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GROUP WORK & TEAM WORK: (1. TEAM BUILDING:
While individually can…
GROUP WORK & TEAM WORK:
EFFECTIVE TEAM WORK:
- Develop transparent communication and trust
- Provides up-to-date information
- Consider norms and roles in the group
- Determines how decisions are to be made
- Consider when best to use communication technologies
- Have interdependence
Are we working as a team, or as individuals in a team?
Work groups vs teams
Work groups tend to be set up for specific tasks or projects, where as teams are usually ongoing.
However, both involve a group of people working together with a common purpose and common goals who are accountable to each other and interdependent - they achieve more together than the sum of individual achievements.
Where members have collective responsibility for performing certain tasks assigned to them - members have specific roles and rely on each other for achieving the tasks.
STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE TEAM WORK:
- Team building
- Effective problem-solving and decision-making
- Effective communication (last wek)
- Conflict management (last week)
1. TEAM BUILDING:
- While individually can help in some circumstances, it doesn't always help in teams.
- It's important to pay attention to how we're working together and how we behave towards each other - it's not just about achieving goals, but how we're doing it and how we're managing conflict and negotiating tasks.
- Group development theories can assist
Frames of reference:
What you bring to the group, how you understand it - eg. what is an appropriate way to communicate and deal with conflict in your eyes, how do you engage with people?
Your frames of references influence the norms and the shared agreements and values amongst the team.
Intergroup communication - the way we communicate/interact in all of the groups we are a part of (friends, family, work, school).
Intragroup communication - bringing our individual communication style to the team.
Intragroup ethic - the culture that has developed within the group and how all the different frames of reference can co-exist around shared values, the ability to function through respecting people world views and adapt different frameworks of understanding.
Norms and team role theories:
- Norms - shared expectations about appropriate behaviour by all members of the group.
- Paying attention to the norms in the group and the different roles of group members helps us to know what to expect and how to behave.
- In relation to one another in a group - group norms help provide some order and stability and helps avoid lots of conflict and chaos.
TEAM ROLE THEORY:
Roles - shared expectations about how individual group members will function in the group - there are task roles and group maintenance roles.
For a group to be most effective, group members need to take on task (get the work done) and maintenance roles (social maintenance).
Task roles: (what needs to get done)
- Information and opinion giver
- Information and opinion seeker
- Coordinator / direction and role definition
- Summariser
- Energiser
- Comprehension checker
Maintenance roles: (how things get done)
- Encourager of participation
- Communication facilitator
- Tension reliever
- Process observer
- Interpersonal problem solver
- Supporter and praiser
Hindering roles:
- Team participants can also hinder a group by behaving in certain ways / undertaking particular roles.
- Hindering roles include dominating, withdrawing, not committing, criticising or blocking in un-constructive ways
- Key thing is to observe and reflect on how roles and norms are helping or hindering the group's functioning.
The need for leadership - courage and risk:
The notion of courage isn't commonly taken into account as something that's needed for teamwork and leadership.Many teams today have a flatter structure, however leadership is still needed:
- Lack of direction
- Willingness to step up in a choice, a risk and takes courage
- Confidence, sense of duty, moral attributes
2. EFFECTIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING:
Steps involved:
- Identify/define the problem
- Develop goals
- Collect information/data
- Develop plans/options
- Select best plan/option
- Implement plan
(Useful if there is conflict or issues)
EFFECTIVE DECISION-MAKING:
(All about how decisions are formed - which model)
Consultative - leader makes decisions
Democratic - group vote
Consensus - the voluntary giving of consent, it involves compromise
GUIDELINES TO HELP REACH CONSENSUS:
- Avoid arguing for your own position without listening to the position of others
- Do not change your position just to avoid conflict
- Do not try to reach a quick agreement by using conflict-reduction approaches such as voting or tossing a coin.
- Encourage others to explain their position to better understand any differences.
- Don't assume that someone must win and someone must lose in a disagreement.
- Discuss the underlying assumptions, listen carefully to one another, and encourage the participation of all members.
- Look for creative and collaborative solutions that allow both sides to win, rather than compromises where each side only gets some of what it wants.
COMMON ISSUES IN TEAM WORK:1. Groupthink:
- A process in a team where decisions are made without a critical and careful review of the pros and cons of the alternatives.
- It can happen when there is pressure to reach a decision quickly or when maintaining group morale is considered more important than evaluating ideas critically (eg. don't want to upset the person or team)
- You can manage groupthink by encouraging free and open discussion of ideas and developing procedures that clarify how a group will make decisions.
2. Problems within the team are the team's problems:
ETHICAL ISSUES OF BEING A MEMBER OF A TEAM:
- We all bring a range of issues to group work, especially around social work related issues.
- We are entitled to our feelings
Effective practice:
- We should be self-reflective (reflect on our feelings, behaviours and values)
- Be resilient- learn to receive feedback
- Able to apologise for mistakes
IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON COMMUNICATION:
- Anonymity - problem of 'flaming' (negative remarks)
- Conformity - less likely in virtual teams, can lead to higher levels of conflict
- Miscommunication - fewer verbal and non-verbal/facial cues (eg. sarcasm)
STRATEGIES:
- Communication norms - eg. team may have a rule for limiting the time in which to respond to an email
- Acceptance of interdependence - you are still a group
- Development of trust - create face to face opportunities, transparency
PROS AND CONS OF TECHNOLOGY:
Pros - team communication, member relationships, team commitment
Cons - longer decisions times, delayed response times.