What is Teamwork?

Date:  (Week 2)
Venue: BFEI | Room 108
Class:  WDM
Topic:  Introduction to Teams

Introductory Exercise  in Building Trust

The class started today with an exercise in building trust in team. The exercise involved forming a group of three or four  to discuss the following questions:

·         What is trust?

·         Can you describe a trusting relationship in your life?

·         What does it take to form a trusting relationship?

·         How do trusting relationships differ from relationships that may lack trust?

Participants in my group consisted of Gavin, Tetyana and Myself. As matured adults we were to discuss the questions from our personal experiences.

Trust as defined by:

Ade: believe in the reliability, integrity, or ability of someone.
Gavin: Trusting someone means that you think they are reliable, you have confidence in them and you feel safe with them physically and emotionally.
Tetyana: Trust is something that two people in a relationship can build together when they decide to trust each other.

What is Trust?

Our definition of trust differs in wording but we settle for the dictionary definition of trust for the purpose of the exercise.

"Trust can be defined as the act of placing confidence in someone or something else or alternatively a firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something."

                                                                                                                -  Online Dictionary

 Contributors in a group of three as we discussed the following questions

 Can you describe a trusting relationship in your life?

      Personally, an example of a trusting relationship in my life is my marriage which can be described as a feeling of confidence and security that my partner cares and is dependable.

      This mental attitude in both of us allow us to behave and acts in certain ways that makes us depends on each other. It is more like a belief system in us that we will behave in certain ways. This is evident in the way we treat each other in our verbal expression and attitude towards each other.

      "I Trust you" is better than "I love you" because you may not always trust the person you love but you can always love the person you trust. 

      In relationship, trust is more important that love, it enhances love

What does it take to form a trusting relationship?

It simply takes TRUSTING each other.

T for Truth - never lie to your partner, say what you mean and mean what you say
R for Respect -  never treat your partner in a way that demeans him or her or in a way that violate the dignity and respect of the individual.
U for Understanding - in difficulties show you have a sympathetic awareness of his or her feelings  and be tolerant and forgiving.
S for Safety - protect your partner, let her secret be safe and create a safe environment
T for Transparency - be open and honest with your feelings and emotions
I for Invest Time and emotions - spend time together
N for Niceness - treat each other nice
G for Genuineness - have the the quality of truly being what something is said to be, be authentic.

How do trusting relationships differ from relationships that may lack trust?

Insecurity
In a trusting relationship, there's no fear, partners trust each other and have no fear to disclose the truth to each other you don't even have to check your partner's phone however, in a relationship that lack trust insecurity make people to check their partner's phone. When there's a trouble trusting someone, we monitor what he or she does and with whom. We get territorial and feel threatened by everyone.

Suspicion & Cheating
In a relationship that's fully trusting of each other, trust involves knowing that a partner has your best interest at heart. It is not hard to feel safe and secure when you are involved with someone who would not betray your trust however, in a relationship that lacks trust, mistrust can manifest in many ways e.g suspicion. Sometimes, people cheat when a relationship is failing and they don’t trust themselves anymore.

Lying & Deception
Lack of trust in a relationship influences deceptive behaviour like lying. People in such relationship are less inclined to tell the truth when trust is missing. On the other hand, in a loving, trusting relationship, truth is disclosed without any fear or doubt. Partners hold each other to be trustworthy.

Fear & Anxiety
In a relationship that lack trust, a feeling of apprehension or uneasiness is often manifested physically. Partners often experience nervousness, a rapid heartbeat, anger, a knotted stomach, or even disgust and this usually rise to a point where they are afraid of each other as a result of distrust.
On the other hand, a trusting relationship where there's love there's no fear or anxiety.

Withdrawal 
Finally, with all the above, a relationship that lacks trust partners often become reserved in sharing personal information, safety has been removed, loneliness set in, frozen love and dead feeling becomes the characteristic of the relationship, however a trusting relationship is strengthened in their bond.

After the exercise, we delved into the topic of discussion for the day proper, "Introduction to Teams" and we covered the following:

• What is a Team?
• Common Team Problems
• Conditions for Team Success
• Ideal Team Climate
• Stages of Group Development 

Now, team-working is seen by many organisations as an effective strategy for organising work. In this blog, I am going to share the details of all the important aspect of the topic of the day with you.

The lecturer gave us academic definition of team according to Bell and Kozlowski's (2003) research and theory development work which focused on team effectiveness and contextual characteristics of a team, which defined team as

... as a group or groups of people “who exist to perform organisationally relevant tasks, share one or more common goals, interact socially, exhibit task inter-dependencies, maintain and manage boundaries, and are embedded in an organisational context that sets boundaries, constrains the team, and influences exchanges with other units in the broader entity.”   

                                                             (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003, p. 334)

Reflection on the definition (including my own reading on the theories and examples of real life application of the principles)

On reflection, it is very important to clarify this definition especially with the keep word - "group" it is necessary to be able to differentiate between a team and a group.

