The Self in Teams (Coda)

The Self in Teams (Coda) Team A was formed in early September 2019 to engage in hearty, learning activities over the period September–December 2019, aiming to suggest tips for managers to implement or empower teams in their organizations. Concluding the short journey synopsized in Serrat (2019a, 2019b), this prÊcis on the self in teams considers its author's performance as a member of Team A and ponders how the practice of selfreflection might be enriched for better team performance in general.

Olivier Serrat 03/12/2019

1 Serrat (2019a) recalled experiences of teamwork and identified a meaningful common purpose as the indispensable ingredient to getting a joint work product done, be that to formulate recommendations, manufacture things, or run an operation (Katzenbach & Smith, 2011, p. 179).

Referencing Lencioni (2002) and Tuckman (1965) in particular, Serrat (2019b) offered early reflections on an ongoing experience of teamwork in Team A;1 underscored the utility of team charters; and shared observations on personal growth with reference to three opportunities (including incidents) illustrating development. Concluding the short journey synopsized in Serrat (2019a, 2019b), this précis on the self in teams considers my performance as a member of Team A and ponders how the practice of self-reflection might be enriched for better team performance in general.

Performing in Team A: A Self-Evaluation Team A's performance was anchored in the team charter its four original members drew in September 2019: the charter stipulated goals, roles, values, procedures, relationships, and the rationale for learning. In early December 2019, Team A (which had by then grown to number six persons, of which four women and two men) delivered a report treating the key components of teams, trust in teams, facing conflict in teams, working with conflict in teams, team recognition and rewards, team motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic), principles of virtual teams, working in virtual teams, and leading teams.2 In relation to each of the nine topics/themes it addressed, Team A isolated the central issue, described the state of the art of good practice, and suggested directions for scholarly investigation; findings, analyses, and recommendations from more than 100 peer-reviewed articles published in the last five years (i.e., 2014–2019) underpinned Team A's treatment of the nine topics/themes.

To evaluate is to determine the character, nature, quality, or value of something and a selfevaluation is an assessment of one's own performance. The success of others can be a source of good feelings but an individual should self-evaluate his or her contribution to a joint work product, bearing continuously in mind that the said contribution does not stand alone but was conditioned by the accomplishments of others Not to forget, an individual is also likely—and much more commonly—to be evaluated by others. The table below lists the 10 criteria by which the performance of each member of Team A was to be gauged.

1

Team A was formed in early September 2019 to formulate by December 2019 tips for managers to energize teams in organizations.

2 Pell-mell, the tips that Team A formulated to implement or empower teams in organizations are: (a) design workplaces that are open to growth; (b) build trust through effective communications; (c) identify conflict and work out strategies to manage or leverage it; (d) appreciate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation at individual and team levels; (e) recognize and reward employees depending on their needs; (f) develop soft virtual teaming skills; (g) foster learning in virtual teams and map learning curves; (h) redefine virtual teaming away from geographically, organizationally, and/or time-dispersed collaboration because, these days, teams make choices about virtuality based on a confluence of factors including group structure, task, and interaction frequency; (i) conduct social network analysis to make out relationships and knowledge flows and see how they might be measured, monitored, and evaluated for higher team (and organizational) performance; and (j) accept that team leadership is not synonymous with a single team leader's style but hangs on efficient interdependence powered by distributed approaches.

2 Table: Team Member Evaluation Team Member Initials Criterion AA BB CC DD EE 1. This person did his/her share of the work.

2. This person advanced my understanding of the topics and stretched my learning.

3. It was obvious that this person was prepared for the discussions.

4. This person was able to offer and accept constructive criticism.

5. This person submitted his/her assigned tasks according to time needed.

6. This person demonstrated a positive, respectful attitude toward all.

7. This person remained focused on important issues during team discussions.

8. This person submitted work that adhered to standards expected of written work.

9. It was obvious that this person cared that we worked as a team and sought the opinion and help of all.

10. This person had an attitude of learning and not just getting the assignments done.

Note. Across the 10 criteria, each member of Team A was to rank others in keeping with the following scale: 1–2 – strongly disagree; 3–4 – disagree; 5–6 – neutral; 7–8 – agree; 9–10 – strongly agree; DNA – does not apply. Respondents were advised to avoid "5" or "6" and to use "10" only when a team member had performed in a way they would wish to model.

