Team Process Management
Team management strategies are the lifeblood of the team. They impact development, establish norms, identify roles, and support cohesiveness. These processes are paramount to a teams’ success or decline. As such, the University of Phoenix MBA team comprised of Parrish Monk, Jennifer Pace, and Kisha Merrell has implemented specific management strategies for each process.
Development Management
The development of this group spurs from successful team augmentation and performance in a prior class for two of its members. An invitation was made to incorporate the other member, which included an orientation on the rationale of the existing teams’ formation; the need for sensitivity to family obligations with a drive for best results MBA program commitment and completion. The shared value each member places on family and the MBA program is a direct correlation to the team composition. Due to the immediate requirement to produce, the team developed a respectful open communication policy. This openness and candor enabled the team to traverse the various stages of the team development cycle in efforts to quickly progress to the performing stage.
Norm Management
The establishment of acceptable behavior in the group, norms, was achieved through open communication regarding expectations of each group member and inaugurated during the team formation stage. The established norms support the foundational team construction rationale by requiring members to address areas of disagreement in a respectful manner within the team and to respect the best results program initiative by informing team members of issues regarding task completion assignments. The norms were incorporated into the team charter as representation of agreement amongst all team members.
Role Management
In recognition of the need for leadership and the growth and development goals of each team member, two specific roles were identified and listed in the team charter: Project Leader and Secretary. Each team member will be given the opportunity to perform each role and its associated responsibilities, as the positions will be alternated for each team assignment.
Cohesiveness Management
The high level of cohesiveness of this team is resultant from its capitalization on member similarity, team size, member interaction and team success. Our member similarity is value based in regards to family and MBA program commitment. Our team size facilitates quick agreeable goals and work implementation strategies. Routine meetings and checkpoints enhance our member interaction. And finally, our collaboration and individual contribution makes the team very productive.
Team Dynamics and Role Execution
Individual personality traits become more apparent overtime through participation in group activities. The recent formation of this team has not permitted a full assessment of the traits each individual has and how that affects the roles a person assumes. Nonetheless, each member has acted in various task-oriented capacities in accordance with alternating the roles of Project Leader and Secretary as defined in the team charter. The Project Leader role often incorporates the activities of initiator (identifies goals), information giver (provides information about tasks and goals), information seeker (solicits for more or clarity of information), and orienter (e.g.: maintains focus on goals). The Secretary role fulfills the activity of the summarizer (e.g.: captures essence of events and meetings). Relationship oriented roles are not assigned as they depend on interpersonal skills aimed at resolving conflict, encouraging participation, and complimenting the contributions of others (McShane-Von Glinow, 2002). Such roles are fulfilled through the innate or learned behavior of the members on the team. Kisha has performed the team functions of Project Leader and Secretary. She demonstrated strength as an initiator, information giver, information seeker and orienter. Parrish also has executed the Project Manger and Secretary roles proving exemplary skills as the information seeker, information giver, harmonizer, gatekeeper, and encourager. And the evidential testament of Jennifer’s endowment of talent in the areas of information seeker, information giver, summarizer, and encourager were witnessed in her fulfilling the Secretary role and participation in group task dialogue. The varied skill sets of each member is complimentary and instrumental in best results assignment completion.
Team Personality Profile based on Jung’s Psychological Types
After taking the Jung’s Psychological Types assessment, our team was overall an ENTP, (Extraversion, Intuitive Perception, Thinking Judgment, and Perception). We came to this conclusion by taking an average of each person’s personality type and compiling the majority. Our individual personality types are as follows: Parrish’s assessment showed him as an INTP (“I” standing for Introversion), who brings to the team ingenuity, invention, and intellectual quickness (Lawrence, Ph.D., 1993). Kisha’s ESTJ type personality (“S” standing for Sensing Perception, and “J” standing for Judgment) brings to the team a greater sense of order and practicality. Kisha is an assertive thinker, and pushes to get things done and working smoothly and efficiently (Lawrence, Ph.D., 1993). Jennifer’s assessment showed her as being an ENFP (“F” standing for Feeling Judgment). The strengths that Jennifer brings to the team are creativity, flexibility, openness and a belief that any obstacle can be overcome.
