The work of Belbin and my personal experiences
The Financial Post (2015) stated teamwork is key to success; this is true in the context of building careers as at some point you will have to work in a team, which is sometimes challenging. Steve Jobs also believed in the importance of teamwork “Great things in business are never done by one person they’re done by a team of people.” (BusinessNewsDaily, 2013). There are many different aspects of teamwork for example; skills, team conflict and group size. This essay reflects on my personal experiences of working in a team. First I will talk about the literature of Belbin, describing key elements about teamwork. Then I will assess how accurately the literature reflects my experiences of teamwork. Lastly, I will look at what I have learned from the experience, by putting the literature and my experiences into context. I have various experiences in team projects, which I will be relating to the project that I recently took part in regarding leadership.
Belbin’s 1993 book concludes that an effective team has members covering all 9 key roles. It is beneficial to have a dynamic team that contributes a wide range of skills, whereby people will be appointed on the basis of their functional roles as and when their skills would be needed (Belbin, 1993). Managing team conflict is also important as Belbin, (2002) argues that if a team were to reach mutual grounds on each member’s goals prior to starting tasks this would ensure the
During the 1970’s, Dr Meredith Belbin and a team of researchers conducted research on a number of teams in an attempt to discover what aspects of a team’s dynamics can contribute towards the teams overall success or failure. They discovered that the success or failure of a team was not dependent upon the individual team members intellect but upon their behaviour. Following Belbin’s publication in 1981 of Team Role Analysis he concluded that there are nine key roles that are aligned to an individual’s behaviour that can contribute to the make up of a team. It is essential that as a leader I am able to understand the possible behavioural role that an individual may exhibit when
Teams consist of personnel with varied backgrounds, experience, education, and intellectual ability. These differences will, by nature lend themselves to varying perceptions in business, its problems and solutions, which result in
It is essential to have teamwork within a company. Companies who have embraced the concept of teamwork have reported increased performance in work production, problem solving and it has stimulated new growth. This group project approach has improved employee morale and increased input when managed correctly. The benefits of teamwork can make a positive effect in the company that incorporates this type of teamwork approach.
Teams have become very common and effective since they have proven to be effective in areas as cost reduction, developing new and innovative products, and improving quality (Effective Human relation, 2008). Team development is supported, in fact, required by almost all managements today, but still it may take quite a long time for the members to learn the task and activities and to fit themselves in the particular environment. Team work may vary as the organization or company varies. Team work involves a lot of important aspects such as relationships, cooperation, learning, leadership etc. since a team works together in
A team is a type of organizational group with independent members. They share common goals and work together to meet these goals (Northouse, 2016). The organization where I work has teams at various levels for maximizing the success. These teams include, core teams, coordinating teams, patient aligned care team (PACT), contingency teams, ancillary teams, support and administration teams (Veterans Health Administration [VHA], 2015). Some of these teams have interdepartmental members while others have intradepartmental staff. Successful teams have a concrete blueprint and that contributes to their effective functioning. There are several factors that affect these teams irrespective of the level. The factors comprise the presence of a clear task, separation from non-team members, authority, and stability. The factors like working conditions, team process and bridging the gaps are concerns for the executive level. The complexity of the task, individual skills and their diverse specializations affect the selection of the team members. The team’s meaningful interactions decide their success. Independent teams can help promote friendly competition within the organization and lead to better staff performance. An efficient leader can design and launch an effective team through careful planning and selection of the right members. He/she keeps the factors that affect the success of the team in mind when designing the teams. The patient care units
Many of us have seen that "Nobody's Perfect - But A Team Can Be" and we have seen a team produce a quality and quantity of work far higher than the sum of what the separate members could have produced on their own. The success of any Endeavour hinges on the behavior, talents, balance and cohesion of this management team. There are two main points when it comes to relevance of teams, the first is the recognition that human strengths usually bring countervailing weaknesses and the second is that some combinations of these roles have a greater probability of team success than others.
The features of effective team performance are set out in Brian Tuckman’s phases of team development theory, ‘Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing.’ This outlines the phases that a team will go through in order to become effective and reach maturity. At the ‘Forming’ stage of team development individual roles and responsibilities are unclear and each member of the team is concerned to avoid conflict with each other. From this point the team will go through the ‘Storming’ phase which is when they start to conflict as individuals put forward ideas which will be challenged by others in a bid to gain power and position over others. After this the ‘Norming’ phase follows and it is at this point that individual roles are defined and accepted
Throughout life there are many instances in which an individual has to work in a group to complete a task/project. The importance of group work is to have teamwork with each member of the group. Humans are driven to connect with each other and by working as a group ideas become much more enriched and the ideas or thoughts that each person ‘brings to the table’ each individual is able to add onto that idea or it can trigger one to think of something completely different.
This fable was a great way to promote the importance of a team and its functions. This book had many highlights throughout the context and I would highly recommend it to leaders of a corporation or of that of a team like setting. This book offered many great implications of the model and how to use it in many diverse settings when trying to build and manage successful teams.
After reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Pat Lencioni, discussing the function of effective teams in class, and completing various team building exercises, I have developed a much better understanding of the importance of a proper team in a business setting and how good team work can produce more efficient and productive results.
Teamwork is a vital aspect of the public and community services. These services consist of groups of people working together to achieve a mutual goal/aim. Teamwork is a key element for having a successful and efficient team. The way a team works together influences how successful they are and how efficient and effective they can be in achieving their common goals/aims. This essay will evaluate various teamwork theories, that explain the stages of forming a group and how it develops into a well established team. Examples of these theories include: Tuckman's theory of team development, Belbin's team roles, conflict theory, pluralism, trait theory and social learning theory. This essay will consider Tuckman's theory of team development, trait
In many aspects of our life, it is pervasive to work in a team. No matter in company, school, or another type of team it is necessary to be a part of a team and to achieve a team goal by corporations. People join a team with different personalities, goals, values, beliefs and needs. On the one hand, these differences can be a valuable quality of teams. On the other hand, these same differences inevitably lead to different levels of conflicts as well.
There have been many researches that studied the characteristics of a successful team over a period, Belbin’s work is one of the most widely known it investigated how different people within a team adopt different teamwork roles. In order to be successful all quality improvement teams must have the following characteristics:
A team is a group of people working together to achieve the same objectives. Katzenbach and Smith state in their report The Discipline of Teams (1993) that ‘the essence of a team is common commitment. Without it, groups perform as individuals; with it, they become a powerful unit of collective performance.’ Throughout this study, I will analyse the many different advantages and disadvantages of working in teams and its effects on team members and their performance and commitment within the team. I will consider many different aspects of team work and refer to certain established theories in
Humans have been forming groups since the beginning of humanity. We are constantly categorized as a group at the basic level as a species, as an ethnicity, and as a society. It is speculated that our success and evolution as a species is based on our ability to work with each other in collaboration on many levels to ensure our survival. Groups have enabled us to get things done efficiently, whether by combined physical effort, mental effort of generating ideas, or support of others. At its most effective, a group is considered a team. Teams are formed when