Reflection on Team Work free essay sample

Reviewing the three-months-long process of cooperation, I really found this experience of learning meaningful and fruitful. This reflective essay is a conclusion of my sympathetic introspection of the mistakes I made, the difficulties I confronted and the conflicts I faced. The following discussion falls into three parts, respectively the elaborations of my self-cognizance about how coordinators can improve team cohesion on the basis of mutual trust with other team roles, how we should view the conflicts occurring in the process of cooperation and how to create synergy through team work. The first lesson I have learned from the process is that mutual respect and trust come before team cohesion. Functioning as the coordinator of our team, I also played the leading role in the session of allocating tasks. In order not to be effected by subjective opinions and favoritism, I adopted drawing-lots to spread out the teamwork. Ideally all the team members would embrace the assignment, yet conflicts occurred. We will write a custom essay sample on Reflection on Team Work or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page After the allocation, morale kept sinking lower. Some members thought that it was so unlucky of them to lose the parts they were good at, and they were unable to undertake their parts on hand. Then I got to realize that drawing-lots on one hand could ensure the equity in decision making, but on another hand could also reflect my unsureness and distrust of the other member’s abilities. In other words, there are differences between ordering one to finish a task and entrusting one with a commission. The later helps the other team role players to produce not only a sense of being respected and trusted, but also a feeling of being expected. In order to better resolve the problems later when similar situations take place again, I have summed up two principles of how oordinators show respect and trust to their subordinates and accordingly build up team morale and team cohesion. For one thing, it is necessary to impress the equal importance of all the tasks on my team members there are no good tasks or bad tasks, but only the most suitable tasks and other less suitable tasks for you. For another, encouragement and incitement are essential to inspiring members’ enthu siasm in their assigned duties. With regard to motivation, the coordinator should offer the other team members with opportunities to fulfill themselves, as well as enough room for improvement. All in all, I am going to assist my team members in sharing a tacit notion that â€Å"I am designated to undertake this part not because my ability is outstanding or just the opposite, but because I can better fulfill this role than the other team members do, as far as the task itself is concerned. † In retrospect, another enlightenment I have gained is that, if being well utilized, conflicts and disagreements can also produce positive effects. At the primary stage of the mission, all of the team members were intentionally trying to keep a concordant relationship with each other as well as to avoid disputes and differences. However, later on we found it impossible to put our ideas into practice, for different ideas were jumbled up without screening. It seemed that no one wanted to break the deadlock. If it were not for one of the members who cancelled all our original ideas, we might have already undergone a great frustration. The word â€Å"conflict† is always related to anger, disunity and standstill. Being that as it may, when conflict exists, it generally indicates members’ commitment to the team goal, because they are trying to come up with the best solutions. So conflicts can in turn promote challenges, heighten individual regards to the issues, and increase individual efforts (Laura 2005). Being a coordinator, I took up the responsibility for turning the conflicts into beneficial effects. Looking back, I could have done better in inspiring the members as an example, to pour out frankly personal opinions. It seems that such disagreements can hardly be avoided in the process of teamwork. Hence, no matter what team roles I am going to play, when faced with conflicts, I will adhere myself to the following two points: Firstly, it is better for me to speak up all my points of view. Even if these ideas may not be recognized and may finally be rejected, the other members can have the opportunities to rethink their own ideas from my perspective against the differences and disagreements. Secondly, it is beneficial for me as a team role player to respect the other members’ opinions, however divergent these opinions may be from my own points of view. Because it happens that some seemingly irrational ideas are finally proved to be breakthroughs. A typical example comes from Steve Jobs who gave birth to the widely used ARM and iOS. Jobs had initially decided to base the Apple tablet on Intel’s Atom platform, but Tony Fadell, the father of iPod, strongly opposed the idea based on power consumption and even threatened to hand in his resignation should Jobs proceed with Intel’s platform (Newsle 2011). Thanks to Jobs listening to Tony, ARM and iOS have been dominating tablets and have been popular almost all over the world. Taking the example of Steve Jobs for reference, I will take any suggestion from others into consideration before drawing a particular conclusion or making a certain decision. In addition, rather than that all the members show their abilities to the full extent, it is that we set our personal interests below the best interests of the team as a whole, that creates synergy (Matthew 2012). Out of my team members’ trust on me and also out of my willingness to show off, I tended to excessively play my leading role during the process of cooperation. I was expected to function as a leader and to orient my members, but gradually my performance deviated from their expectation. Although I made efforts to figure out all the details so as to lead the members to the right direction, the thing is that, when I was telling them what to do and how to do it, I actually was also setting limits to restrict their performances. The idealist objective of teamwork is to create obvious synergies. In other words, a successful team should produce an effect greater than the sum of individual effects. Via applying speculative knowledge to practical operation, I have concluded several new ideas on how to build up a synergetic team. First of all, a synergetic team requires the team members to make certain sacrifices, including restraining oneself for the balanced development of other team members. On the contrary, members who have limited abilities should try to move forward and realize self-transcendence. Just as the capacity of a bucket depends on its shortest board, the capacity of a team is largely related to the weak links in the process of teamwork. Only when there are concerted efforts from all the team members, then a synergetic team can be set up. To sum up, there are still many weaknesses to be improved despite I have performed well in the team. Were it not for the efforts and cooperation from all the team members, I may not have overcome the difficulties I met with, let alone got rid of the mistakes I made unconsciously. The lessons I have learned from this experience will also be applied later in my career. Whatever team role I am going to play, being as a component of the whole team, I will give priority to team benefits and prevent myself from making a showy display of my abilities. Further more, I will try to appreciate the other members’ opinions and make the most of their suggestions. Additionally, I will view conflicts in a rational way so as to create positive effects for my team.