If the motive is self-improvement,3 a self-evaluation is usually designed to be positive for the explicit purpose of learning. And so, to accentuate the importance that the team charter placed on learning,4 I resolved at the inception of Team A to ongoingly gauge my performance by the 10 criteria listed in the table. The members of Team A were not to evaluate themselves, but I trust that my performance throughout the experience, not just at the conclusion of it, was in the range of 7–8 or 9–10. "A rising tide lifts all boats": in a curious derivative of that aphorism, it dawned on me as I tracked my performance across the 10 criteria that mindful engagement with one criteria in its evaluation setting boosts one's chances of succeeding across the others.5 Beyond the ultimate—and so final, hence, rather narrow—purpose of evaluation, I resolved also 3

In social psychology, self-improvement refers to the motive behind efforts to become a better individual. The other, less common, motives that might drive self-evaluation are self-assessment (to appraise aspects that are important to one's identity), self-verification (to be known and understood according to what beliefs one holds), and self-enhancement (to maintain selfesteem) (Sedikides, 1993).

4 Apropos learning, the team charter averred that "Learning expands the horizons of who we are and what we can become. Individually and working as a group, the team will strive to ask, learn, and share throughout the project: related actions will include being open to new ideas or ways of doing things; promoting a team environment where critical thinking is encouraged; and mastering tools, methods, and approaches that enrich team discussions" (Serrat, 2019b).

5 Merriam-Webster defines mindfulness as the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a momentto-moment basis.

3 to act across the 10 criteria for the added purpose of promoting the team charter (Beckhard, 1972).6 Reflection develops higher-level thinking and problem-solving: in turn, that transforms experience into genuine learning, for example about individual values or broader issues. My take on the experience of Team A is that team building should be practiced across the forming– storming–norming–performing stages of Tuckman's (1965) model of group development: team building does not just underpin the first stage (i.e., forming). According to Burke (1982), a teambuilding perspective helps the members of a team figure out the nature of team dynamics, notably the interrelationship between process and content, and so entices them also to learn on the job and practice certain principles for greater team effectiveness. At the individual level, to extend Burke (1982), a team-building mindset is what can turn a single member into a high performer, which since there is no "I" in "Team" ultimately means that—beyond allotted tasks— he or she is an authentic team player. On the word of Babe Ruth, "The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime."7 Teamwork that blends complementary strengths can produce remarkable results: the majority of them have to do with efficiency and productivity but teamwork can also offer appreciable learning opportunities and boost social capital. And so, it is no accident that the most common behavioral questions in job interviews all connect to teamwork:8 after all, every occupation requires us—one way or another—to work with other people. In the Age of Knowledge, therefore, it is incumbent on students and professionals alike to continuingly reflect: selfreflection supports the development of the soft skills (i.e., self-management skills, people skills) that are required when working with others, soft skills that can in addition be used to enhance personal effectiveness, develop team dynamics, and maximize the performance of teams.9 The Self in Teams: Finding Your Role Granted: not every person is, at least initially, a practiced leader; and, nurturing a team-building mindset is not necessarily for everyone; but, in a complex, turbulent, and so increasingly competitive world, the odds against teams succeeding are high and merely delivering against allotted tasks is not sufficient either. It cannot just be that absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results, the five dysfunctions that Lencioni (2002) identified, explain all: a functionality that Lencioni (2002) did not discern

6

According to Beckhard (1972), team building serves to set goals or priorities; analyze or allocate the way work is performed; estimate the way the team is working; and examine relationships among team members.

7 Babe Ruth's assertion rings the bell: the term "team" was borrowed from sport by management.

8 For example: Tell me about a project that required inputs from different people. Give me an example of a team that failed. Share a rewarding team experience. How would you work with a difficult team member? Tell me about a time you stepped up to a leadership role.

9 Self-management skills include emotion regulation, a growth mindset, patience, perceptiveness, perseverance and persistence, resilience, self-awareness, self-confidence, skills to forgive and forget, and stress management. People skills have to do with coaching and mentoring, communicating, dealing with difficult people and situations, facilitating, influencing, leading, managing, managing upwards, negotiating, networking, persuading, presenting, selfpromotion, selling, and savviness about office politics.

