Relationships and Team building
Group work
Groups are two or more people who are unified with a similarity in task that they have to accomplish together. While the primary motive of each person is to satisfy their own needs from work (their performance, goals, ambitions, success etc.) humans behave differently when in groups than when alone. Studies have unearthed that individuals work harder and faster when others are present (social facilitation), and that an individual’s performance is reduced when others in the situation create distraction or conflict. There are both positive and negative effects of group influence on individual behavior. Attraction, solidarity, and morale often describe group cohesion, which directly impacts the group’s performance.
The social animal
Man is after all a social being. Besides the need for achievement and power, which are the strongest drivers of action, people have affiliation needs. People want to communicate with one another, offer opinions, obtain criticism, and know that they matter. People in groups have different roles; they communicate the role and receive feedback from both themselves (did I play the role correctly?) and from others (did everyone confirm that my behavior was correct?) to restart the process of redefining who they are as individuals (personal role).
Teamwork
Few missions if any in today’s world can be accomplished alone. Any task requires resources from many individuals. It is crucial to assure widespread use of multidiscipline teams to deliver their purpose effectively and efficiently. While groups rely on ‘individual bests’ for performance, teams demonstrate the spirit of accountability and task definition. Committed to a common purpose, they possess complementary skills, and agree on specific performance goals for which team members hold themselves mutually accountable.
Whole = More than sum of parts
When each one does their assigned job themselves, they add their individual pieces to the mosaic. However the design at the end of the process is more beautiful than every single piece by itself. Teams are responsible for action and motivate each member to put in the best for a higher purpose: Team success. When teams succeed every individual succeeds too. However the team adds an additional sense of humanness to the performance and allows individuals to look beyond themselves.
MINDFRAMES: Reframing teamwork
Teams need to be built rightly and for this they deserve optimal interpersonal communication and team leadership. Teams need to be primed to welcome challenges, redefine their purpose, set clearer goals and modify their actions to achieve these goals. What worked in the past doesn’t necessarily work in the future. By influencing one another positively, each one attains higher level needs and the teams performance becomes every member’s reward. Team members sit together not just by chance, but by choice. They need to build the will to realize that: together everyone achieves more.