Effective Multicultural Team Theory Practice -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Effective Multicultural Team Theory Practice? Answer: Introduction Before undertaking the project as a team, the author first familiarized with the simulator through the individual practice session to familiarize with how the simulator operates before running the simulator as part of a team. The aim was to maximize shareholder value and customer satisfaction. Working as a team has benefits and also challenges because individuals have different traits and ways in which they work with others. This paper is a detailed reflective report on the team activity and team dynamics while management the simulation task as a team. The reflective report is done in the context of the teamwork theory that posits that there are four distinctive stages in team dynamics, starting with forming, followed by storming, then norming, and finally performing; based on Truckman teamwork theory. This reflective report discusses how well it reflected in the group (or otherwise) while undertaking the simulation project. After discussing the way the team operated as a group, the report will identify three action points that can help with future group activities to improve performance and team output. Reflection The teams were formed after doing the individual practice that helped the author familiarize with the simulator and know what kinds of decisions needed to be made and when. While doing the group activity, I experienced some stark changes, especially on decision making because during some instances, people had different opinions and ideas on how to improve, and so we could not come to an agreement on what to do. The team followed through based on the natural team working theory; once the group was put together, we decided to allocate people roles, with an overall team leader, a secretary to take notes during meetings, and other team members were given roles to be recording the decisions made, and the outcomes of those decisions to help the team keep track of what decisions were taken and help in making better decisions in future. At this point, based on the team work theory, is the forming stage where the team members had not properly gelled (Acemoglu, Arellano Dekel, 2013). Naturall y, there were some power struggles within the team, and a desire for each person to exert their influence in the team, before we got down to serious work. I had been selected as the team secretary and would organize fr team meetings and take notes of the proceedings of the team meetings. While this happened subconsciously at times, my understanding of the forming stage in the team theory was that everyone was trying to find their own space and establish their place within the team. The proceedings were characterized by people cutting others short, or outrightly disagreeing with the opinions of the others, without really providing an alternative. In some instances, I had to step I to resolve little things that were threatening team harmony, as the team leader would sometimes be overwhelmed while trying to keep the team together and keep things going. I have this tendency to be able to quickly understand people at a deeper level and develop a means by which to handle them, and this came in handy. At one point the team meeting when we were setting our time table and frequency within which we had to meet, the disagreements were so many that I had to tell everyone that each persons opinion was valuable and not necessarily wrong or right but just a perspective. At the end of the meeting, I had an idea about the strengths and weaknesses about the team members; apparently I did not fully understand my weaknesses at that point! At the end, I realize, to my surprise that I was interfering with what the team leader ought to have been doing, which is aligning the team with the goals of the team and the project. Further, sometimes I have a tendency to not express myself very clearly, so I realized I should not have intervened unless invited to. I am also good at reading body language and I was able to understand that the expressed body language was generally tense. However, I understood this as the forming stage and these were expected reactions and experiences among the team members. W e agreed to go review the objectives, develop ideas individually and then have another meeting where everyone would have a chance to give their ideas. During the second meeting during our planning phase, everyone was given time to discuss their points of view and give their opinion without being interrupted while I patiently took notes, this time without interjecting. Once all points had been given, we discussed each persons points one by one and evaluated their pros and cons, including on team roles and individual responsibility in the team. During and after this meeting, when the team came up with resolutions and how to proceed with the project, there was less tension and infighting as happened in the first meeting. People felt their ideas and opinions were valued and so they felt a deeper part of the team. This, based on the team work theory, implies that the storming process in team dynamics had started happening. This is the stage where people see themselves as being part of a team, although the team had not fully gelled (Acemoglu, Arellano Dekel, 2013). One of the members even challenged the suitability of the team leader in leading our group, partly stemming from their not so rosy engagements during the initial meeting. Again, this to me was a natural process when people still challenge one another, even as they now realize that there are members of a team. At one point I was so irked that I responded to him with very unkind words and went on for almost half a minute. At the end of the meeting, still the team had not gelled; I could see the chemistry was still not the best for a well functioning team. I noticed that subsequent meetings when we started the simulator and other teams were overtaking us, that conflicts and disagreements increased, rather than subsiding as I had hoped. Because of constant disagreements, arguments, and personal differences, the performance of the team in the simulator suffered, and this only served to further peoples frustrations. Based on the team work theory, such events are expected during the storming stage, and it showed in our performance. The