Thursday, April 17, 2008
TeamA team has joint objectives and accountability. It is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach which they hold mutually accountable.
Team working
They are used for organising work, controlling activities, generating ideas, decision making and pooling of knowledge. However, they may not be suitable for all jobs and people may not come together as a team to meet the objectives and purpose. They can also delay decision making and might be at the expense of other aspects of performance. They restrict creativity due to norms, group think and there might be personality clashes and political infighting which I think my current workplace is good at. To elaborate on personality clashes and political infighting, it means that people want to rebut or refute you just because of the fact that they do not like you. Take my example like in the previous post, I was targeted because they did not like me at all or because we just came down here not knowing a lot of things. I was also targeted for new jobs because of me being the most junior.
Group think- Irving Jams
A group can be so dynamic and strong to the point where they became blinkered to outside information and feedback and its decision making processes are dangerously distorted. My lecturer illustrated about a political party in Singapore (you know who) that is so dynamic and strong that they do not listen to the voice of the citizens. He quoted that a political party said to point whereby if you want to have a view on policy making, you should join the politics. This phenomenon is known as group think and it could be deadly dangerous. What if the whole political party is made out of elitist which was so strong and dynamic, the policies would cater to the elitist, leaving those poor, hungry to suffer and fend for themselves. Group think is dangerous as it would resist criticisms, contradiction and new information. It also pressure the member to toe the line, instill a sense of invulnerability and tendency to stereotype all outsiders as competitors and enemies.
Multi-disciplinary teams contain people from different departments but a multi-skilled team contain people with more than one skill. Multi-disciplinary teams increase worker's awareness of their overall objectives and targets, aid co-ordination and help to generate solutions to problems. Multi-skilled team on the other hand introduces flexibility to the skills available and in time when one person is down, the other person can take over. This is what my working organisation is trying to do, creating a multi-skilled team from different disciplinaries so that we can be maximised fully, learning every one's trade. By the time I learned finished their trade, I would have ORDed and said goodbye to them. What I learned from my previous course will be relearned and what I do not learn, I have to learn now. So by the time I orded, I would have learned and do like............. My point is this, if you want to form a multi-skilled team, you should have started a course that is multi-skilled, not pooling people from multi disciplinary teams. I think that my organisation failed to understand the difference between multi-disciplinary and multi-skilled and leads to lots and lots of unnecessary confusion.
Virtual Teams
Virtual teams and teams that are not physically there but they do information sharing through Information and Communications Technology.
Team Roles: R Meredith Belbin.
Belbin's theory insisted that a distinction needs to be made between a team (process) role(interaction) and a functional role(technical skills and knowledge). Both are as important. According to his theory, the steps in team building must be firstly, articulating the purpose followed by selecting team membership and lastly, deciding the 'style'. There are nine types of styles: plant, resource investigator (me), co-ordinator, shaper, monitor, evaluator (me), team worker (me), implementer, completer and specialist. However, they are not fixed and can occupy different roles. It should also be recognised that individuals will be naturally incline towards some roles than others, individuals adopt one or two team roles more consistently and might be more successful in certain roles.
Belbin's complementary roles
Team roles Vs Functional role.
Assessment:
Who is playing which role and analyse the frequency and type of individual members' contributions to group discussions and interactions.
Neil Rackham and Terry Morgan
Neil Rackham and Terry Morgan introduce types of contributions. Positive contributions include proposing, building, supporting, seeking information(my ex boss of superiors), giving information and disagreeing. Negative contributions include attacking, defending(my work place's seniors), blocking(my workplace) or difficulty stating, open behaviour and shutting out(my workplace). Essential positive contributions include bring in behavior (my workplace), testing understanding(my ex boss of superiors)(my workplace) and summarising. I remember a time during the NE week whereby we are given a show to watch and I contribute that about the culture. Maybe I did not state and explain properly and further but I felt I was being attacked by the other people because every single one of them in my team used that opportunity to said that that is not a good idea. At that point, I wanted to argue back but being rank conscious, I decided not to rebut and not to say anything anymore. I felt that my point was really invalid. I still remember myself saying promoting Singapore's culture and they were like I do not think you thought it through enough and they were like how can you promote a culture where by there is maid abuse and that regulars become insurance sellers and such a sad story. In the end, what I meant was not that kind of Singapore's culture but rather our dialect, our religion and so on. It was something that really shocked me and I understood the part of attacking and shutting out ideas.
Development of the team:
Step 1: Forming- guarding and suspicions
Step 2: Storming- Begin contributions
Step 3: Norming- ie. Punctuality
Step 4: Performing
Other Stages: Dorming and Mourning/adjourning (ME!!!!)
I do not really like the part about norming because for me, I would not compromise to situations and I had a story behind it. The norms and the vibes that my current working place give me had been negative so far. Sometimes, I do feel that I was being attacked by them because of the way they speak and sometimes, I feel that they treat me like shit and wanted to kick me around. They are like constantly shouting and yelling like lunatics. They just literally attacked a person without giving a thought whether the words they said hurt people's feelings. As much as it is easy to work with me, it is also very difficult to pull me out because if I did not feel like I belong here, I would not give a very positive attitude towards work. That's how I feel. I would be very crude, blunt and obnoxious.
Anyway back to the topic:
Team Building will have three main issues: team identity, team solidarity and shared objectives.
Team Identity will include name, badge and uniform, self image mythology and a separate space.
Team solidarity: Expressing loyalty, encouraging relationships, dealing with conflict, controlling competition and encouraging it.
Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting
what we could have been, 8:14 PM.
