The Self in Teams (Cont'd)

The Self in Teams (Cont'd) This précis offers early reflections on a personal experience of teamwork, noting what had worked as of this writing and drawing attention to important next steps in relation to performing. The précis underscores in particular the utility of team charters, designed expressly to promote a healthy and positive experience, that look to the storming–norming– performing stages of group development. The précis remarks on how the team members of the project referred to had lived up to their team charter as of this writing, and shares observations on personal growth with reference to three specific opportunities (including incidents) illustrating development. The précis concludes with a few reflections on self-growth.

Olivier Serrat 07/10/2019

1 Groups that range from two persons to many are a very big part of social life—in all its facets— and most organizations rely on teamwork: the recurrent justification is that teams are better at solving problems and learn more rapidly and with more effect than individuals (Serrat, 2019).

Even so, acknowledging that cooperative work by a team can produce remarkable results, the challenge is to move from the realm of the possible to the realm of practice: some teams succeed but many do not. Early reflections on an ongoing, personal experience of teamwork follow, with an accent on the utility of team charters.

Forming–Storming–Norming–Performing in Team A Team A was formed in early September 2019 to engage in hearty, learning activities over the period September–December 2019, aiming—in due course—to suggest tips for managers to establish or empower teams in their organizations. Table 1 specifies Team A's members, project, and research question.

Table 1: Team A Members, Project, and Research Question Team A Joanna; Mick; Olivier; Theresa Outline Useful Tips for Managers to Establish or Empower Teams in Their Organizations Research Question What Can You Do to Motivate Teams to Achieve More Positive Results?

Note. Names and other identifying details have been changed.

Members Project

Forming–storming–norming–performing, the model of group development that Tuckman (1965) proposed, is as good a framework as any to chart Team A's progress as it grows, grapples with challenges or tackles problems, fashions solutions, plans work, and delivers results, with each step building on the previous one.

• Forming. Forming is the stage at which a team makes contact, learns of the challenge(s) it must face, agrees on goals, and begins to organize itself. Accepting it was still relatively uninformed of what issues the project might raise, Team A at once (a) began to model appropriate behavior, (b) decided on the project and research question (from the options at hand), (c) set about considering opportunities and challenges, (d) defined the scope of the task, (e) agreed on next steps, (f) (tentatively) assigned roles tasks, and (g) began to draft a team charter.1 (In the last respect, the assumption was that building and holding members to a team charter would help ensure a healthy and positive experience.) Presciently, taking heed of the possible dysfunctions of a team per Lencioni (2002), the team charter looked to the storming–norming–performing stages of group development. The team charter is reproduced verbatim in Table 2.

• Storming. Storming is the stage at which a team sorts itself out and team members gain each other's trust. Some teams never develop past the storming stage, what with disagreements over, say, goals, roles, values, procedures, relationships, or learning. (Roles are often impacted by clashes over power and control.) Or, teams may subsequently reenter the storming phase if new challenges or disputes arise. That said, some teams may

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The only obstacle to Team A's progress at the forming stage had to do with electronic access rights that, until the issue was resolved, locked one team member out of the team's communication platform for three weeks (and by extension perturbed the entire team).

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avoid the phase altogether: thanks to the team charter, this has been Team A's experience thus far, with no evidence of disagreement in any of the six dimensions listed earlier.

Norming. Norming is the stage at which a team has put an end to disagreements, including personality clashes; the team has by now developed feedback mechanisms, intimacy, and a spirit of cooperation, with every team member confidently taking responsibility for the success of the team's goals. By and large, this is the stage at which Team A now finds itself, with early individual contributions that must next be coordinated toward performing.

Performing. Performing is the stage at which norms have been established and team members begin to achieve goals. At the performing stage, when teaming is a success, team members are very motivated yet defer to the team's needs with empathy and high trust; display an objective outlook; can handle the decision-making process without supervision; risk confrontation; work efficiently with little waste; and take pleasure in the accomplishments of the team. Team A must soon, meaning, over the next couple of weeks, reach this stage: toward this, it has just begun consultations aiming to hammer out next steps.

Table 2: Team Charter

Goals

Roles

Values

Procedures

Team Charter Our team aims to outline useful tips for managers to establish or empower teams in their organizations. Our team will achieve this by researching the question: What can you do to motivate teams to achieve more positive results? Thus, the overarching goal of the team is to formulate and table recommendations; therefore, the critical challenge is to make a quick and fecund start before handing off to prospective managers. A subsidiary but nonetheless complementary goal is to make the experience of teamwork as congenial and informative as possible.

