the basis process of assembling the members of the team from diverse places happened. I was a bit worried during and had my own doubts as whether we would be able to complete the fundraising program, which we had undertaken in the initial days. The appearance as well as the behavior of the team members during the initial days when I was not familiar with them also added to this general distrust. I would also like to comment that at this point of time my opinion of my future team mates was not very high and I was not sure whether we would be able to work together and achieve the common goal. I was even not sure about the performance level of the team mates.

Learning and Working Together

The second stage of the Tuckman’s model which is called by the name of storming is the step during which the process the individuals from various diverse educational as well as cultural backgrounds form opinion about themselves (Seck and Helton 2014). I noticed that the members of our team were from different educational backgrounds, as a matter of fact some of them were studying in colleges whereas some of them were in universities. Some of the individuals were from the science stream whereas others were from commerce and literature background. Moreover, I also noticed that some individuals in the group were from some minority ethnic groups. The entire group can be said a beautiful conglomeration of diverse mass of humanity. Naturally, they held different view as well as opinion as per their culture and upbringing. Therefore, during this phase there were some conflicts and disagreements, which our leader proactively resolved. I would also like to add now when I look back I would say that it was one of the most crucial stage in the development of process of team bonding as well as team formation. I was skeptical about the achievement of our overall goal even at this stage of our team formation as the various conflicts confirmed my beliefs even more about the non-achievement of our goal. I was very skeptical about the level of dedication as well as the performance level, which we would be getting from my team mates even at this stage of our trimester. However, I am proud to say that my team mates proved me wrong in the later phase of trimester by their level of dedication as well as performance. 

The third stage in Tuckman’s model is norming involving the process of the resolution of the disagreements as well as the formation of effective bonds of friendships, which help the team mates in working together towards the achievement of the common goal (Seck and Helton 2014). I would like to say that our leader played a key role in this stage of our team formation. Our leader took active initiatives to resolve the conflicts, which arose during the time and helped the various members of the team to develop effective bonds of friendship. It was during this stage that I finally realized that we can actually achieve the goal set by us provided we work together as a cohesive unit and overcome our personal conflicts.

A Peer Review of Team Members

The final stage in the Tuckman’s model is performance, which involves the process of actually doing the intended work or activities, which can lead to the fulfillment of the outlined goals as well as the objectives (Seck and Helton 2014). I would like to add that this stage was very vital for the achievement of our overall goal as it was during this stage that most of the work related to the process of fundraising was done. It was to be noted that during this stage we faced many problems like some of the individuals were not happy with the kind of work that was assigned to them and wanted better kind of activities. There were other who were of the opinion that the work provided to them was very difficult and they would not be able to live up to the expectations of the leader. Then there were others who were very de-motivated about the entire thing and had to be motivated by the leader to do the things that was assigned to them. Our leader played a very significant role during this time as he had to understand each and every member of the team and assignment work or activities as per the capabilities or character of those people. Naturally, there were conflicts and active intervention was required on the part of the leader to resolve the issues. I would also like to comment that it was during this phase that the individual members of the team began to understand their responsibilities and started to perform like a complete cohesive unit. It was during this phase that the attributes of the members of a team were acquired by the various members of the team, which helped us in the effective achievement of our goal or objective. 

I would like to add here that a few things about the performance level and the dedication of the various members of our team. It is to be added that initially the members of the team did not want to take any responsibility and acted in a manner, which was not at all like the attributes an efficient team. However, the active intervention and the time spent together during the entire time of the trimester helped them to understand not only their responsibilities as well as each other and also the things that the team required from them. Thus, I can say that we were able to achieve our intended because of the hard work as well as the dedication of the various members of the team. It is true that the level of contribution as well as the performance of each member of the team was not equal. Some people contributed more whereas the contribution of others was not that much but at the end we worked as a cohesive unit and were able to achieve our desired result.

The entire course of the trimester taught me about the various concepts of team work and the benefits of working together in a team. It is to be noted that like I said earlier I was very skeptical about my other team mates however over the course of the entire trimester I became more confident and started believing that we would be able to achieve our goal. Here,, I would also like to say that the my team mates did a great work during the entire course of the trimester. I would also like to say that we were very lucky to have such skillful leader who provided us with his guidance and leadership whenever we required. 

References

Carbaugh, D. ed., 2013. Cultural communication and intercultural contact. Routledge.

Kozlowski, S.W., Chao, G.T., Chang, C.H. and Fernandez, R., 2015. Team dynamics: Using “big data” to advance the science of team effectiveness. Big data at work: The data science revolution and organizational psychology, pp.273-309.

Lucey, P., Bialkowski, A., Carr, P., Foote, E. and Matthews, I.A., 2012, July. Characterizing Multi-Agent Team Behavior from Partial Team Tracings: Evidence from the English Premier League. In AAAI.

Seck, M.M. and Helton, L., 2014. Faculty development of a joint MSW program utilizing Tuckman’s model of stages of group development. Social Work with Groups, 37(2), pp.158-168.

Solove, D.J., 2012. Introduction: Privacy self-management and the consent dilemma. Harv. L. Rev., 126, p.1880.

Teng, C.I. and Chen, W.W., 2014. Team participation and online gamer loyalty. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 13(1), pp.24-31.