4 pertains to team roles, which if one considers the self in teams should also be the subject of self-evaluation.

The charter for Team A envisaged that shared, collective, and extended leadership—meaning, distributed leadership that builds the team's capacity to formulate and table practical recommendations—would condition the team's roles. In action and in retrospect, distributed leadership worked well for Team A, with each team member coming to the fore as the opportunity demanded or beckoned. But, along with encouraging team members to take the helm in turn, the team charter might also have invited each team member to find his or her particularized role.

Belbin Associates (2009) discovered there are nine clusters of behavior, called "team roles", that each team needs to access so it might become a high-performance team.10 Belbin Associates (2009) made clear this does not mean that every team requires nine people or that all team roles are always required at the same time: one should first look at a team's goals and objectives and then discuss which team role behaviors should be displayed, and when, based on what tasks must be undertaken.) Belbin Associates' (2009) nine clusters of behavior, in relation to which self-perception inventories should be conducted and feedback sought, are: • Plant—plants are imaginative and unorthodox.

• Monitor evaluator—monitor evaluators are logical, discriminating, and always make the right decisions.

• Coordinator—coordinators clarify goals, promote decision making, and involve others in appropriate ways.

• Implementers—implementers are disciplined, systematic, and love structure.

• Completer finisher—completer finishers are perfectionists who ensure that every detail is correct.

• Resource investigator—resource investigators are enthusiastic, inquisitive, and explore opportunities.

• Shaper—shapers are dynamic and make things happen.

• Team worker—team workers are diplomatic, popular, and avert friction • Specialist—specialists are professionally dedicated, single-minded, and are prepared to build up their knowledge. (pp. 21–35) Driskell, Driskell, Burke, and Salas (2017) recognized that "Roles are important in teams because they represent patterns of behavior that are interrelated with the activities of other team members in pursuit of the overall team goal" (p. 482). But, pace Belbin Associates (2008), a universally accepted taxonomy of team roles does not (yet) exist. Noting the state of the art, some of which describes primary team roles in as few as two behavioral dimensions to as many as 27, Driskell, Driskell, Burke, and Salas (2017) presented a model describing three primary behavioral dimensions: (a) dominance, (b) sociability, and (c) task orientation. And, in recognition of varying degrees of dominance, sociability, and task orientation, Driskell, Driskell, Burke, and Salas (2017) then made out 13 clusters: (a) team leader, (b) task motivator, (c) power seeker, (d) critic, (e) attention seeker, (f) negative, (g) social, (h) coordinator, (i) follower, (j) teamwork support, (k) evaluator, (l) problem solver, and (m) task completer. I, for one, find the nine clusters of behavior in Belbin Associates (2008) more comprehensive (and yet 10

In a basketball team, to pursue the parallelism between teams and sport, the five primary roles include two guards, two forwards, and a center (or—to be exact—a point guard, a shooting guard, a small forward, a power forward, and a center), each with his or her own roles and responsibilities.

5 practicable) than those in Driskell, Driskell, Burke, and Salas (2017): irrespective, the vast literature that Driskell, Driskell, Burke, and Salas (2017) reviewed underscores the potential that team role models hold for optimizing team composition and, as a result, team effectiveness.

Further research should yield valuable insights into team role structure and performance.

References Beckhard, R. (1972). Optimizing team-building efforts. Journal of Contemporary Business, 1(3), 23–32.

Belbin Associates. (2009). The Belbin guide to succeeding at work. London, UK: A & C Black Publishers Ltd. Burke, W. (1982). Organization development: Principles and practices. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

Driskell, T., Driskell, J., Burke, C., & Salas, E. (2017). Team roles: A review and integration.

Small Group Research, 48(4), 482–511.

Katzenbach, J., & Smith, D. (2011). The discipline of teams. In HBR's 10 Must Reads: On Managing People (pp. 175–194). Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

Serrat, O. (2019a). The self in teams. Unpublished manuscript, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

Serrat, O. (2019b). The self in teams (cont'd). Unpublished manuscript, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

Lencioni, P. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Sedikides, C. (1993). Assessment, enhancement, and verification determinants of the selfevaluation process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(2), 317–338.

Tuckman, B. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), 384–399.