Shared, collective, and extended leadership—meaning, distributed leadership that builds a team's capacity to formulate and table practical recommendations—will condition the team's roles. Facilitator, timekeeper, and record keeper assignments will rotate as required by circumstances, with inputs submitted via shared files. That said, on September 8, 2019, the team considered that Joanna might take the lead in assembling the final project deliverables, viz., a 5–10 page write-up (using a minimum of 25–30 peerreviewed references) and a PowerPoint presentation; adhering to high standards of written work, the members of the team would all make submissions for incorporation and jointly review the products prior to finalization. On the same day, Olivier and Theresa volunteered to initiate and progress work on the Team Charter.

The core value that the members of the team are expected to own jointly is a growth mindset, focused on what is best for the whole team so it might deliver its goals, powered by efficient collaboration and feedback.

The team must plan and conduct a GoTo meeting to discuss and agree on specific procedures to divide up the work. The possibilities are that, to begin, one person could take the lead in writing the sections of the paper or that each member be ascribed his/her own sections. It is proposed that the sections of the paper (and associated research) follow the course syllabus for Group and Team Leadership (i.e., key components of team, team formation, maintaining an effective team, avoiding dysfunctionality, facing conflict in teams, working with conflict, formally rewarding teams, informally rewarding

3 teams, principles of virtual teams, working in a virtual team, and leading a team). Subsequent GoTo meetings will be organized to progress contributions toward the paper (and eventual PowerPoint presentation).

At GoTo meetings, the members of the team will be governed by the need to: • Participate in the conversation throughout, not just at the beginning or at the end.

• Listen carefully.

• Ask for clarification, when needed.

• Speak loud enough for everyone to hear, taking care to enunciate clearly.

• Acknowledge previous speakers by name, or by nodding.

• Make eye contact.

• Go to the point, not off-track.

• Move the conversation forward with connections to literature and life experiences.

• Build on the ideas/comments of other members.

• Make comments that spur the conversation and help think of new things and new ways.

• Back up ideas with evidence, namely, by referring directly to the material at hand (e.g., on p. 12 it says …).

The first GoTo meeting will confirm if there is a need for a facilitator (noting the small size of the team). Pursuant to GoTo meetings, it is possible that changes might be made to the Team Charter, this to promote it also as a living document.

Relationships The members of the team will commit themselves to attend GoTo meetings, with dates to be circulated in advance. To conduce positive roles and associated relationships toward the goal, such individual "PhD Behaviors" as purposive perspective, critical thinking, ability to self-organize, gratitude, humility, respect, and inclusiveness are encouraged, thereby curtailing the chances of indifference or lack of performance. Given the nature of the project, the team does not anticipate to have to address irresolvable issues: if it does, every issue will be examined case-by-case in a spirit of appreciative inquiry, always with constructive criticism should any be warranted, and with decision-making by majority.

Learning Learning expands horizons: the horizons of who we are and those of what we might become, singly and together with others. 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.

Source. Author.

Note. Names and other identifying details have been changed. At mid-point and at the end of the project period, the members of Team A are to complete team evaluation forms: in reviewing these, each will know what is expected of him/her in a team environment, which will also serve to maintain the Team Charter.

4 The Self in Team A Based on the foregoing section on forming–storming–norming–performing, I reckon that, so far, the individuals listed in Table 1 have been living up to the team charter reproduced in Table 2. A contributing factor behind Team A's progress to date may well be that, pursuant to forming, the team charter was drafted specifically with the storming–norming–performing stages of group development in mind. Teams must get off "on the right foot" and team charters are best drawn when a team is established, that being the very first stage, this to ensure its members are focused on the right things from the onset. (Of course, team charters also come in handy if—or rather when—a team later experiences difficulties and members must regain a view of the "big picture".)

That said, reflecting on a team's performance should also invite reflection on the self in teams; in this respect, three specific opportunities (including one incident) served as lessons learned that promoted my self-growth: • Team Charter. I led the drafting of the team charter: in the course of that, the first opportunity for self-growth was to recognize that (a) the exact format of a team charter should depend on the situation (and indeed should differ from team to team); (b) the true value of a team charter comes from thinking through—and agreeing on—the elements of the charter; and (c) a team charter should be a living document. Given the project and the research question for Team A, defining goals, roles, values, relationships, and learning was thankfully straightforward; but, the matter of procedures will continue to call for quick thinking and action. In relation to procedure, what lesson must be borne in mind is that preoccupation with the higher components of teams is fine, nay, obligatory: but, the rubber must hit the road at some point.