team was not focused at all on the task, and even I felt very frustrated. Because of these challenges, the team leader calle d for a bonding marketing where we did not discuss anything to do with the group assignment (simulation); instead we discussed current events and had pizza together and just made jokes, without discussing about the project, even when some team members tried to raise the issue. After a nice evening with the team, we decided to have another meeting in three days time, where we would decide on the best way to move forward with the simulator project. During this meeting, the team members were more mellow and I could feel the team gelling; in hindsight, I realized that the team leaders idea to have the team come together and not engage in any thing related to the team task was a masterstroke. I realized that I had been wrong to judge him, albeit in silence, that he was not capable of successfully leading the team to achieve success. Subsequent meetings where decisions had to be made based on out team task were more productive, and there was a sense of unity of purpose and cooperation, with people realizing that we were all in this together, the success of the team would translate into individual effort, and not the other way round when even I thought that the success of the individuals would lead to the team ultimately succeeding. According to the stages identified in team work theory, this is the norming phase, when members of a team begin coming together emotionally and psychologically; processes are developed and better ground rules are set (Halverson, 2008). The next team meeting was particularly successful because the individual roles had were better clarified and the subsequent sessions saw a greater togetherness of the team. Having realized that we had to cooperate together to achieve the vest scores from the simulation, the team set about making the best managerial decisions with everyone focused on being the best team. There was greater synergy in the team with people willing to take the back seat when they felt their ideas were not being beneficial to the team. The team was more effective, and according to the team theory, the team had reached the performing stage when people place greater focus on the tasks ahead and work together, effectively (Halverson, 2008). In a way, even the challenges the team experienced was a form of evolution of a team, like an artwork that starts with a white canvas, and slowly develops into a finished masterpiece. The team work and my experiences opened up my eyes to new insights and how to operate in groups; eventually, it will gel together and the team will perform effectively. However, in retrospect, I feel there are we got wrong and should improve on, fr better perfor mance in future, specifically on how to build teams, how to resolve conflicts, and effective communication channels and skills. Team building techniques When building the team, we started on the wrong footing; roles were allocated arbitrarily, rather than by letting every individual understand what was required and identify their roles and decide what roles best suited them. We did not clearly set the objectives, perhaps on the assumption that since everyone had used the simulator individually, then everyone understood what was required. While we knew about the task, we were not clear on the team objectives and goals, and that explains the initial disagreements and lack of cohesion. Looking back, I now understand that team forming requires a better understanding of the team objective and goals, even in written form, and letting each team member volunteer to do a certain task based on their strengths. Having an objective would have helped use better understand the team roles and help us gel faster. Conflict resolution mechanism This is an area where there is a lot of room for improvement; we did not decide on how the team will operate in terms of resolving conflicts. Conflict resolution mechanisms are essential in teams because it s never if conflicts will arise, but when they will arise (Lencioni, 2013). Having a mechanism for effective conflict resolution greatly helps in managing conflicts and egos that are normal with teams and ensuring the team remains focused. There are times when even I felt that I should maybe join another group, or that I cannot work with certain team embers; but because we lacked a mechanism for conflict resolution, this became a very serious hurdle, until the team leader decided to have a bonding meeting where we did not discuss any work tasks. In hindsight, we should have had a more progressive team forming and development activities; the bonding meeting should have happened before we got to undertaking the simulator assignment, rather than in the middle of the task. Effective communication skills and channels Communication happened, but looking back, it was neither effective, nor were there formal communication channels. Especially when conflicts arose everyone was jostling to take the initiative in resolving it/ them, and the result was greater conflicts and disagreements. Everyone sought to impose their ideas, believing they were right, and we had everyone interrupting everyone resulting in greater conflict. However, after having the bonding meeting, we set out a mechanism by which to communicate. For instance, at one point, everyone had a chance to talk and no one was allowed to interject, even if they had strong reasons to interrupt. This helped the team get ahead, however, I feel it was a case of a too little, too late; as our performance showed, other teams were able to perfo4m much better than out team because we started doing the fundamental right things when it was too late and after wasting a lot of time disagreeing and fighting, because we did not have a well defined team objec tive, we did not form the team effectively, and we had no means for conflict resolution, or defined communication methods and channels. References Acemoglu, D., Arellano, M., Dekel, E. (2013). Advances in Economics and Econometrics. Tenth World Congress Vol. 1 Vol. 1. New York, N.Y., Cambridge University Press. Halverson, C. B. (2008). Effective multicultural teams theory and practice. Berlin , financial. Lencioni, P. M. (2013). Overcoming the five dysfunctions of a team: a field guide for leaders, managers, and facilitators. San Francisco, Calif, Jossey-Bass.