As a team we see strengths as an ENTP unit. Fair treatment of member is important, as well as flexibility and adaptability. Our learning team meetings are made light by inspiration. We are all individuals and feel the importance of giving each person “elbow room,” autonomy. Finally we as a group find ourselves enthusiastic of new projects and promoting their benefits (Lawrence, Ph.D., 1993). Our weaknesses are demonstrated in the personality traits that we least comprise (ISFJ). We tend to exhibit weakness by getting distracted and having the propensity to get off task when trying to get to know each other. Sometimes it is evident that we are lacking procedures and consistency in meeting times and days, which could cause problems. A member who is more rigid with a desire for control over situations could balance out our team. (Lawrence, Ph.D., 1993). Overall, to take advantage of strengths and overcome challenges member should be willing to go through personality typing exercises and share results with each other in order to take advantage of resources on how to deal effectively with each other and deal with differences in a respectful manner (Huszczo, 1999).
Conflict Management Tools Used by the Team
Several structural approaches to conflict management are used by our Learning Team to both avoid conflict and to properly deal with existing conflict. According to McShane, minimizing dysfunctional conflict can be achieved through the emphasis of superordinate goals, differentiation reduction, improved communication, reduced task interdependence, increased resources and clear rules and procedures (McShane-Von Glinow, 2002). The learning team was evaluated under the structure introduced by McShane.
We considered as a team where we were successful in the use of conflict management tools. We emphasize superordinate goals as we focus on our similarities and goals as group rather than focusing on the differences in order to get the job done. Our team has discussed how it is more important to make sure the team assignments are done to the highest level of excellence more than the individual assignment. This is not to say an individual assignment is not important, instead when the grades of others are at risk it is important to consider the well-being of the group above oneself. Furthermore, interpersonal differences should not be dwelt upon when completing tasks. Reduction of Differentiation is commonly accomplished through “moving employees around to different teams” (McShane-Von Glinow, 2002). Our team rotates between the roles of secretary, project leader, and team log drafter. These role differentiations have proven themselves as successful after weeks of work together. Communication and understanding are a team focus as our meetings start with open discussion on topics and “I feel” statements are used if a conflict arises. Task interdependence is as minimal as possible, even in group projects. The team discusses the topics then, each person is assigned a different role. The paper is then reviewed by a project leader who makes final editions. Each person knows their role and makes the active decision to not impede on another’s role. The team has effective distribution of resources as we all have access to the internet and any item that is needed can be instantly downloaded or attached on an email to another group member. Finally, via our team charter, rules and procedures were successfully implemented starting day one of our learning team development.
Though, it is evident that our team has managed to keep conflict to a minimal, there are some ideas that our team would like to implement to further increase conflict management skills that will help avoid inevitable conflicts. Most of the tools we would like to implement fall under the category of improving communication and understanding. Though this may seem odd as a lot of the current tools and procedures used by the group fall under improvement of communication and understanding, communication is by far one of the most essential parts of a successful team. An example of a beginning problem was the team would try to avoid conflict and suppress it rather than going through the storming stage. Conflict should be embraced as a way to come to a common decision and understanding. The second thing we as a team would like to do differently would be to implement team building activities, whether it be going to eat together, or talking over coffee after a team meeting. Though, our team feels like our conflict management tools are effective they are always subject to change.
Redesign of Learning Team Charter
After careful assessment of our team composition and performance, it was agreed that the strategies in our current learning team charter align us with collective and individual growth and success. Our complimentary personalities and MBA program commitment abates most counterproductive issues associated with team development. The critical factors of respecting individual and team needs were addressed during the commencement of team formation and thereby established member affirmation of team management initiatives and goals.
References
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