A team is a type of a group...further research shows that
   
       “...a group consists of people who work together but can do their jobs without one another. A team is a group of people who cannot do their jobs, at least not effectively, without the other members of their team” (Spector, 2012, p. 303).

For us to properly understand how a team is different to a group, it is also necessary to examine the characteristic of a team. In a scholarly article posted online titled "Teams: The challenges of cooperative work" (Unsworth & West, 2000), the writer examined the research evidence which shows the important characteristics that differentiate a team from a group.

Characteristic of a Team
We also discussed the characteristics of a team, below are the main points on the discussion on characteristics a team:

1. Team members have shared goals in relation to their work.
2. Team members interact with each other in order to achieve shared objectives.
3. Team members have well-defined and interdependent roles.
4. Team members have an organisational identity as a team with a defined organisational function.

Common Team Problems are 

Further in our class discussion on team, we also discussed some of the common problems encounter in teamworking. Despite the fact that it's a good strategy to arrange workers into teams so groups of workers with related skills can collaborate and solve problems more efficiently it can sometimes be a great challenge. Perhaps this problem is partly to blame for:

• A lack of team purpose and tasks
• A lack of freedom and responsibility. 
• Too many members or the wrong members.

But it can also be as a result of problems of trust and leadership which can easily erode the effectiveness of a team and affects its performance.

A read of Harvard Business Review’s Answer Exchange lists EIGHT problems that teams encounter:

• Members may not feel mutually accountable to one another for the team's objectives. There may be a lack of commitment and effort, conflict.

• Absence of team identity. Members may not feel mutually accountable to one another for the team’s objectives. There may be a lack of commitment and effort, conflict between team goals and members’ personal goals, or poor collaboration.

• Difficulty making decisions. Team members may be rigidly adhering to their positions during decision making or making repeated arguments rather than introducing new information.

• Poor communication. Team members may interrupt or talk over one another. There may be consistent silence from some members during meetings, allusions to problems but failure to formally address them, or false consensus (everyone nods in agreement without truly agreeing).

• Inability to resolve conflicts. Conflicts can not be resolved when there are heightened tensions and team members make personal attacks or aggressive gestures.

• Lack of participation. Team members fail to complete assignments. There may be poor attendance at team meetings or low energy during meetings.

• Lack of creativity. The team is unable to generate fresh ideas and perspectives and doesn’t turn unexpected events into opportunities.

• Ineffective leadership. Leaders can fail teams by not defining a compelling vision for the team, not delegating, or not representing multiple constituencies.

Reference

Originally posted on HBR Answer Exchange (now defunct); Adapted from the book Leading Teams: Pocket Mentor Series, Harvard Business Press

Conditions for Team Success

Successful projects, successful companies depend on how well the team works together. 

So another critical part of the class discussion is the condition for team success, it is obvious there are a number of factors that must be in place for a team to be successful, some of the conditions discussed for team success includes but limited to:

Clear purpose: The first condition for effective teamwork is to get the purpose clear.  If you don’t know what the purpose of the teams work is, how will you know if it is achieved? 

Right people: No team will ever be effective unless it has the right people with the right skills on it. Team selection is challenging but important.  Sadly in my experience it’s one of those areas where there is insufficient focus when it comes to recruiting staff.

Dependency: For a team to exist and achieve there needs to be dependency. By dependency, I mean that the performance of one part of the organisation needs to be dependent on one or more other areas to achieve results. 

Team accountability: Team members need to be committed to delivering on their there needs to be accountability to the team and the team results. 

Diversity: One of the real advantages of teams is that there is access to a greater range of skills, experience, knowledge and personal attributes than there would be in one individual.  

4 Stages of Team Development

We also discussed 'Team Development Stages', we explored the essential principle of Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing...

Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing: Bruce Tuckman's Team Stages Model Explained - Understanding the Stages of Team Formation

Teams move through a series of four phases—from when they are formed to when their work is complete.

During the forming stage, a the team discusses it purpose, defines and assigns tasks, establishes timelines, and begins forming personal relationships.

The often-contentious storming stage is the period when team members clarify their goals and the strategy for achieving them.

The norming stage is when the team establishes its values for how individuals will interact and collaborate.

Performing is the stage of team development when team members have productive relationships and are able to communicate and coordinate effectively and efficiently.

This video analysed Richard Tuckman’s theory of group development states that all teams must go through five phases during their natural life cycles: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.  Clever rhyming scheme aside, this is a great way to assess group dynamics happening in your team.  Learn about the five phases here, nerdily, by watching how the Fellowship of the Ring gets together.

What Kind of Team Member Are You?

Here are some few tips on how to be a better team member ...

• Be accountable to your teammates: follow through with your work!
• Keep a positive attitude about teamwork
• Assume positive intent of your teammates' actions
• Be prepared to lead some times, follow other times
• Take responsibility for your own work
• Take responsibility for your team's work
• Distribute effort and responsibility equally

    Are you a better team member?

Take this quiz to see what strengths and skills 
you bring to your team in the workplace and likely in life too)!

QUIZ