Designing a Team Strategy. Teaming Up for a Worthy Project Essay

Designing a Team Strategy. Teaming Up for a Worthy Project - Essay Example For instance, if the personality of A is extroverted and B is introverted, A should be able to use that engaging personality to draw B out of her shell, while keeping it tamer so that B will not be overwhelmed. On the other hand, B will just have to reach out a little more just so she gets to connect with A as a compromise. That is usually the dynamics of working to get along with others. In doing so, more productive relationships ensue and there is more likelihood of common goals being achieved. This paper will discuss how teams can work more effectively according to some theories and considering members’ personality profiles as analyzed from the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test. The team project to be discussed is the organization of a proposal to be presented for bidding for a special event. The team is composed of five individuals with varying backgrounds and skills. The members are tasked to work on organizing a seminar-workshop on Work-Life Balance for middle manag ement. The designated leader of the group has worked with various companies and has developed his network of credible resource people that he can invite as speakers for the seminar. Aside from the leader, the team is composed of an accountant, a mother, an artist and a researcher. The team members all work for an events management company. Working in Groups Collaborative work can bring about group process gains as well as group process losses (Thatcher and de la Cour, 2003). Group process gains are positive outcomes derived from working with other members. One such gain is the provision of synergy or a group member being creatively stimulated by the other members. Other benefits of working in groups are the efficient exchange of ideas and information, exposure to different views, collection of objective feedback and a host of other learning effects. However, groups may not always be as effective as expected, and group process losses negate the positive outcomes of group process gain s. Dominance is one such group process’ downside (Hiltz et al, 1986). This is because in groups discussions, only one person can talk at a time and this may block out, forget, neglect or not give enough time other members’ ideas if the speaker is dominant. Diehle and Stoebe (1991) also identify evaluation apprehension, which is the fear of members to be negatively evaluated by other members when they become more active and visible in the group participation. Social loafing may then be the result. This happens when an individual member feels less inclined to participate in the expectation that his efforts may not hold water with the group. Finally, free-riding is another group process loss. This happens when a group participant feels that his contribution may be dispensable (Barry & Stewart, 1997). Hence, he reduces his participation to just going along with the majority and exert less effort in contributing his share. Thatcher & de la Cour (2003) identify more group pr ocess losses that groups should be wary of in order to be more effective. These are cognitive inertia or getting stuck in usual patterns of thought and routine; information overload or coming up with too many ideas that focus on the main objective may be lost; and excessive socializing, that little time is left for actual