• Procedures. Without front-loading a decision, the team charter posits that one team member could take the lead in writing the sections of the paper the team is tasked with delivering or that each member might be ascribed his/her own sections; a conclusion still has not been reached, probably because no discussion has been held on the actual contents of the paper. (Toward this, however, each member is researching peer-reviewed articles on the broader subject on group and team leadership). Notwithstanding, recognizing early that lack of clarity over procedures might prove a thorn in the team's side, I suggested in the team charter that the contents of the paper could follow the course syllabus for Group and Team Leadership (i.e., key components of team, team formation, maintaining an effective team, avoiding dysfunctionality, facing conflict in teams, working with conflict, formally rewarding teams, informally rewarding teams, principles of virtual teams, working in a virtual team, and leading a team). In mid-September 2019, I also proposed that the multilevel framework in Costa, Fulmer, and Anderson (2018) could help organize inputs toward Team A's project per the Figure below. (I recently reminded the other team members of this possibility.) As things now stand, Team A will probably avail of the opportunity of the next on-ground class reunion, scheduled on October 6, 2019, to agree on the contents of the paper and on related task assignments.

5 Figure: A Multilevel Model of Trust in Work Teams

Source. Costa A., Fulmer C., & Anderson, N. (2018). Trust in work teams: An integrative review, multilevel model, and future directions. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39, 169–184.

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Communications. Teams that communicate well deliver outcomes more efficiently (and likely more quickly) than others. For effective communications, it helps if—for instance— teams have an open-door policy, are open to two-way feedback, are clear about tasks so everyone might know his/her responsibility, and decide what form of communication works best. These days, online collaboration tools are essential, not least because virtual teaming is increasingly common. I learned much about the importance of communications in teams when it was finally dawned on Team A, as related earlier, that one team member could not read the team's posts on account of faulty electronic access rights. At first, no one grasped that something was amiss: assuming that the team member was "in the loop", but might have decided to "lie low" for a while at least, no one wanted to intervene. And so, ambiguity prevailed, with each team member wondering if someone (else) should do something. At long last, it took (in actual fact) a quite simple electronic message from me to discover where the problem was, to the delight of the affected (and quite confused) party. The mishap in communications among the members of Team A, now resolved, underscored that "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken", a quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw (but also to others).

On Self-Growth in Teams Individually or as a group, setting ourselves goals in any area of life frequently requires us to stretch if we are to achieve them. But, growth does not happen overnight: it is a daily, incremental process, the outcome of which is cumulative. And so, if one is to evidence progress tomorrow, one had better start yesterday and continue throughout today: from the outset, this may require a learning plan, hence the accent on learning in the team charter, to help identify what particularized knowledge, skills, and abilities are required so we might become who we want to be. Out of many, and in no particular order, a few retrospective and prospective

6 questions that can promote self-growth in teams are: Where, and how, might I have been more effective today? In what role might I have performed better?2 Where might I have been more understanding and compassionate? Why, and how, might I have been more assertive? How can I connect more personally with other team members in future? Where can I be more [insert area of knowledge, skill, or ability]? How, from now on, can I help team members better complement one another? How can I better manage my own boundaries? How will I celebrate everyone's victories? For better effect, such questions had better be asked with self-awareness, selfregulation, self-motivation, social awareness, and social skills (Goleman, 1995).3 References de Bono, E. (1985). Six thinking hats: An essential approach to business management. Little, Brown, & Company.

Costa A., Fulmer C., & Anderson, N. (2018). Trust in work teams: An integrative review, multilevel model, and future directions. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39, 169–184.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

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

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

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

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De Bono's (1985) six thinking hats come to mind: this is a tool for individual reflection and group discussion that involves the figurative wearing of six colored hats representing six different ways in which the brain can be challenged. White hat thinking is neutral; red hat thinking is intuitive; black hat thinking is pessimistic; yellow hat thinking is optimistic; green hat thinking is creative; and blue hat thinking is managerial (de Bono, 1985).

3 Individuals have different personalities, wants, needs, and ways of showing their emotions, and navigating through this requires tact and shrewdness. Goleman's (1995) five domains of self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, social awareness, and social skills point to the right direction.